Arizona Takes a Time-Out on Immigration
From the Arizona Senate, the nation's leading source for immigration controversy, comes a giant step back on the issue. On March 17, the Republican-held Senate voted down five bills that would have further restricted and enforced illegal immigration. The bills proposed were:

• SB 1611, sponsored by Sen. Russell Pearce, who sponsored last year's SB 1070, the beginning of Arizona's current immigration controversy, SB 1611 would have banned illegal immigrants from public colleges and universities, would have required kindergarten and grade school teachers to ask for proof of their students residency status and make them report illegal immigrant students, and banned illegal immigrants from driving and buying vehicles.
• SB 1405, sponsored by Sen. Steve Smith, would have required hospital workers to report illegal immigrant patients.
• SB 1406, also sponsored by Sen. Steve Smith, would have required the Department of Education to provide reports to the state regarding how many illegal immigrant students are enrolled and how much they spend on them.
• SB 1308-1309, sponsored by Sen. Ron Gould, were designed as a package to deny "birthright citizenship" to children born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrant parents. The hope was to force a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on the 14th amendment.

Arizona lawmakers, citizens, and businesses all spoke out against further controversy, as they felt that last years SB 1070 and the subsequent attention had been bad for Arizona's business and reputation. Among the larger opposition groups was the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry whose president, Glenn Hamer, feared another backlash against Arizona businesses like the one that occurred as a result of SB 1070. He says, "Conventions were cancelled, companies lost contracts, boycotts were carried out and the state's image took a hit. There was an economic price to pay for Arizona going it alone." The Chamber of Commerce also said that the issue of illegal immigration should be left to the federal government, implying that they do not support SB 1070 either. In a response to the failure of his, and the other immigration bills, Senator Ron Gould said, "Well there's some people who are bought and paid for by the Chamber of Commerce." The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association also spoke out against the bills, particularly SB 1405, saying that the burden of checking the residency status of their 3.5 million patients per year would become overwhelming and seemed unnecessary.

Arizona's Crackdown on Illegal Immigration
This is likely not the end of Arizona's continued attempts to crackdown on illegal immigration. Sen. Russell Pearce, in an interview after the failure of this year's five bills, said that it took him many years of trying to get SB 1070 passed and when Sen. Ron Gould was asked if he will continue to propose immigration legislation next year, he responded, "Maybe we'll put everybody through the same misery one more time." It seems, however, that the Arizona people have spoken and that they would rather focus their energies on jumpstarting their flagging economy than fighting an ideological battle with their southern neighbor.