Immigration showdown: Los Angeles vs. Arizona

After a heated city council session in which discriminatory practices of WWII were invoked, Los Angeles has become the biggest of several cities to boycott Arizona over its controversial new immigration law. L.A. is banning most official travel to Arizona, cancelling contracts, and considering how much of its $58 million current business with Arizona can be dissolved. Given that Arizona's bill is still broadly supported in national polls, will this boycott change anything? (Watch a local report about L.A.'s vote to boycott Arizona)

"Money talks": Arizona needs this "powerful yet civilized" message that it "has gone too far," combined with the sting it's already feeling from other municipal boycotts, says the Los Angeles Daily News in an editorial. Boycotts helped bring down the South's Jim Crow laws. This may just work.

"Sensible sanction: The city's boycott of Arizona sends strong message..."

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This is ill-concieved grandstanding: L.A.'s constitutionally dubious boycott is nothing but "self-righteous political posturing," says Jeff Burk at Frum Forum. And consider the irony: L.A.'s stand against "anti-Hispanic discrimination" is inflicting economic pain on an a population that's 30 percent Hispanic. Furthermore, the "most destructive" illegal aliens target Arizona, in part, thanks to California's stricter border regulations.

"L.A.'s illegal Arizona boycott"

Arizona's digging in: "Boycott proponents are now, with growing consistency, presenting Arizona under the banner of the 'State of Hate,'" says Elijah Sweete in The Moderate Voice. Even the Republican party passed over Phoenix for its 2012 national convention, choosing Tampa instead. But Arizona lawmakers just poured more gas on the flame with an "ethnic studies" ban.

"Brewer, boycotts, and Republicans"