Racial profiling has been illegal for years, yet I don't think you could deny that it happens. A lot. An officer CAN in fact pull you over for simple suspicion. It used to be that they'd say you were swerving, or they thought your registration was out of date. Now, they have a legal mandate to make sure EVERYONE in AZ is actually a citizen, so by that definition anyone can be pulled over or stopped at any time to verify their citizenship status.
Let's tweak Pants' example.
Pablo Martinez, a natural born US citizen, is driving his large commercial truck. He pulls into a weigh station, and an officer there decides to prove his immigration status. Pablo provides his Arizona issues CDL, and his SSN. The officer doesn't consider that enough proof, handcuffs Pablo, and turns him over to INS. Pablo calls his wife, who has to drive to their home and retrieve their birth certificates to prove their citizenship. After making that trip, Pablo is released.
Pablo committed no crime. Pablo was following the laws of the state of Arizona, had Arizona provided identification (which he must have proved he was a citizen to get), and provided addition proof of citizenship by providing his SSN, which law enforcement can use to additionally verify citizenship. Even with all this, he was detained for hours until his wife could provide a birth certificate.
I use this example because it's already happened.
http://www.azfamily.com/news/91769419.htmlMy problem is that legal, US citizens can now be stopped anywhere INSIDE the state of AZ, and be forced to provide proof of citizenship for no other reason than because the cop felt like stopping them.
I think that your LQ bridge example is a bit different because you guys were entering the country, not already inside the country. Doesn't excuse the fact that they should have been able to look your mom and wife up in a reasonable time, but that's pretty common. I'm about as white bread as you can get and I have gotten grief at the border many times.
I think if you got detained at the CA/Nevada border and detained for 2 hours for the same reasons you'd be REALLY pissed off about it.