Lawmakers on the local level take matters into their own hands

But some argue that while Congress needs to move on immigration, action on the local level is misguided. “The federal government has been sitting on its hands,” Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum told The Daily Caller. “The Democrats need to move and Republicans need to get off their thumbs and stop obstructing immigration reform.”

“Local legislation is going to end up costing taxpayer’s millions of dollars,” said Noorani. “It will do nothing but rip apart communities and lead to discrimination against anyone who looks and sounds like an immigrant.”

Attorney General Eric Holder is planning to file a lawsuit challenging the Arizona law. But will he do that for every state and city that passes similar legislation? Probably not, said Mehlman, who speculated that the challenge is only meant to intimidate other states. “It’s certainly a reasonable thing to suspect that is what the federal government is doing here.”