Golden Sun eXtra Your Local News Source, Mohave County, AZ

Numerous reports from around the state are about legal as well as illegal migrants preparing to leave Arizona as the new immigration law, SB1070, goes into effect on Thursday. They all seem to fear being profiled by law enforcement, even though the new law prohibits that.

Reports say that Mexicans are "running scared" and flowing across the border into Mexico at a higher rate than they are coming this way. In Mexico, towns near the border are already having a hard time finding housing for all those that have returned. They are looking for ways to house and feed the insurge after Arizona's new law goes into effect.

In Phoenix and Tucson, migrants of all kinds are having yard sales, selling off their belongings for money to get out of Arizona. The problem they are having is that everyone is selling and there are no buyers.

Some migrants are saying they are headed to other states where the laws remain weak and the benefits remain free. Some are headed for Colorado, some for Pennsylvania, some for California. Some have elected to stay put and take their chances.

The law, the toughest imposed by any U.S. state to curb illegal immigration, seeks to drive more than 400,000 undocumented day laborers, landscapers, house cleaners, chambermaids and other workers out of Arizona, which borders Mexico. It makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime and requires state and local police, during lawful contact, to investigate the status of anyone they reasonably suspect of being an illegal immigrant.

The U.S. government estimates 100,000 unauthorized migrants left Arizona after the state passed an employer sanctions law three years ago requiring companies to verify workers' status using a federal computer system. There are no figures for the number who have left since the new law passed in April.

Arizona straddles the principal highway for human and drug smugglers heading into the United States from Mexico. Arizona's governor, Jan Brewer, signed the law in April in a bid to curb violence and cut crime stemming from illegal immigration.

Polls show the measure is backed by a solid majority of Americans and by 85% of Arizona voters in this election year for some state governors, all of the U.S. House of Representatives and about a third of the 100-seat Senate.

There have long been indications that Mexican emigration has been falling dramatically. The U.S. Border Patrol has reported a 39 percent drop since 2005 in the capture of migrants trying to cross the frontier illegally. And Mexicans are sending less money home, hurting Mexico's second-largest source of foreign income behind oil exports. Remittances fell 12 percent to $1.9 billion in August, the biggest drop since record-keeping began 12 years ago, according to Mexico's central bank.

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