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Arizona Law in Court

loboloco

Well-known member
Judge hears arguments over Arizona immigration law



AP – Omar Jadwat, center, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrant's Rights Project, …



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By JACQUES BILLEAUD and PAUL DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writers Jacques Billeaud And Paul Davenport, Associated Press Writers – 5 mins ago
PHOENIX – The Arizona immigration law came under new legal scrutiny in a packed courtroom Thursday as a federal judge considered whether the crackdown should take effect next week amid a flurry of legal challenges.
Judge Susan Bolton did not issue a ruling after two court hearings stemming from lawsuits brought against the law, which has reignited the national immigration debate.
The hearings drew considerable interest as Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and the Justice Department's top lawyer in Arizona both attended, along with dozens of spectators.
Seven opponents of the law were arrested after they sat in the middle of a busy thoroughfare outside the courthouse and unfurled a massive banner that said "We will not comply."
Bolton has been asked to block the law from taking effect as she hears several lawsuits that question the constitutionality of the measure.
Opponents say the law will lead to racial profiling and trample on the rights of the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in Arizona. Supporters say the law is a necessary response to combat the litany of problems brought on by illegal immigration and the federal government's inability to secure the border.
Bolton, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, repeatedly questioned Justice Department attorney Edwin Kneedler to explain how specific provisions of the law intruded on federal authority as he had argued.
"Why can't Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered the United States illegally?" she said.
Without prodding from attorneys, the judge also pointed out to lawyers the everyday realities of Arizona's immigration woes, such as signs that the federal government erected in a wilderness area south of Phoenix that warns visitors about drug and immigrant traffickers passing through public lands.
She also noted the immigrant smuggling stash houses that are a fixture on the news in Arizona. "You can barely go a day without a location being found in Phoenix where there are numerous people being harbored," Bolton said.
Kneedler said the law's requirements that law enforcement check on people's immigration status set a mandatory policy that goes beyond what the federal government requires and would burden the federal agency that responds to immigration-status inquiries.
Attorney John Bouma, who represents Brewer, said the federal government wants to keep its authority while turning a blind eye to illegal immigrants.
"You can't catch them if you don't know about them. They don't want to know about them," he said.
Brewer said she's confident the state will prevail, adding that Bolton "certainly understands the dangers that Arizonans face in regards to harboring illegals."
During the morning hearing, Bolton told lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union that she's required to consider blocking only parts of the law, not the entire statute as they had requested.
ACLU attorney Omar Jadwat said the law's provisions are supposed to work together to achieve a goal of prodding illegal immigrants to leave the state. He called it unconstitutional and dangerous.
Most of the controversy about the law centers on provisions related to stops and arrests of people, new crimes related to illegal immigrants, and a requirement that immigrants carry and produce their immigration papers.
Other parts of the law getting little attention deal with impoundment of vehicles and sanctions against employment of illegal immigrants.
Bouma told Bolton that those challenging the law haven't demonstrated that anyone would suffer actual harm if it takes effect, and that facts — not conjecture — must be shown.
"In Arizona we have a tremendous Hispanic heritage. To think that everybody that's Hispanic is going to be stopped and questioned ... defies reality," Bouma said. "All this hypothetical that we're going to go out and arrest everybody that's Hispanic, look around. That's impossible."
Defendants include various county officials from throughout the state, most of whom sent lawyers to the hearing. Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever was there in person, sitting at the front of the courtroom.
Dever's county is on the Arizona-Mexico border and he knew a rancher who was killed in March on his sprawling border property by a suspected illegal immigrant, possibly a scout for drug smugglers.
The killing of Robert Krentz in many ways set the stage for the new Arizona law to pass, with politicians calling for action amid border violence.
Before the hearings, opponents gathered in prayer and carried paper doves attached to plants representing olive branches, a symbol of peace.
The law requires officers, while enforcing other laws, to check a person's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion that the person is here illegally. It also bans people from blocking traffic when they seek or offer day-labor services on streets and prohibits illegal immigrants from soliciting work in public places.
Since Brewer signed the measure into law in April, it has inspired rallies in Arizona and elsewhere by advocates on both sides of the immigration debate. Some opponents have advocated a tourism boycott of Arizona.
It also led an unknown number of illegal immigrants to leave Arizona for other U.S. states or their home countries and prompted seven challenges by the Justice Department, civil rights groups, two Arizona police officers, a Latino clergy group and a researcher from Washington.
___
Associated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper and Amanda Myers contributed.
 

loboloco

Well-known member
I think this judge might actually get it


Ariz. judge raises the realities of porous border



AFP/Getty Images/File – An Arizona police officer questions a woman in the city of Tucson. A judge in the state has heard arguments …



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By JACQUES BILLEAUD and PAUL DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writers Jacques Billeaud And Paul Davenport, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 28 mins ago
PHOENIX – The judge who will decide whether Arizona's new immigration law is constitutional hasn't indicated whether she'll put the statute on hold before it takes effect next week and had some pointed questions Thursday for challengers at two court hearings.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton also went beyond dry legal analysis to point out some of the everyday realities of illegal immigration and how that applies to the new law.
Without prodding from attorneys, the judge noted that the federal government erected signs in a wilderness area south of Phoenix that warn visitors about immigrant and drug smugglers passing through public lands. She said the stash houses where smugglers hide immigrants from Mexico before bringing them into the country's interior have become a fixture on the news in Arizona.
"You can barely go a day without a location being found in Phoenix where there are numerous people being harbored," said Bolton, who didn't issue a ruling after the two hearings.
Bolton has been asked to block the law from taking effect as she hears seven lawsuits by the U.S. Department of Justice, civil rights groups and others that question the constitutionality of the measure, which has reignited the national immigration debate.
Opponents say the law will lead to racial profiling and trample on the rights of the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in Arizona. Supporters say the law is a necessary response to combat the litany of problems brought on by illegal immigration and the federal government's inability to secure the border.
Bolton, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, repeatedly questioned Justice Department attorney Edwin Kneedler to explain how specific provisions of the law intruded on federal authority as he had argued.
"Why can't Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered the United States illegally?" she asked.
Kneedler said the law's requirements that law enforcement check on people's immigration status set a mandatory policy that goes beyond what the federal government requires and would burden the federal agency that responds to immigration-status inquiries.
Attorney John Bouma, who is defending the law on behalf of Gov. Jan Brewer, said the federal government wants to keep its authority while turning a blind eye to illegal immigrants.
"You can't catch them if you don't know about them. They don't want to know about them," he said.
Outside of court, seven opponents of the law were arrested after they sat in the middle of a busy thoroughfare and unfurled a massive banner that said "We will not comply."
Some drivers honked their horns as they passed by, before police shut down the street. Some supporters of the law waved signs and clutched American flags, and about a half dozen had handguns hanging from their hips.
Brewer, who attended one of the two hearings, said afterward that she's confident the state will prevail, adding that Bolton "certainly understands the dangers that Arizonans face in regards to harboring illegals."
During one hearing, Bolton told lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union that she is required to consider blocking only parts of the law, not the entire statute as they had requested.
ACLU attorney Omar Jadwat said the law's provisions are supposed to work together to achieve a goal of prodding illegal immigrants to leave the state, calling it unconstitutional and dangerous.
Most of the controversy about the law centers on provisions related to stops and arrests of people, new crimes related to illegal immigrants and a requirement that immigrants carry and produce their immigration papers.
Bouma told Bolton that those challenging the law haven't demonstrated that anyone would suffer actual harm if it takes effect, and that facts — not mere speculation — must be shown.
"In Arizona we have a tremendous Hispanic heritage. To think that everybody that's Hispanic is going to be stopped and questioned ... defies reality," Bouma said. "All this hypothetical that we're going to go out and arrest everybody that's Hispanic, look around. That's impossible."
The law requires officers, while enforcing other laws, to check a person's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion that the person is here illegally. It also bans people from blocking traffic when they seek or offer day-labor services on streets and prohibits illegal immigrants from soliciting work in public places.
Since Brewer signed the measure into law in late April, it has inspired rallies in Arizona and elsewhere by advocates on both sides of the immigration debate. Some opponents have advocated a tourism boycott of Arizona.
It also led an unknown number of illegal immigrants to leave Arizona for other U.S. states or their home countries.
___
Associated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper and Amanda Lee Myers contributed to this report.
 

loboloco

Well-known member
Well, it seems to be working.


Migrants sell up and flee Arizona ahead of crackdown



Reuters – Men wait near a train station to stow away to Mexico City after failing to enter illegally into the U.S. …





By Tim Gaynor Tim Gaynor – Sun Jul 25, 1:43 pm ET
PHOENIX (Reuters) – Nicaraguan mother Lorena Aguilar hawks a television set and a few clothes on the baking sidewalk outside her west Phoenix apartment block.
A few paces up the street, her undocumented Mexican neighbor Wendi Villasenor touts a kitchen table, some chairs and a few dishes as her family scrambles to get out of Arizona ahead of a looming crackdown on illegal immigrants.
"Everyone is selling up the little they have and leaving," said Villasenor, 31, who is headed for Pennsylvania. "We have no alternative. They have us cornered."
The two women are among scores of illegal immigrant families across Phoenix hauling the contents of their homes into the yard this weekend as they rush to sell up and get out before the state law takes effect on Thursday.
The law, the toughest imposed by any U.S. state to curb illegal immigration, seeks to drive more than 400,000 undocumented day laborers, landscapers, house cleaners, chambermaids and other workers out of Arizona, which borders Mexico.
It makes being an illegal immigrant a state crime and requires state and local police, during lawful contact, to investigate the status of anyone they reasonably suspect of being an illegal immigrant.
The U.S. government estimates 100,000 unauthorized migrants left Arizona after the state passed an employer sanctions law three years ago requiring companies to verify workers' status using a federal computer system. There are no figures for the number who have left since the new law passed in April.
Some are heading back to Mexico or to neighboring states. Others are staying put and taking their chances.

In a sign of a gathering exodus, Mexican businesses from grocers and butcher shops to diners and beauty salons have shut their doors in recent weeks as their owners and clients leave.
On Saturday and Sunday, Reuters counted dozens of impromptu yard sales in Latino neighborhoods in central and west Phoenix/
"They wanted to drive Hispanics out of Arizona and they have succeeded even before the law even comes into effect," said Aguilar, 28, a mother of three young children who was also offering a few cherished pictures and a stereo at one of five sales on the same block.
She said she had taken in just $20 as "everyone is selling and nobody wants to buy."
LEGAL RESIDENTS FLEE
Arizona straddles the principal highway for human and drug smugglers heading into the United States from Mexico.
The state's Republican governor, Jan Brewer, signed the law in April in a bid to curb violence and cut crime stemming from illegal immigration.
Polls show the measure is backed by a solid majority of Americans and by 65 percent of Arizona voters in this election year for some state governors, all of the U.S. House of Representatives and about a third of the 100-seat Senate.
Opponents say the law is unconstitutional and a recipe for racial profiling. It is being challenged in seven lawsuits, including one filed by President Barack Obama's administration, which wants a preliminary injunction to block the law.
A federal judge heard arguments from the lawyers for the Justice Department and Arizona on Thursday and could rule at any time.
The fight over the Arizona law has complicated the White House's effort to break the deadlock with Republicans in Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration law, an already difficult task before November's elections.
While the law targets undocumented migrants, legal residents and their U.S.-born children are getting caught up in the rush to leave Arizona.
Mexican housewife Gabriela Jaquez, 37, said she is selling up and leaving for New Mexico with her husband, who is a legal resident, and two children born in Phoenix.
"Under the law, if you transport an illegal immigrant, you are committing a crime," she said as she sold children's clothes at a yard sale with three other families. "They could arrest him for driving me to the shops."
Lunaly Bustillos, a legal resident from Mexico, hoped to sell some clothes, dumbbells and an ornamental statue on Sunday before her family heads for Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Monday.
"It makes me sad and angry too because I feel I have the right to be here," said Bustillos, 17, who recently graduated from high school in Phoenix.
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
 

Cowboy

Wait for it.
GOLD Site Supporter
Since the federal government really see,s illegal immigration as not being a problem , maybe Jan Brewer ought to arrange free busing for the illegals to DC , Let them deal with it . :shifty:

Hell maybe the politicians will put them all to work , their allways up for cheap labor :glare:
 

JEV

Mr. Congeniality
GOLD Site Supporter
IMO, this is just leftwing bullshit meant to tug at the heartstrings of people who don't know what the law really says. If people are here legally, what do they have to fear? If you have anchor babies, doesn't that lock you in for the long haul? If so, WTF are legals fleeing for...unless there's more to the story that the lame street media is NOT telling us, which wouldn't surprise me in the least. People with green cards and other legal status have nothing to fear. They cannot be card-checked unless they do something to draw attention to themself, like speeding, drug trafficking, prostitution, running from the police during a routine (and legal) stop, etc..

Again, this is all lame street bullshit, and is driven by an agenda that is less than honorable. If you're legal, you have nothing to be worried about (except Congress cutting your democrat voter stipend).
 

loboloco

Well-known member
UPDATE


Brewer Seeks Dismissal of Obama Challenge to Immigration Law


Published July 27, 2010
| Associated Press
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AP
June 29: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer strongly backs a state law concerning illegal immigration that will go into effect at the end of July.

PHOENIX -- Attorneys for Gov. Jan Brewer have asked a judge to throw out the U.S. Justice Department's challenge to the state of Arizona's new immigration law.
The governor's lawyers said Monday the federal government hasn't shown it has suffered actual harm from the law and instead bases its claim on speculation.
The federal government says the state law is trumped by federal law and that it has hurt U.S. relations with Mexico. It is scheduled to take effect Thursday.
Attorneys for Brewer say Mexico's disapproval of the law doesn't make it unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton is considering requests by the Justice Department, a Phoenix police officer and civil rights groups to put the law on hold.
The federal government meanwhile is rapidly expanding a program to identify illegal immigrants using fingerprints from arrests, drawing opposition from local authorities and advocates who argue the initiative amounts to an excessive dragnet.

The program has gotten less attention than Arizona's new immigration law, but it may end up having a bigger impact because of its potential to round up and deport so many immigrants nationwide.
Under the program, the fingerprints of everyone who is booked into jail for any crime are run against FBI criminal history records and Department of Homeland Security immigration records to determine who is in the country illegally and whether they've been arrested previously. Most jurisdictions are not included in the program, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been expanding the initiative.
Since 2007, 467 jurisdictions in 26 states have joined. ICE has said it plans to have it in every jail in the country by 2013. Secure Communities is currently being phased into the places where the government sees as having the greatest need for it based on population estimates of illegal immigrants and crime statistics.
Since everyone arrested would be screened, the program could easily deport more people than Arizona's new law, said Sunita Patel, an attorney who filed a lawsuit in New York against the federal government on behalf of a group worried about the program. Patel said that because illegal immigrants could be referred to ICE at the point of arrest, even before a conviction, the program can create an incentive for profiling and create a pipeline to deport more people.
"It has the potential to revolutionize immigration enforcement," said Patel.
Patel filed the lawsuit on behalf of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which is concerned the program could soon come to New York. The lawsuit seeks, among other things, statistical information about who has been deported as a result of the program and what they were arrested for.
Supporters of the program argue it is helping identify dangerous criminals that would otherwise go undetected. Since Oct. 27, 2008 through the end of May, almost 2.6 million people have been screened with Secure Communities. Of those, almost 35,000 were identified as illegal immigrants previously arrested or convicted for the most serious crimes, including murder and rape, ICE said Thursday. More than 205,000 who were identified as illegal immigrants had arrest records for less serious crimes.
In Ohio, Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones praised the program, which was implemented in his jurisdiction earlier this month.
"It's really a heaven-sent for us," Jones said. He said the program helps solve the problem police often have of not knowing whether someone they arrested has a criminal history and is in the country illegally.
"I don't want them in my community," Jones said. "I've got enough homegrown criminals here."
Carl Rusnok, an ICE spokesman, said Secure Communities is a way for law enforcement to identify illegal immigrants after their arrest at no additional cost to local jurisdictions. Jones agreed.
"We arrest these people anyway," he said. "All it does is help us deport people who shouldn't be here."
Rusnok said ICE created the program after Congress directed the agency to improve the way it identifies and deports illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds. ICE has gotten $550 million for the program since 2008, Rusnok said.
Rusnok said the only place he knows of that has requested not to be a part of Secure Communities is San Francisco, which began the program June 8. Eileen Hirst, the chief of staff for San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey, said it happened "without our input or approval."
Hirst said the sheriff thought Secure Communities cast too wide a net and worried that it would sweep up U.S. citizens and minor offenders, such as people who commit traffic infractions but miss their court hearings. Hirst also said the program goes against San Francisco's sanctuary city policy that calls for authorities to only report foreign-born suspects booked for felonies.
"Now, we're reporting every single individual who comes into our custody and gets fingerprinted," Hirst said.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown denied Hennessey's request to opt out. Brown said that prior to Secure Communities, illegal immigrants with criminal histories were often released before their status was discovered.
This month, Washington, D.C., police decided not to pursue the program because the City Council introduced a bill that would prohibit authorities from sharing arrest data with ICE out of concern for immigrants' civil rights. Matthew Bromeland, special assistant to the police chief, said police wanted the program and were talking with ICE about how address concerns from immigrant advocates before the bill forced them to halt negotiations.
Colorado officials became interested in the program after an illegal immigrant from Guatemala with a long criminal record was accused of causing a car crash at a suburban Denver ice-cream shop, killing two women in a truck and a 3-year-old inside the store. Authorities say the illegal immigrant, Francis M. Hernandez, stayed off ICE's radar because he conned police with 12 aliases and two different dates of birth.
A task-force assembled after the crash recommended Secure Communities as a solution.
Evan Dreyer, a spokesman for Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, said Ritter recognizes that other states have had issues with the program and he wants to take time to consider the concerns raised by immigrant rights groups before deciding "how or if to move forward."
The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition said in its letter to the governor that the Secure Communities is "inherently flawed and should not be implemented." CIRC said one of its main concerns is that in cases of domestic violence, where both parties may be taken into custody while authorities investigate a case, victims may feel reluctant to report a crime out of fear that their illegal status will be discovered.
ICE maintains that only suspects arrested for crimes -- and not the people reporting them -- will be screened for their legal status.
 
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