On Arizona and Immigration: Judge Ignores Rule of Law

Hans von Spakovsky and Jack Park / July 28, 2010

As everyone knows, Arizona, chafed by the Federal government’s inability to control the flow of illegal immigrants into the State, enacted Senate Bill 1070 (PDF) in an effort to do something about the resulting collateral damage to it and its citizens. Now, a federal judge appointed by President Clinton, Susan Bolton, has temporarily blocked enforcement of portions of S.B. 1070, reasoning that those portions interfere with the Federal government’s system of immigration laws.

Significantly, Judge Bolton rejected the demand by the Obama Justice Department that the entire law be struck down. In fact, the judge upheld twelve different provisions of the law, including a prohibition on Arizona officials limiting the enforcement of federal immigration laws and another that allows Arizona citizens to sue any state official that adopts a policy of restricting such enforcement. The judge also upheld parts of the law intended to stop human smuggling, such as a provision that makes it possible to impound vehicles used to transport or harbor unlawfully present aliens.

Unfortunately, however, Judge Bolton (using very fallacious reasoning) did preliminarily block provisions (1) calling for Arizona law enforcement officials to verify the immigration status of individuals who are arrested when an officer has a reasonable suspicion that they are an illegal alien; (2) making it a state crime to violate federal alien registration requirements; (3) creating a crime for an illegal alien to solicit, apply for, or perform work; and (4) authorizing an arrest when there is probable cause to believe that an individual is removable from the U.S. (more…)