Fedearl Court Finds Arizona Immigrant Smuggling Law Preempted by Federal Immigration Law
Photo courtesy of U.S. District Court, District of Arizona website
Once again, the state of Arisona is in the news with respect to immigration and once again has been told by a federal court that its efforts to facilitate enforcement of the U.S. immigration laws have gone to far.
A U.S. district court on Friday struck down the state’s 2005 immigrant smuggling law that, like many state immigration enforcement statutes, because it conflicted with the federal government’s power to regulate immigration. Here is Judge Susan Bolton‘s opinion in United States v. Arizona. As she succinctly concluded, “The Ninth Circuit’s holding in Valle del Sol Inc. v. Whiting dictates that federal law preempts A.R.S. § 13-2319 on both field and conflict preemption grounds.”
The Arizona law empowered local law enforcement authorities to prosecute smugglers who brought people across the U.S./Mexico border into Arizona, and carried stiff penalties for traffickers who coerced immigrants into labor or prostitution.
The Phoenix New Times lamented that “The ruling comes nine years too late to prevent the turmoil and wasted resources that came from the 2005 law’s use and abuse as a political tool by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.” The Sheriff’s Office, which has a curious “Mugshot of the Day” feature on its website, has been the subject of many court orders seeking to end discriminatory enforcement of the law (including an order last month that Sheriff Arpaio take the same training as his deputies on racial profiling).
Generally speaking, the courts after the Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. United States in 2012 have struck down in large part many state and local immigration enforcement schemes, including those passed by Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. The same has happened to many local ordinances of this type, including those passed in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and Farmer’s Branch, Texas. The Supreme Court to this point has refused to review the decisions in those cases and, at least for now, has said its piece on the lawfulness of such laws, i.e., that they intrude on the federal power to regulate immigration.
Click here for the New York Times report on the most recent federal court ruling on Arizona’s efforts to regulate immigration.
KJ