Judge Issues Split Ruling on Utah Immigration Law

SALT LAKE CITY June 18, 2014 (AP)
By BRADY McCOMBS Associated Press



A federal judge issued a split ruling Wednesday on Utah's controversial immigration law, upholding one key measure but striking down several others in legislation that was passed amid a wave of immigration crackdowns around the country earlier this decade.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups upheld a key provision requiring authorities to check the immigration status of people arrested for felonies or certain misdemeanors such as theft. But he set limits on how it can be implemented.

Waddoups's ruling struck down a provision that allows warrantless arrests based solely on suspicion of immigration status. He also tossed a part of the law that made it a state crime to harbor a person in the country illegally and one that requires local officers to investigate immigration offenses.

The ruling comes more than a year after a hearing in the case and more than three years since the law was passed. The measure has been shelved pending a court review.

Karen Tumlin, managing attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, declared victory after reading the ruling. Her group helped argue the case in federal court.

"The decision really is the last across the country to issue a stinging review of the anti-immigration agenda," she said.

Utah was one of several states to pass nearly identical immigration-enforcement laws after Arizona's well-known measure. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 upheld the Arizona law's most contentious section but struck down other parts.

The key provision in Utah's law is a requirement that police work with federal law enforcement to check the immigration status of a person arrested for a felony or a class A misdemeanor, while giving authorities the discretion to check the citizenship of those stopped for traffic infractions and other lesser offenses. Class A misdemeanors include theft, negligent homicide and criminal mischief.

During a February 2013 hearing in Salt Lake City, a U.S. Department of Justice lawyer and a team of private attorneys argued that the Supreme Court ruling on Arizona's law set a precedent for overturning Utah's measure.

Utah state attorneys countered that differences between the key provisions in the state's law and Arizona's measures that the Supreme Court blocked in June are "night and day." They pointed out to Waddoups that the high court upheld the section of Arizona's law that requires police to check the status of people they suspect are in the country illegally, which bodes well for a similar provision in Utah's law.

Waddoups questioned Utah's lawyers several times that day about the overarching purpose of different provisions in the law — asking if certain measures were necessary or any different than what already takes place daily.

Utah Assistant Attorney General Philip Lott said the law clarifies Utah's role in cooperating with the federal government on immigration enforcement. He also pointed to guidance issued by former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff on how to enforce the law as evidence that police won't overstep their bounds.

But the judge questioned whether that guidance from Shurtleff would have any legal binding in relation to the review of the law's constitutionality. The U.S. Justice Department's lawyer, Scott Simpson, said it wouldn't because the guidance could be altered or scrapped by the new attorney general.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/j...n-law-24201088