With five days to go before Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal immigration law takes effect, tempers have flared on both sides of the heated debate.
Of course, many in Arizona will say immigration has always been the most important issue facing the state.
In 2006, voters said yes to a trio of immigration crackdown measures, as well as a bid to make English the official state language.
Those measures sprouted from anger over Congress not passing reforms that would have added more National Guard troops to the border it shares with Mexico.
Fueling the anger over immigration are the bloody drug wars between Mexican gangs and a U.S. economy hit by a recession.
“When the economy’s tough, is it easy to believe that these people are coming across the border and taking jobs away from Anglos that want them?” political scientist Bruce Merrill, tells the Arizona Republic. “Well sure, even though that’s not what the evidence shows.”