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Julianne Hing


Defeating SB 1070 In Court: The Next Steps

Legal challenges to Arizona’s SB 1070 are coming from all sides. Both the ACLU and MALDEF are planning legal action against Arizona’s SB 1070, the law that makes it a crime to be an undocumented immigrant in the state and allows state law enforcement to detain anyone they believe might be undocumented. Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon announced on Friday that his city would bring a lawsuit against SB 1070 should it become law; he’s being joined today by Sara Presler, the mayor of Flagstaff, whose city is exploring its legal options as well.

Today the Washington Post reported that Attorney General Eric Holder announced the possibility of a lawsuit from the Department of Justice. Both the ACLU and MALDEF declined to comment on their plans, but we spoke with Jennifer Chacón, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, to suss out the next steps in overturning this law

What will happen immediately: SB 1070 is set to go into effect in 90 days, but Chacón suspects constitutional challenges to the law will be brought much sooner than that. Like with California’s Prop 187 and other unconstitutional anti-immigrant laws, the first step will be to file a preliminary injunction in state or federal court that will put a temporary hold on the law.

But Chacón says that while civil rights groups seek an injunction, they will also be coordinating a longer term strategy behind the scenes. “They have to proceed on the assumption that they will lose the injunction,â€