Arizona Immigration Law Generates Ugly and Potentially Violent Reactions

Death threats and a warnings of electricity cutoffs are among the fallout. Several cities across the U.S. have instituted boycotts of Arizona over that state's new Senate Bill 1070, which enacts a stringent new law on immigration. Los Angeles has joined the boycott, even though Arizona supplies the city with 25 percent of its electricity. Gary Pierce, on the Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities, threatened to turn off the power to the California city. And then, recently, Phoenix police have beefed up security for Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon after he received death threats apparently spurred by his opposition to the state's new immigration law.

One threat claimed he would be killed by sniper fire. There now are plainclothes officers outside his north Phoenix home.

The controversial law requires that state and local police conducting traffic stops or questioning people about possible legal violations ask them about their immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they're in the country illegally. It is to take effect July 29.

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