Arizona immigration law divides Republicans and conservatives

Republicans, who have stood together in opposition to Democratic policies like health-care reform, have not yet cobbled together a unified response to Arizona's controversial anti-illegal immigration measure. The law, which requires police to ask for immigration papers from anyone whom they have a "reasonable suspicion" might be in the country illegally, was signed into law Friday by the state's Republican governor. (For more, read my explainer on the law and debate here andsome information on possible boycotts here.)

Sarah Palin came out swinging in defense of the law on Fox News yesterday: She accused the Obama administration of a "shameful" attempt to make the law into a "racial issue" by suggesting it will encourage cops to stop and question legal Hispanics in their search for illegal immigrants.

"It is telling the federal government that they better wake up, buck up, and do their job in securing our borders," Palin said. But Palin's defense followed criticism of the bill by several prominent Republicans.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said the law will most likely be found unconstitutional (law professors interviewed by the Wall Street Journal agree, because states are not allowed to have their own foreign policies). Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Californiagubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman both expressed reservationsand Marco Rubio, a conservative darling and Republican Senate candidate in Florida, said that requiring people to carry documentationis "not really something that Americans are comfortable with, the notion of a police state." Even former Congressman Tom Tancredo ofColorado, a longtime crusader against illegal immigration, thinks it goes too far.

"I do not want people here, there in Arizona, pulled over because you look like should be pulled over," he said.

The split is perhaps most apparent in one prominent Republican family of Arizonans: the McCains. Sen. John McCain, who facing a strong primary challenge from the right, tepidly endorsed the law and insisted the Obama administration had failed to secure the border and left his state in a dangerous situation. But his daughter, Meghan McCain, wrote a column in the Daily Beast denouncing the measure, saying it gives police a "license to discriminate."

The same divide existed between conservatives in the media. MSNBC's "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough- a former GOP congressman from Florida - said he thinks Hispanics in Arizona who are in the U.S. legally will be targeted and called the bill "un-American." But Rich Lowrey, editor of the conservative magazineNational Review, defended the bill and attacked what he called the "hysterics" of its critics, arguing that Arizona is simply trying to enforce existing law.

— Liz Goodwin is a national affairs writer for Yahoo! News.