Is it premature to call a place a “police state” where authorities are given authority to detain a person until their immigration status is verified, without regard to the length of the detention? Will a tipping point be reached if the US Supreme Court validates all (or even a portion) of Arizona’s SB 1070? The law requires among other things that local law enforcement determine status where a “reasonable suspicion” exists that the person is an undocumented alien. The so-called “papers, please” law is an apt title because the law will require any person who is “lawfully” stopped, detained or arrested to prove his status, including a fortiorari his US citizenship. When he does not or cannot, then the person can be held for as long as it takes for the state to get confirmation from the federal government and return with a definitive answer — provided such information even exists in federal databases.
Read more http://jurist.org/forum/2012/05/geoffrey-hoffman-immigration.php