Indiana attorney general seeks pause in immigration lawsuit

indystar.com
Written by
Mary Beth Schneider
3:10 PM, Dec. 22, 2011

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller is asking a federal court to put on hold a legal challenge to Indiana's new anti-illegal immigration law until the U.S. Supreme Court decides a similar case involving Arizona's immigration statute.

Zoeller's office filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana seeking a temporary halt to proceedings in the case. The motion notes that the central issue in the Indiana lawsuit is whether federal law pre-empts state government and state and local police from enforcing immigration matters. That is a key question the U.S. Supreme Court will decide in the Arizona case as well.

"Indiana will await guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court on what states are empowered to do when the Congress and federal government agencies totally fail in their responsibility to enact and enforce federal immigration policy," Zoeller said in a statement. "The judicial branch is unfortunately being required to determine what the authors of our Constitution did not fathom."

Indiana's legislature passed a bill last session which among other things allowed Indiana police officers to detain people who are subject to federal immigration court removal orders, and also prohibited the use of foreign consular identification cards as valid identification. The ACLU filed suit in May, challenging the state's jurisdiction in federal immigration matters, and Judge Sarah Evans Barker issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of those provisions until the case could be decided.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dl...=2011112220401