Jon Stewart slammed Arizona Monday for passing a new law that would require citizens to carry proof of residency papers — a measure he likened to slavery-era laws requiring African Americans to show their papers to prove that they were free.

“It’s the same thing free black people had to do in 1863,” Stewart remarked. “Lord knows that didn’t leave any residual anger.”

ADVERTISEMENT

He deemed the arid Grand Canyon State the “meth lab of democracy.”

Stewart pointed out even former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo, “the man Mexican parents tell their kids about to get them to eat their vegetables, thought it was going too far. Arizona, that’s gotta tell you something. It would be like Ted Nugent pleading with you to put down the guns and talk this thing out.”

This video is from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, broadcast April 26, 2010.