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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Judge Lifts Arizona’s ‘Papers Please’ Injunction

PHOENIX (CN) - Arizona police can enforce the "show me your papers" provision of the state's immigration law after a federal judge dissolved an earlier injunction.

Section 2(B), also known as the "papers please" provision, requires police officers in the state to check the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest if "reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States."

Though U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton enjoined the provision and several others in 2010, the Supreme Court in Washington said it could not apply the federal supremacy clause against Section 2(B) since the law had not yet gone into effect.

Bolton lifted her injunction Tuesday to comply with that June 2012 finding.

The provision is one of the more controversial components of the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act of 2010, more commonly known as SB1070.

When she enjoined four provisions in July 2010, Bolton said that "it is not in the public interest for Arizona to enforce preempted laws."

Nearly two years later, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for a four-member majority: "However the law is interpreted, if §2(B) only requires state officers to conduct a status check during the course of an authorized, lawful detention or after a detainee has been released, the provision likely would survive preemption - at least absent some showing that it has other consequences that are adverse to federal law and its objectives."

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer applauded the lifted injunction, stating that she has "full faith and confidence that Arizona's state and local law enforcement officers are prepared" to enforce the law.

"I've never claimed that SB 1070 would cure Arizona's problems with illegal immigration; only the federal government has the resources and responsibility necessary to achieve that," Brewer said in a statement. "What SB 1070 does represent is one more tool that our officers can use in collaborating with federal authorities to reduce the crime and other impacts associated with illegal immigration in our communities."

Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, countered that laws "requiring people to be judged by the color of their skin have no place in the U.S."

"While courts have yet to stop all of SB1070, all of us who believe in human rights and cherished constitutional values have an obligation to do everything we can to ensure that Arizona's current lawmakers are on the losing side of history," Alvarado said in a statement.

Back in June, Kennedy did not rule out "other preemption and constitutional challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect."

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