Lancaster city's police chief said a proposal to have Pennsylvania adopt a version of Arizona's controversial law cracking down on illegal immigrants is not only a horrible idea, but offensive as well.

Chief Keith Sadler said the proposal would subject many citizens to police questioning solely because they have brown skin and speak a language other than English.

"Some of the people who come up with these ideas, I almost think I know what they're trying to say," Sadler said in an interview. "It's inexcusable. To me, it's, 'Anybody who's not white might be an illegal immigrant.' That's what I'm getting out of that.

"It's offensive. People who never come into contact with any kind of immigrants make a lot of assumptions on archaic stigmas, and it's frustrating."

Police across Pennsylvania would be required to question individuals about their immigration status and demand documentation if they suspect a person is in the country illegally under a bill introduced Tuesday in the state House.

The proposal, which has more than two dozen supporters, including Republican state Rep. Tom Creighton of rural Rapho township, mirrors Arizona's controversial new law targeting illegal immigrants for deportation.

The bill does not provide any criteria by which police officers would determine who might be here illegally and who should be asked for documentation. Creighton, in an interview earlier this week, said each officer would have to make a "subjective decision."

The proposal makes the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and directs police to question people about their immigration status and demand to see their documents if there is reason to suspect they are in the country illegally.

Critics of the Arizona law and the proposal here say they encourage racial profiling. Lancaster city is the most diverse municipality in the county, with about 31 percent of its population being Hispanic or Latino. Fewer than two-thirds of the residents are white.

Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray called the proposal "politically motivated and not serious law enforcement," and said, if enacted, it would not hold up in court.

"How are you going to know who needs the papers?" the former defense attorney said. "When you say there are 'subjective' standards, what you're saying is it's unconstitutional."

Gray said a law similar to Arizona's is unnecessary because police already have the ability to check an individual's residency status with the federal government.

Mandating such inquiries would lead to poor relations between the police and the Hispanic community, which is made up of a large number of Puerto Rico natives, who are U.S. citizens, he said.

Even outside the city, the legislation is raising concerns in the law-enforcement community.

West Hempfield Township police Chief Mark Pugliese said Pennsylvania doesn't need the Arizona-type law.

"I don't know that the system is broken right now," he said.

"There is a process in place through which we can verify a person's status," he said. Instead of enacting a new law, Pugliese said he would work to improve the government's system of verifying immigration status.

Ephrata Borough police Chief William L. Harvey questioned whether the proposal would provide officers with additional training on how to identify illegal immigrants.

"There's going to have to be an immense amount of training in how to make correct determinations, and in the area of documentation, especially counterfeit," Harvey said. "That's going to be a huge market."

And should the bill become law, who's going to pay for that training?

"This commonwealth has cut back funding for police training immensely," Harvey said. "Whose dime is this going to be on? If it fell upon me, I need this budget for other things."

He said the proposed requirements under the bill would add another layer of responsibility on already strapped and undermanned police forces.

"If you would talk to officers on the street, if you look at the traditional roles in 1980 when I walked in the door versus 2010, we have increased the demands on law enforcement at some mathematical quotient that we have not been able to keep up with," Harvey said.

"I now have got a litany of topic matters that I have to have officers trained in, and a lot of them are risk management issues to protect my municipality from liability. Now we're raising the bar and raising the workload more."

Other law enforcement officials declined to comment extensively, saying they had not seen or read the bill. But they said police in their departments do not routinely ask about immigration status unless the individual doesn't have identification.

"If somebody doesn't have a license, it could be a logical follow-up question," said the chief of a suburban police department here.

Under the legislation, an individual is presumed to be a citizen if that person can show a valid Pennsylvania driver's license, identification card issued by the state Department of Transportation or other government-issued ID.

New Holland Borough Mayor Wilbur Horning, who oversees the police force there, said he had not read the legislation. But he voiced frustration over the federal government's failure to control illegal immigration.

"The one thing that I do feel strongly about is that we, as a nation, need to decide what our immigration policy is going to be in this country," he said. "I really feel that it has been neglected and it's time for us to come up with a policy."

tmurse@lnpnews.com