United States: Supreme Court Agrees to Review Arizona Immigration Enforcement Law
The Court will rule on whether Arizona’s controversial — and currently enjoined — statute is invalid because it conflicts with federal law.
The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to review the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (S.B. 1070), Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law. S.B. 1070 is being challenged by the Obama Administration, which argues that the statute is invalid because it conflicts with federal immigration law.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction that blocked Arizona from implementing several key portions of the law. The injunction prohibits the state from requiring law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of persons reasonably suspected of being undocumented, making it a crime to fail to carry immigration documents, making it a crime to seek or perform work without employment authorization and authorizing police officers to arrest an individual without a warrant if there is probable cause to believe that person had committed an offense rendering him or her removable from the United States.
Since S.B. 1070 was enacted last year, several other states have enacted similar laws, most recently Alabama and South Carolina. In recent weeks, a federal district court upheld several Alabama provisions modeled on the currently enjoined portions of Arizona’s law.
The challenge to S.B.1070 will be the second Arizona immigration case heard by the Supreme Court in the last year. In May, the Supreme Court upheld the Legal Arizona Workers Act, which allows the state to suspend the business licenses of employers who hire unauthorized workers and requires employers to use the E-Verify system.
Source: Fragomen