With the Supreme Court expected to rule next week on Arizona’s tough law against illegal immigrants, activists on both sides are preparing to pounce on the issue, whether manning voter registration drives in Georgia and Arizona, reviving lawsuits in Alabama and Indiana or dusting off stalled copycat bills in Pennsylvania and Mississippi.
Hispanic and pro-immigrant groups say they are preparing for a major disappointment from the high court, which they believe is likely to uphold the right of state and local police to question and detain suspected illegal immigrants. But they also plan to use the expected blow to rally immigrant communities to defend their rights, seek legal assistance and sign up to vote.
“Arizona will become hotter now, and this will give permission to other states to pursue their own laws, but we are already working to ensure it makes the Latino community stronger and more engaged,” said Ben Monterrosa, executive director of Mi Familia Vota, a civic-action group based in Phoenix that is co-organizing public forums and media messages across the state in anticipation of the ruling.
“We have only just begun to fight,” said Justin Cox, a lawyer in Atlanta with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit last year against laws in Arizona and five other states that allow police to check the status of suspected illegal immigrants and mandate other sanctions that may conflict with federal law. Cox said legal opponents will now challenge the laws on other grounds, including due process and civil rights.
On the other side of the divide, sponsors and supporters of get-tough laws against illegal immigrants say that if the high court upholds Arizona’s statute — which makes it a crime to be in the United States illegally and allows the state to use police as immigration-law enforcers — lawmakers who have been rebuffed in more cautious states will leap into the fray and push for similar crackdowns.
“If the court rules in our favor, we will have a lot more momentum to continue the fight to protect our citizens against the invasion of illegal immigrants,” said Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R), who introduced a bill similar to Arizona’s in 2010 and chairs a legislative committee that has passed other illegal-immigration bills. “Our state has had $1.4 billion in education and health and detention costs,” he said. “This affects every state in the nation.”
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), a former law professor who authored much of the Arizona statute, predicts that the Supreme Court will “vindicate all the work we’ve been doing and the work of state legislators and city council members who are trying to take reasonable steps to discourage illegal immigration.”
Kobach said the court’s ruling on Arizona will have “a huge impact” on the fate and influence of an even stronger measure in Alabama, which allows police to question and detain suspected illegal immigrants, requires schools to determine if new students are legal and bars undocumented immigrants from many transactions. “Cooperation with state and local law enforcement is the linchpin of this effort,” he said.
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