One of the cute tricks that mainstream media reporters use is to have others make a point they want to make, without having to make it themselves. Usually, when someone makes a false statement that others might consider to be true, the job of a reporter is to provide contrary information. Instead, Randal Archibold of the New York Times allowed someone to make an outrageously false claim without providing any contrary information whatsoever. See the middle paragraph in this excerpt from "In Wake of Immigration Law, Calls for an Economic Boycott of Arizona" (link):

At the Arizona Inn in Tucson, the manager, Will Conroy, said that over the weekend 12 customers canceled reservations or said they would not return to the state because of the law.

"This is a very scary situation that the police can now just come up to you for no reason and ask for papers," Joy Mann, a prospective guest who had previously stayed at the inn, wrote him in an e-mail message. "My son is a construction worker and is very suntanned. I cannot ask him to join us there now, as I would fear for him."

Tourism officials said such accounts were not widespread, but they were concerned that the rancor was tarnishing the state’s image and were mindful of the boycott in the 1980s that led to Arizona’s officially observing Martin Luther King’s Birthday after initially rejecting it as a holiday.

The second paragraph - and the whole "show me your papers" talking point - is not true. Police can only request proof of citizenship when they have "reasonable suspicion" that someone is an illegal alien and only in conjunction with "lawful contact". Just walking up to someone who's in line at a store or the like and who isn't doing anything suspicious is not lawful contact.