Thread: Arizona immigration law: Judge denies bid to stop lawsuit

Arizona immigration law: Judge denies bid to stop lawsuit

by Michael Kiefer -
Oct. 12, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

A federal judge has denied motions by Gov. Jan Brewer, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the tough Arizona immigration law referred to as Senate Bill 1070.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued a detailed ruling Friday allowing the lawsuit to go forward. In her ruling, Bolton found that the plaintiffs, led by the Phoenix advocacy group Friendly House and the American Civil Liberties Union, had standing to bring the lawsuit and that the moment was "ripe" to do so.


And she found merit in their arguments that portions of the controversial law may violate the Fourth and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable search and seizure; the 14th Amendment includes the "equal protection clause," which forbids unequal treatment for different classes of people or racial discrimination.

Bolton also wrote that the plaintiffs had cause to believe their rights could be jeopardized by portions of the law.

The plaintiffs - the ACLU, Friendly House and several other advocacy groups and labor unions - also requested an injunction against the law. Bolton judged that issue as moot because a stay has been in effect since July in a separate lawsuit brought against SB 1070 by the U.S. Department of Justice. There will be a hearing regarding that stay in San Francisco on Nov. 1 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Bolton commented in her ruling that the Fourth Amendment issues were so great that she might have issued a stay on those grounds.

It was not a one-sided ruling, however, as Bolton granted several of the governor's motions.

For example, she did not find standing for two New Mexico residents who felt that their driver's licenses would deny them a constitutional right to travel because that state does not verify immigration status in issuing licenses.

She rejected arguments by the ACLU that forbidding illegal immigrants from soliciting work violated the First Amendment and that the language of the law was unconstitutionally vague.

Bolton took issue with portions of SB 1070 that allow officers to determine the immigration status of people they stop or to determine whether they had committed offenses that could have them deported.

"Although not every ground for every claim has survived the motion to dismiss, the major claims are alive at this point," said Omar Jadwat, who argued the case before Bolton on behalf of the ACLU.

In general, Bolton focused on the same segments of SB 1070 that she targeted in the Department of Justice case: whether police could hold immigrants indefinitely pending verification of immigration status and whether a police officer could determine a "removable" offense.

But in the Friendly House case, Bolton did not focus on arguments that SB 1070 is pre-empted by federal immigration law, which were already addressed in the Department of Justice case.

John Bouma, the attorney for the governor in the SB 1070 cases, declined comment.

A spokesman for Brewer did not respond to e-mail or phone calls. Monday was a state holiday.

Seven lawsuits have been filed in federal court against SB 1070. Two have been dismissed, and two have yet to be argued in front of Bolton.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/ ... z12Acgfevs

related
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-214982.html

Only the illegal aliens are afraid of SB 1070. They are afraid that police officers will find out they are here illegally. We Americans or legal residents do not fear the new law, SB 1070. Deport all illegal aliens and the only way to do it is enforcing our current immigration laws and SB 1070. Let's vote all the Democrats out in November and in 2012 let's replace Obama. They want to keep illegal aliens here. So the Democrats must GO.