Arizona ban on DREAMers' licenses suffers another court defeat

Brahm Resnik, KPNX 8:42 PM. MST April 05, 2016


(Photo: Brahm Resnik)


PHOENIX - For the second time in two years, a federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected Arizona's ban on driver's licenses for DREAMers, potentially ending four years of litigation initiated by former Gov. Jan Brewer.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's permanent injunction tossing out the ban.

The appellate ruling said federal law barred Arizona from creating its own classification of non-citizens in order to deny driver's licenses to young people shielded from deportation.

Dreamers have been able to get Arizona driver's licenses since the end of 2014, when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Brewer's bid to block the licenses while she prepared an appeal.

The Ninth Circuit immediately ordered the state to issue the licenses under a preliminary injunction.

But Brewer left office at the end of 2014, and incoming Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich decided to keep alive the fight against a permanent injunction, leading to Tuesday's legal defeat.

"They keep appealing, appealing, appealing the case because they don't like the decision," said Dulce Matuz, of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, which filed suit to overturn Brewer's order.

"They need to quit discriminating against DACA recipients," she said of Brnovich and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. "They need to move on, let it go."

Brnovich and Ducey are reviewing the ruling, according to their spokespeople. They have 14 days to file an appeal.

Brewer issued an executive order in August 2012 blocking the licenses. It came the same day that President Obama's DACA program, which grants deferred action from prosecution to young undocumented immigrants, took effect.

http://www.12news.com/news/arizona-b...feat/121785428