As Dems lay low, GOP hits Obama on Arizona lawsuit [View All]

[TomCADem]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Republicans denounced the Obama administration's challenge of Arizona's new immigration law Tuesday, a fresh sign they may try to paint Democrats this fall as soft on illegal border crossings.

While Democrats stayed largely quiet, a host of Republicans said the federal government has no business challenging Arizona's new law. Slated to be implemented July 29, it would require state and local police to question and possibly arrest illegal immigrants during the enforcement of other laws such as traffic stops.

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Republican President George W. Bush failed to persuade a GOP-controlled Congress to enact comprehensive changes that would have included pathways to legal status for millions of illegal immigrants. Democrats prospered in the next two elections, in 2006 and 2008, when immigration was a back-burner issue. In 2008, Republicans chose as their presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona, once a champion of Bush's immigration efforts.

But McCain, like many other Republicans and some Democrats, has shifted to the right on the issue. Facing a tough GOP primary, McCain has run a campaign ad saying "complete the danged fence." Three years ago, he had dismissed the effectiveness of building a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100706/ap_on_el_ge/us_immigration_lawsuit_politics

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The federal government has no business litigating whether a State has the issue to pass laws punishing immigration status? That's a new one.