U.S. Rep. Linda Sanchez, a Cerritos Democrat, seems to have started a firestorm this week when she suggested that white-supremacist forces were partly to blame for Arizona's controversial immigration law.

“There's a concerted effort behind promoting these kinds of laws on a state-by-state basis by people who have ties to white supremacy groups,” she told a gathering of Democrats in Long Beach earlier in the week. “It's been documented. It's not mainstream politics.”

The Arizona law, which will likely go into effect in August, encourages police to check the immigration status of people they stop who they believe might be in the U.S. illegally.

Sanchez said the legislation “creates a Jim Crow system where based on the color of your skin you could be treated as a second-class citizen or harassed based on how you look.”

Republicans were quick to respond. Rep. Gary Miller, told the Whittier Daily News that Sanchez's assertion that white supremacists were involved in the passage of the law is “an outrageous accusation.”

In an arguably racist twist, Fox News noted that Sanchez is “of Mexican descent” (although it did not mention the national heritage of Miller or other sources). Because, while right wing outlets like Fox have argued that the law does not target Latinos, to be one who opposes it is still worth pointing out.

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