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Fortunately, Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court issued a preliminary injunction against sections of the law, scheduled to take effect on Thursday.
Following are excerpts from the NYT article on Judge Bolton's ruling.
A spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who signed the law and has campaigned on it for election to a full term, said Wednesday that the governor would appeal the injunction on Thursday and ask for a speedy review. Legal experts predicted that the case could end up before the Supreme Court.
The ruling came four days before 1,200 National Guard members were scheduled to report to the Southwest border.
Judge Bolton, appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, did allow some, less debated provisions of the law to go into effect, including one that bans cities from refusing to cooperate with federal immigration agents.
But she largely sided with arguments in a lawsuit by the Obama administration that the law, rather than closely hewing to existing federal statutes, as its supporters have claimed, interferes with longstanding federal authority over immigration and could lead to harassment of citizens and legal immigrants.
“There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens,” she wrote. “By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose,” she said, citing a previous Supreme Court case, a “ ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.”
“This fight is far from over,” said Ms. Brewer, whose lawyers had argued that Congress granted states the power to enforce immigration law particularly when, in their view, the federal government fell short. “In fact,” she added, “it is just the beginning, and at the end of what is certain to be a long legal struggle, Arizona will prevail in its right to protect our citizens.”State Senator Russell Pearce, a Republican and chief sponsor of the law, said in a statement that he was confident that the sections blocked by Judge Bolton would survive on appeal.
But Gabriel Chin, a professor at the University of Arizona School of Law who has studied the law, called the ruling “a nearly complete victory for the position of the United States.”
He noted that she ruled in the federal government’s favor on most of the points it challenged.
Aside from stopping the requirement that the police initiate immigration checks, the judge also blocked provisions that allowed the police to hold anyone arrested for any crime until his immigration status was determined.
“Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked,” she wrote.
She also said Arizona could not make it a state crime for non-citizens to be in the state without proper documents, nor could it allow the police to conduct arrests without warrants if officers believed the offense would result in their deportation. She said there was a “substantial likelihood” of wrongful arrests.
The parts of the law she did allow were not challenged by the Justice Department, but do figure in some of the other lawsuits filed. They include forbidding “sanctuary city” policies by allowing residents to sue the local authorities if they adopt policies restricting cooperation with the federal government in immigration enforcement.
She also let stand a provision aimed at day laborers, who are mostly Latin American immigrants, by making it a crime to stop a vehicle in traffic or block traffic to hire someone off the street. But she blocked a provision that barred illegal immigrants from soliciting work in public places.
Terry Goddard, the Arizona attorney general who opposed the law and is a possible Democratic opponent to Ms. Brewer, was quick to condemn her for signing it. “Jan Brewer played politics with immigration, and she lost,” he said in a statement. ( I will vote for Terry Goddard. He's a good man.)
But Republican candidates, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, who is seeking re-election, criticized the Obama administration for bringing suit.
“Instead of wasting taxpayer resources filing a lawsuit against Arizona and complaining that the law would be burdensome,” Mr. McCain said in a joint statement with Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, “the Obama administration should have focused its efforts on working with Congress to provide the necessary resources to support the state in its efforts to act where the federal government has failed to take responsibility.”
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(The following post was created before Judge Bolton issued her ruling on the Arizona Immigration Law and I am attaching it to this post.)
Classical musicians would most certainly include Mozart, Bach and Beethoven on this post. While they wrote great music I am not going to go there because I am sticking with light classics. My definition of light classics would be melodies familiar to a larger group of people.
Claude Debussy Clare de Lune - Maria Kovalszki, Pianist
This selection is in every pianist's repertoire.
Pavane pour une infante defunte Vladimir Ashkenazy
Conductor S. Ozawa
Stranger In Paradise (theme from the Godfather) melody borrowed from Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky. Andrei Reiu, violinist.
Jalousi, The Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler, conducting
