“CHANDLER, Ariz. — The angry protests over Arizona’s tough policies focused on illegal immigrants are mostly gone. The sponsor of the state’s touchstone immigration bill has been recalled, while two sheriffs who championed the crackdown are enmeshed in legal difficulties. And there has been a notable decline in police activity aimed at illegal immigrants, easing a long period of anxiety among Mexican communities.
Two years after Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed legislation that required all immigrants to carry documentation or face arrest — a law that set off protests here and stirred a national boycott of the state — concern about illegal immigration is no longer the all-consuming issue it had been for so long.”