leonard dinnerstein is an author and retired history professor at the university of arizona. he says historically the finger-pointing in arizona and other states, mostly directed against hispanics, is nothing new. >> so if you want to go through history with the ethnic groups, when the scots irish came, in colonial america they sent them out to the frontier because nobody wanted to live near the scots irish. they were irascible. thbiggest prejudice in this country aside from anti-black and anti-indian was anti-catholic. >> reporter: he says one of the factors in today's climate is that people feel vulnerable and arful. >> when people are unhappy they look for scapegoats i'm not unhappy because of me, i'm unhappy because "those people" make me unhappy. >> reporter: one of the states considering an immigration law like the one in arizona is utah. but recently a group of civic and religious leaders created a compact asking the legislature to consider more humane legislation. the mormon church supports it. so does catholic bishop john wester. >> my hope would be that religion can