SC prosecutor appealing ruling on immigration law

myrtlebeachonline.com
By Meg Kinnard - The Associated Press
Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012

COLUMBIA -- South Carolina officials want parts of the state’s new immigration law that a judge put on hold to start taking effect.

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Attorney General Alan Wilson asked a federal appeals court to overturn the judge’s ruling in papers filed last week. The Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put the case on its docket on Wednesday.

Wilson is representing the state in a lawsuit filed last year by the federal government and the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the constitutionality of the new law, considered among the toughest in the country.

In December, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel blocked sections that make it a state crime not to carry immigration paperwork or for illegal immigrants to transport or house themselves. He also blocked a requirement that officers check the immigration status of people they pull over if officers suspect they are in the country illegally.

Parts of the law took effect Jan. 1, including a requirement that businesses check new hires’ legal status through a federal system. Businesses that knowingly violate the law could have their operating licenses revoked.

After receiving requests from both federal prosecutors and attorneys representing South Carolina, Gergel delayed the lawsuit pending the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court decision on a similar challenge in Arizona. The Obama administration is also challenging that law, arguing that regulating immigration is the job of the federal government, not states.

The Department of Justice also challenged similar laws in Alabama and Utah. Civil liberties and immigrant rights groups also sued over measures in those states, as well as in Georgia and Indiana.

A judge has blocked a similar portion of Arizona’s law, after which South Carolina’s legislation was modeled. That state’s appeal is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, and prosecutors have said justices will likely rule in the first half of this year.

A federal appeals court has denied requests by Georgia and Alabama to delay action on legal challenges to their own new illegal immigration laws pending the outcome of the high court decision.

Read more here: SC prosecutor appealing ruling on immigration law - Today's News - TheSunNews.com