by Erin Kelly
Republic Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Arizona's new law cracking down on illegal immigrants has thrust the dormant issue of immigration reform back into the national spotlight.

Immigrant-rights advocates are showing a renewed urgency to push Congress and President Barack Obama to adopt a federal law combining tough enforcement with a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.

Obama said Friday that he agrees that the federal government must act to avoid "irresponsibility by others." He called Arizona's law "misguided" and instructed the Justice Department to examine whether the bill is a violation of civil rights.

"The recent efforts in Arizona ... threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe," Obama said at a ceremony in which immigrants on active duty for the U.S. military were sworn in as U.S. citizens.

"The American people demand and deserve a solution," Obama said of reform.

But that solution has eluded him. Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, supported comprehensive immigration reform during his presidential campaign and has urged Congress to work toward a bipartisan consensus.

However, legislation has yet to be introduced in the Senate as supporters scramble to find Republican support.

The Arizona law appears to have revived efforts by Democratic leaders to take action.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said this week that he is making immigration reform a top legislative priority for the Senate this year. Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are working to craft a bipartisan bill.

"(The) signing of new immigration laws by Arizona's governor provides another important example of why we need to fix our broken system," Reid said Friday in a prepared statement. "While the first step in immigration reform must include border security, we cannot approach this important issue in a piecemeal fashion. Republicans and Democrats need to work together to pass comprehensive reform that is tough on people who break the law, fair to taxpayers, respectful of civil liberties and practical to implement."

Obama this week rallied support for a federal bill, calling moderate Republican senators from Air Force One to try to win more GOP sponsors to boost chances of passage. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said she will wait for the Senate to act.

Janet Murguia, president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza, said the Arizona law represents a "watershed moment" that Congress must address quickly.

But anti-immigration groups say the furor over the Arizona law will scare congressional lawmakers away from voting for reform in an election year that is already expected to be tough for the Democratic majority.

"This (controversy) will send yet another signal to Congress of how dangerous an issue it is for them," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates reduced immigration. "That's why John McCain is now a born-again immigration hawk, which is frankly hilarious. If anything, Arizona's action is going to make Congress members more leery of addressing this risky issue."

Congress tried twice under Bush to reform the nation's immigration laws. In 2006, the Senate approved a measure that died in the House. In 2007, a similar measure could not make it out of the Senate. McCain, R-Ariz., supported both comprehensive-reform measures but this year has focused on securing the border.

Supporters and opponents of immigration reform agree that Arizona's law could spark a national trend as states look to fill the political void left by the inaction of the federal government.

William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, said his group's members are already poised to take "clone bills" modeled on Arizona's Senate Bill 1070 to state legislatures throughout the country.

Arizona's law includes a provision that would make it a state crime to be an illegal immigrant by creating a charge of "willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document." It also would require law enforcement to make a reasonable attempt "when practicable" to determine the immigration status of a person if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the United States illegally. It also would make it a crime for illegal immigrants to work or solicit work in Arizona.

"Arizona is ground zero, and it's just the start," Gheen said.

That's just what immigrant-rights groups fear. "When states interject themselves into the federal government's purview, it creates this patchwork quilt of laws state by state when what we should be having is clear, rational laws guiding our immigration policies at the national level," Murguia said. "The result is chaos."

It also could threaten the relationship between Mexico and the United States.

"The law signed by Governor Janice K. Brewer affects the relationship between Arizona and Mexico and obligates the Mexican government to reconsider the viability and usefulness of cooperation agreements that have been developed with Arizona," Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa Cantellano said Friday. "The government of Mexico will use all of the resources at its disposal to defend the rights and dignity of Mexicans in Arizona."

States have followed Arizona's lead before, said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes the kind of reform that immigrant-rights groups are seeking. He cited state voters' passage in 2004 of Proposition 200, which requires residents to provide proof of citizenship before they can register to vote or apply for public benefits. More than half a dozen states took up similar measures after Arizona took action, Mehlman said. Several states also enacted worker-verification laws modeled on Arizona's employer-sanctions law.

"Arizona has been leading the way," Mehlman said. "But we still believe that Congress needs to get busy enforcing the immigration law on behalf of the American people. If the federal government was doing its job, then we wouldn't have states like Arizona adopting these laws."