May I see your papers, citizen?

Is it really a silly law ? Do the lander police in Germany have the right to verify the residence status of aliens? I believe they do: same goes for the local police in France.

Gee, I hate being forced to be literal all the time!

I would settle for you being rational all of the time.

POM, this forum is full of proud literalists. MM is the all-time champ (or chump).

I am rational . . . and logical

With just a week remaining before Arizona’s stringent new immigration law is set to take effect, a federal judge in Phoenix heard, for the first time, from Obama administration lawyers urging her to strike down the controversial legislation while dozens of demonstrators argued both sides outside the courthouse.
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As Judge Bolton questioned the federal government’s counsel, she expressed skepticism that the state was indeed carrying out its own immigration enforcement policy. She asked several times whether the statute would actually take the decision about what to do with an illegal immigrant away from federal authorities.

“How does it become immigration enforcement policy? It’s an immigration status check,” she said. “Arizona cannot remove anybody, and they don’t purport they can.”

Her comments during the hearing, along with those she made during a hearing in the morning on another suit brought by civil rights groups, suggested she is likely to rule on whether certain parts of the law are pre-empted by federal law, rather than striking down the entire law.

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked some of the toughest provisions in the Arizona illegal immigration law, putting on hold the state's attempt to have local police enforce federal immigration policy.

Though the rest of the law is still set to go into effect Thursday, the partial injunction on SB 1070 means Arizona, for the time being, will not be able to require police officers to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton also struck down the section of law that makes it a crime not to carry immigration registration papers and the provision that makes it a crime for an illegal immigrant to seek or perform work.

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At the centre of the billowing dispute stands Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, which covers Phoenix, the state capital. Over the last three years he has pioneered many of the policies that have now been extended statewide under SB 1070, including organising regular raids by state troopers on factories and housing developments in which undocumented Hispanic immigrants are rounded up to be deported.

Underlining his willingness to court controversy, Arpaio promised to go ahead tomorrow with a planned raid involving 200 officers and volunteers. Before the judgment, he vowed to press ahead with the action even if the federal court decided to postpone the new immigration law.

"I hope when cops come across people who are here illegally, they will arrest them. I can put up more tents, I have plenty of room," he told ABC News, referring to the notorious "tent city" which he uses as an ad hoc prison.

Arpaio also threatened to come down hard on any protesters who got in the way of his tough policies, such as the feminist campaign Code Pink, which has called for the main jail in Phoenix to be picketed. "If anyone wants to block my jails they can have a little trip into the jails. We are not going to put up with any civil disobedience," Arpaio said.

How odd. I thought federal law required that immigration documents be required to be carried at all times, anyway. Maybe they didn't really mean it.

Is it really a silly law ? Do the lander police in Germany have the right to verify the residence status of aliens? I believe they do: same goes for the local police in France.