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http://content.usatoday.com/communities … igration/1

Obama team sues Arizona over immigration



President Obama's Justice Department has made it official, filing suit against the Arizona law targeting illegal immigrants on the grounds that it preempts federal authority.

"The Constitution and federal law do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local immigration policies throughout the country," the lawsuit says.

The suit also asks a judge to block the law before it takes effect on July 29.

Reaction is falling upon predictable political and ideological lines -- though President Obama himself isn't likely to make a statement today.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Cal., called Obama's lawsuit "disgraceful," saying the federal government has failed to protect Arizona's border residents who "now find themselves over-run by drug cartels, gangs and human trafficking."

The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, said the Arizona law invites "racial profiling" by expanding the right of police officers to ask people about their citizenship.

"The administration's lawsuit is a cannon shot across the bow of other states that may be tempted to follow Arizona's misguided approach," said Lucas Guttentag, Director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project.

During his immigration speech last week, Obama said the Arizona law and similar proposals are "understandable," but "also ill-conceived."

Laws like Arizona's put huge pressures on local law enforcement to enforce rules that ultimately are unenforceable (and) it puts pressure on already hard-strapped state and local budgets," Obama said.

Obama also said:

    These laws also have the potential of violating the rights of innocent American citizens and legal residents, making them subject to possible stops or questioning because of what they look like or how they sound. And as other states and localities go their own ways, we face the prospect that different rules for immigration will apply in different parts of the country, a patchwork of local immigration rules where we all know one clear national standard is needed.

Arizona's two Republican senators -- John McCain and Jon Kyl -- issued a statement calling the lawsuit premature at best.

"The American people must wonder whether the Obama Administration is really committed to securing the border when it sues a state that is simply trying to protect its people by enforcing immigration law," McCain and Kyl said.

(Posted by David Jackson)

Last edited by west-phoenix-az (2010-07-06 13:43:24)