Civil rights groups are making a last-ditch effort this afternoon to keep a key provision of the state's immigration law from being enforced as early as next week.
Earlier this year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was wrong of Judge Susan Bolton to have enjoined the papers please provision of SB 1070 before it ever took effect. The high court rejected claims by the Obama administration that requiring police to question those they stop about their immigration status is precluded by federal law. Bolton subsequently denied a separate request by civil rights groups for an injunction based on claims the law is racially biased, saying that Supreme Court ruling precludes any sort of pre-enforcement action. Attorney Linton Joaquin of the National Immigration Law Center said Bolton was wrong because they presented real evidence of problems unrelated to the earlier case.
"Discriminatory intent played a role in the enactment of the law, that it will cause prolonged detention that is illegal both under the 4th Amendment, and that it violates preemption for that reason," Joaquin said. "That's based on evidence in our record that was not in the U.S. case. And it's based on claims that were not in the U.S. case."
Joaquin and others now want at least a temporary stay while they make those arguments to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But time is working against them. Bolton could act as soon as Monday to dissolve her earlier injunction as ordered by the Supreme Court.
