Despite having key parts of SB1070 blocked via a temporary court injunction, Arizona’s anti-immigrant law is still seen by some as a model. Most recently Florida and Utah made moves inspired by the show me your papers law.

Yesterday in Florida, Attorney General Bill McCollum proposed legislation that pushes the Arizona envelope. According to the Herald-Tribune:

It would require police in Florida to check the status of suspected illegal immigrants during a lawful stop, require businesses to use a federal database to check the status of new hires and subject illegal immigrants who commit crimes to harsher penalties than legal immigrants or U.S. citizens. Under the proposal, immigrants who fail to carry proper identification could be jailed for up to 20 days on the first offense.

It would also go beyond Arizona’s law by allowing judges to consider an immigrant’s illegal status when setting bail in a criminal case.

Of course, putting the lives of Latinos and all immigrant communities is seen as fair play in the world of electoral politics. It’s no coincidence that McCollum is running for governor and behind in the polls. What could give him a boost in poll numbers? Hate! Originally, McCollum said that the Arizona law went to far but all is fair in politics and hate mongering, verdad?

Utah is also set to introduce anti-immigrant legislation. Representative Steve Sandstrom is set to introduce his own Arizona-ish bill to the state legislature tomorrow. Details about what is in the bill haven’t been released, but it is expected to mirror SB-1070 in many ways, despite promises to include language that would ban racial/ethnic profiling.

Latino advocates will rally at the Utah State Capitol on Friday (tomorrow) to voice opposition to the bill. They have called a press conference Thursday, August 11 at 10:30 am MST at Centro Civico Mexicano in downtown Salt Lake City.