Aside from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — a grandstanding publicity hound who already stages immigration raids for the television cameras — virtually all prominent law enforcement officials in the state opposed the law. They argued that it would overburden their resources, potentially put their officers in danger and, most important, make it much harder to investigate crimes. Imagine two men in a car who happen to be waiting at a stoplight when a brutal mugging takes place before their eyes. If the new law were in effect, and if one of those witnesses were here illegally, what are the odds that they’d stick around to tell police what they saw?

We’ll hear no such subtlety or nuance from Republicans this fall, though. We’ll hear thunderous allegations that the Obama administration — the big, bad federal government — conspired with an unelected federal judge to keep the state of Arizona from enforcing a law that seeks only to kick out of the country a bunch of people who have no right to be here.

We’ll hear from GOP candidates that Arizona had to act because the federal government refuses to “secure the border.” The fact is that President Obama has sharply increased border enforcement and deportations; the influx of undocumented immigrants is greatly reduced from what it was during the Bush administration. But there Obama goes again, trying to find a sane, moderate course of action.