Judge to allow Arizona to enforce key part of anti-illegal immigration law

Josh Gerstein
Politico
9/5/2012

A federal judge in Arizona has rejected a last-ditch effort by civil liberties and immigrants’ rights groups to block enforcement of a hotly-contested provision of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law, S.B. 1070.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton said in an order Wednesday that she would not stand in the way of a provision in the law requiring police to determination the immigration status of people they encounter and suspect of being in the country illegally.

The immigrants’ rights groups argued that Bolton could block the law because it coud infringe on individuals’ constitutional rights, but Bolton noted that in June the Supreme Court indicated that provision could take effect.

“This Court will not ignore the clear direction in the Arizona opinion that Subsection 2(B) cannot be challenged further on its face before the law takes effect. As the Supreme Court stated, Plaintiffs and the United States may be able to challenge the provision on other preemption and constitutional grounds ‘as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect,” Bolton wrote in her order (posted here.) She did order that a provision on harboring aliens be blocked…

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