Community groups blast Arizona SB 1070

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton's ruling yesterday temporarily halting select provisions ofArizona's SB1070 is a good start towards defeating the controversial legislation. Unfortunately, the ruling leaves intact the status quo of anti-immigrant racial profiling and immigration-police collaboration, setting the groundwork for heightened harassment and arrests of immigrants.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton's ruling yesterday temporarily halting select provisions ofArizona's SB1070 is a good start towards defeating the controversial legislation. Unfortunately, the ruling leaves intact the status quo of anti-immigrant racial profiling and immigration-police collaboration, setting the groundwork for heightened harassment and arrests of immigrants.

Judge Temporarily Blocks Provisions of SB1070

The ruling let stand a section on day laborers in which police will be allowed to charge persons with "harboring and transporting" immigrants who have no valid immigration documents.

The ruling suspended implementation of several widely-criticized sections of SB1070, including:

• Requiring an officer to determine the immigration status of a person stopped, detained or arrested if there's reasonable suspicion about their status.
• Criminalizing the failure to apply for or carry "alien-registration papers."
• Criminalizing undocumented immigrants who solicit, apply for or perform work.
• Prohibiting the warrantless arrest of a person where there is probable cause to believe they have committed a public offense that makes them deportable from the United States.

The remaining sections of SB1070, set to become law Thursday, July 29, continue criminalizing persons who "look" or "sound" immigrant, and Arizona police will be able to continue harassing and detaining people for immigration status.

Condemn SB1070, End All Immigration-Police Collaboration

As SB1070 now stands, immigrant families, workers and communities will be more vulnerable to abuse, violence and exploitation at the hands of hate groups and other unscrupulous police, landlords, businesses and employers. Additionally, the temporary halt of select provisions of SB1070 will embolden other states and localities to attempt passing copy-cat laws and ordinances.

NNIRR and its members are urging the Obama Administration to take action to stop all provisions of SB1070, and to end all immigration-police collaboration programs around the country. These programs help foster SB1070 and other similar state proposals.

Instead of expanding federal funding of immigration policing and border militarization, or allowing Arizona and other states to use federal stimulus monies on immigration policing, NNIRR will be pressing the Administration and Congress to invest in living wage job creation, expanding social, health and education services and programs that provide for community health and safety for all.

Key websites for information and connections to campaigns and work against SB-1070:

• Coalición de Derechos Humanos, Tucson, AZ
  
• Puente Movement Arizona, National Day Laborer Organizing Network (Phoenix, AZ and LosAngeles, CA) 
  
• Presente.Org
  
• Sound Strike
  

For a list of actions and media contacts for July 29, 2010, visit the NNIRR blog.