Ironically, the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police and several sheriffs have also come out against the bill, calling it burdensome and an intrusion into a federal matter.
According to the New York Times, most police agencies or jails here already check the immigration status of people charged with a crime, in consultation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but the new law would expand that power and allows the police to stop people on the suspicion of being in the country without documents.
The New York times quoted that members of the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative, a group of police leaders pressing for a federal overhaul of immigration law, as saying that they worried that other states would copy Arizona, despite the likelihood that the law will be challenged in federal court.
"Just because it is in Arizona doesn't mean it's likely to remain there," said George Gascà ³n, the chief of the San Francisco Police Department and a former chief in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb. "We are very concerned about what could happen to public safety."
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