The Arizona agency that must train 15,000 law officers to enforce the state’s controversial new illegal immigration law has asked federal authorities for assistance, USA Today reports. Lyle Mann of the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board says federal assistance is “critical” to what he describes as an unprecedented effort to prepare officers to enforce the law, which gives local police authority to identify and arrest illegal immigrants.
Mann made the request to the Department of Homeland Security’s division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. President Obama has ordered a Justice Department review of the measure’s civil rights implications, which presumably would guide any advice offered from Washington. The measure takes effect 90 days after the state legislature adjourns. With adjournment perhaps a week away, Mann says he may have to develop a curriculum and train all of the state’s police, sheriff’s deputies, highway patrol officers, and investigators by Aug. 1.