http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-967821.mp3
Phoenix, AZ – The law approved last year is designed to give police more power to detain and arrest illegal immigrants. But a federal judge last year issued an injunction against key provisions of SB 1070, concluding they likely are unconstitutional. And last month a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling. Governor Jan Brewer said she thinks the nation's high court will not see it that way.
(First and foremost we are a nation of laws. And we believe in the rule of law. And the bottom line is is that the federal government has not done their job. We need to get this issue up to the Supreme Court to get the injunction lifted as quickly as possible.)
But in granting the injunction the trial judge said -- and the appellate court agreed -- that letting Arizona enforce its own immigration law would damage the ability of the federal government to conduct international relations, far more than the state is damaged by putting the law on hold. Senate President Russell Pearce who crafted the law, said the courts got it wrong.
(I mean, what about the hardships -- $2.7 billion to educate, medicate and incarcerate those that are in this country illegally, just in Arizona. Yeah, I do worry about hardships. I worry about the hardships on the citizens and the law-abiding Americans that every day expect government to do what's right.)
Arizona will not know until at least October whether the high court will agree to review the case -- and maybe not until next spring to get a ruling. For Arizona Public Radio this is Howard Fischer.