I drove through Arizona last week, there were protests everywhere. The radio was talking about nothing else. I got my car washed for $5.
I see the political issue and legal issue as separate.
Politically, Latin people will be the only ones facing the harmful effects of this law that come with mistaken enforcement. On the other side, undocumented workers do not receive adequate employment standards and wages, and this creates an economy of exploitation. Roofers and gardeners, who can earn $15+ an hour in northern states, cannot find work for minimum wage in southern states. It follows that all workers should be documented and legal.
Legally, the federal laws and federal immigration enforcement already have much the same powers, but it's not being completely enforced. The state has, with SB1070, given their state troopers the same powers. The power to demand documented proof of status when there are reasonable grounds during an investigation of an unrelated matter. The two challenges are, first under the supremacy clause, that the state law conflicts with and is knocked out by the federal law, and second, under the equal protection clause, that this state law discriminates against Latin people.
I think the supremacy clause argument will be difficult, for the federal and state laws seem consistent, not contradictory. However, perhaps the federal law establishes exclusive jurisdiction, I'm not sure. The equal protection clause argument will be easier, because Latin people are going to be the ones who police demand documents from, and Latin people are going to be the ones who in some cases will be legal, but not have their documents on them. The government may respond by pointing to the Canadian border and arguing that if Canada had a weak economy and people were sneaking into the U.S. for work, the same documents would be demanded of non-Latin people there. This may or may not be true, but it does not change the reality that Latin people in Arizona face today.
What I find most interesting is that the equal protection argument seems stronger, and this would also seem to kill the federal immigration law for the same reasons. If the state law discriminates, the same federal law does too [EDIT: as pointed out by Ken in the comments, equal protection does not apply to the federal government, and a federal law must discriminate to a higher degree in order to violate the threshold of due process.] And if that happens, once someone from Mexico is able to, by any means, gain entry to the U.S., they will effectively have made it in for good. But they won't have documents, so they can't take someone to court or get a proper job.
There has to be a better solution. First, people must decide if they want to have a border at all, or completely integrate with Mexico. If they want a border, then they must decide how many people they want to permit to come in and work. If they agree on a number, then perhaps the solution is for inspectors to visit all workplaces, thereby taking this out of the police enforcement realm, and have working documents ready for production on site. Document production could even be made the burden of the employer.
