Arizona's new anti-illegal immigration law won't stand

The new Arizona anti-illegal immigration law has hit the 24-hour news cycle like a tornado and it's whipping up hysteria all across the political spectrum.

The law, titled Arizona SB 1070, is a lengthy bill with one particularly incendiary clause:

"For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person."

This means law enforcement officers in the state of Arizona can now ask to see a driver's license or some other form of identification if they suspect someone is in the country without proper documentation.

The law further allows police to detain those without proper documents, verify their immigration status and then turn them over to federal authorities if they are in the country illegally.

Arizona lawmakers who voted for the bill and their supporters insist that the law merely enforces current federal immigration statutes.

Opponents say the new law essentially legalizes un-Constitutional racial profiling.

SB 1070 prohibits officers from asking for documentation "solely [based on] race, color or national origin," but opponents claim there is no way to enforce that requirement.

The Arizona anti-illegal immigration law will likely not lead to widespread racial profiling because its major Constitutional flaws are not going to stand up in court.

The law won't take effect until 90 days after the end of the current Arizona legislative session. Lawsuits are already mounting.

Courts have long ruled that the federal government, not the states, has the exclusive authority to regulate immigration.

In the unlikely scenario that decades of legal precedents are overturned for SB 1070, there remains the monumental task of reconciling the law's "reasonable suspicion" clause with past Supreme Court interpretations of the Fourth Amendment's protection against illegal search and seizure.

As Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Tuesday, "I think they'll have a hard time upholding this law."

What the Arizona law has done rather effectively is re-inject the topic of immigration reform into the national dialogue.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said Wednesday the law "signals a frustration with the failure of the Congress" to deal with immigration.

If the ill-conceived SB 1070 prods Congress into action, it may end up serving a viable purpose.

There is no question that more needs to be done to limit the flow of drugs and crime from Mexico into the U.S. and the counterflow of money and guns from the U.S. to Mexico. Congress also needs to come up with a fair and Constitutional solution for the over 10 million mostly-Latino migrants who skipped a trip to the customs office when they moved to the U.S. But, these are no easy tasks, especially in an extremely partisan Washington during an election year.

What SB 1070 has already done is create controversy. And politicians on both sides of the debate love controversies like these, because they have a way of quickly morphing into campaign contributions.

Jan Brewer, the current governor of Arizona, is facing a tough challenge in the Republican primary. Her opponents claim she's not conservative enough. In this political climate, her signing of SB 1070 makes complete sense -- for her at least. She is apparently more than willing to spend many thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money in SB 1070 legal fees as long as it helps her get re-elected.