Challenge to Anti-Immigrant Utah Law Heard Today

From Bloomberg News:

A Utah law requiring police to verify the immigration status of people arrested on felony charges violates the American Constitution and must be blocked, the U.S. Justice Department said.

That measure was included in a package of four bills signed into law last year by Governor Gary R. Herbert as parts of a legislative package he then called “the Utah solution” to undocumented immigration issues.

Justice Department lawyers in a hearing today are asking U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups in Salt Lake City for an order temporarily blocking the status verification law and two other statutes they say conflict with the constitutional powers of the federal government.

“In our constitutional system, the power to regulate immigration is exclusively vested in the federal government,” the U.S. argued in court papers. “The state of Utah has crossed this constitutional line.”

Attorneys for the federal government are also asking Waddoups to block enforcement of measures authorizing police to arrest without a warrant people they believe are subject to the removal order of an immigration judge and making it a felony to encourage or induce an undocumented alien to enter or settle in Utah. Read more…

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