[classicman]

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Because the Arizona statute draws directly on federal statutes concerning documentation and other issues, “the Arizona law is perfect concurrent enforcement,” Professor Kobach said.

“The coverage of this law and the text of the law are a little hard to square,” Mr. Baker said. “There’s nothing in the law that requires cities to stop people without cause, or encourages racial or ethnic profiling by itself.”

The new law is controversial even within Arizona. Its critics include the attorney general,
Terry Goddard, a Democrat running for governor. Mr. Goddard called the law a “tragic mistake” that “does nothing to make us safer.”

Mr. Kobach said the courts had long given the police broad authority to stop people and to make immigration arrests — and asserted that the bill “expressly prohibits racial profiling,” because it stated that officers “may not solely consider race, color or national origin.”

Julie Pace, an Arizona lawyer who brought suit challenging the 2007 law, issued, with her colleagues, an analysis of the new law arguing that “the word ‘solely’ makes this purported anti-discrimination provision an authorization to allow racial profiling and discrimination, as long as the government is not 100 percent racially motivated.”

Stewart A. Baker, a former Department of Homeland Security policy official who worked on immigration overhaul in the Bush administration, said fears of the new law were overblown.