A Challenge to a Brutal Anti-Latino Law

NEW YORK TIMES (Editorial)

July 20, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/opinion/a-challenge-to-arizonas-brutal-anti-latino-law.html

As Sheriff Joe Arpaio went on trial in Arizona this week for discriminating against Latinos and for usurping federal authority with his sweeping roundups of undocumented immigrants, a coalition of individuals and groups brought a related action in another federal court. The action asks the court to block enforcement of Section 2(B) of S.B. 1070, the notorious Arizona law that compels all law enforcement agencies in the state to copy and carry out the Arpaio model of harassment and humiliation.

The Supreme Court rejected the premise of S.B. 1070 last month on grounds that making foreign policy — of which immigration law is a part — is a federal responsibility. But it upheld the law’s “show me your papers” section requiring officers to check the immigration status of anyone they stop, arrest or detain on another basis if the officer has a “reasonable suspicion” the person is in the country illegally. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion said the court could not assume it would be applied in ways that conflicted with federal law until it took effect — as it did after the ruling.

The motion to enjoin Section 2(B) “involves additional claims, evidence, and irreparable injuries beyond what the Supreme Court had before it.” The challenge explains harms so obvious and unconstitutional that the judge does not need extensive proof of the section’s impact to block it. The Legislature “explicitly intended Section 2(B) to codify the practices” of Mr. Arpaio, the motion says, even after his powers had been restricted by earlier investigations into and challenges to his racial profiling. The practices the suit refers to include extended stops and detentions of Latinos to verify their status or for other immigration-related purposes. Public comments from law enforcement officials leave little doubt they intend to use these tactics.

These practices are pre-empted by federal law and violate the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures, because of the prolonged time involved in stops and detentions. They further violate the equal protection clause because of the section’s discriminatory intent. The motion says: “Discriminatory animus permeated the sequence of events leading up to the passage of S.B. 1070, informed legislators’ views of the law, and ultimately suffused the entire legislation with anti-Latino and anti-Mexican bias.”

The plaintiffs are also asking the court to enjoin another Arizona law, which turns alleged violations of a federal anti-harboring law into a state crime. The federal law prohibits bringing undocumented immigrants into the United States, or shielding them. Courts have enjoined similar laws in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina since, like Arizona’s, they were clearly pre-empted by federal law.

Until both Arizona laws are blocked, the harms facing the plaintiffs are severe and terrifying — what Mr. Arpaio has inflicted on too many Latinos, and what the Arizona Legislature intended to inflict on far too many more.