Anti-immigration proposals have lost momentum in state legislatures, reports USA Today. Republican legislators are struggling to find support for laws that would give local police more powers to crack down on illegal immigrants. Arizona passed its landmark illegal immigration bill in 2010, and Utah, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Indiana passed similar laws last year. But portions of all those laws have been blocked by federal courts and will face costly legal challenges, which could ultimately be decided when the Supreme Court reviews Arizona’s law next month.
Republican lawmakers say the threat of those lawsuits is one reason legislative leaders have put the brakes on immigration bills, or abandoned them altogether, as they wait to see how this election year plays out. “I think the pendulum has stopped a little closer … to the middle this year,” said Suman Raghunathan, policy director of the Progressive States Network, which opposes state immigration enforcement laws.