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Poll: Majority of Americans back Arizona immigration law

By Margaret Talev

WASHINGTON – A strong majority of Americans support Arizona's controversial new immigration law and would back similar laws in their own states, a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll found.

Sixty-one percent of Americans – and 64 percent of registered voters – said they favored the law in a survey of 1,016 adults conducted May 6-9.

Strikingly, nearly half of Democrats like the law, under which local law enforcement officers are tasked with verifying people's immigration status if they suspect them of being in the country illegally. While the Democratic Party generally is regarded as more sympathetic to illegal immigrants' plights, 46 percent of Democrats said they favored the law for Arizona and 49 percent said they would favor its passage in their own states.

More than eight in 10 Republicans and 54 percent of independents favor the law.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/13/2747051/poll-majority-of-americans-back.html#ixzz0oQTnaWCi

the law, under which local law enforcement officers are tasked with verifying people's immigration status if they suspect them of being in the country illegally

Can't ANY of these reporters get this right? Every single article I've read has this phrase without the really important part. How hard is it to continue the sentence with "after LAWFUL contact?" Or, better yet, why can't they just quote the bill outright?

"FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR A LAW
21 ENFORCEMENT AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR A LAW
22 ENFORCEMENT AGENCY OF A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF
23 THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO
24 IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES,A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE
25 MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON,
26 EXCEPT IF THE DETERMINATION MAY HINDER OR OBSTRUCT AN INVESTIGATION...."

Sorry for the all caps, but that is how it was written in the PDF file of the law that is out on the internet for the whole world to read. Took me less than 30 seconds to copy and paste it. I guess that's just too much hard work for today's journalists. Unless they have some kind of agenda or something. Nah. Couldn't be! /sarcasm.