ACLU sues to stop SC illegal immigrant law

[Jeanfromfillmore]

ACLU sues to stop SC illegal immigrant law
COLUMBIA -- Civil rights groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union are suing to prevent South Carolina’s tougher new illegal immigration law from taking effect in January.
The lawsuit filed on Wednesday in a Charleston federal court is another legal challenge brought against states that passed ever-tougher illegal immigration laws, saying the federal government isn’t doing enough to enforce its laws.
The lawsuit names Gov. Nikki Haley and state Attorney General Alan Wilson as defendants along with Charleston County’s sheriff and a state prosecutor. The legal challenge had been expected since Haley signed the bill into law on June 27.
Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey pointed out that the governor is the daughter of legal immigrants and that the ACLU should butt out. Haley “understands that no American value is more sacred than the rule of law,” Godfrey said. “That’s what this is about – nothing more, nothing less. And if the ACLU was really about what they claim to be, they’d stay out of our business and let us enforce our laws.”
The South Carolina law requires police to check suspects’ immigration status and mandates that all businesses check their hires through a federal online system. It is similar to those the ACLU is challenging in Alabama, Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia.
In the lawsuit, the groups say that South Carolina violates the U.S. Constitution by attempting to regulate immigration, a “function that is constitutionally committed exclusively to the federal government.”
State ACLU Executive Director Victoria Middleton said in a statement that “by requiring local law enforcement officials to act as immigration agents, this law invites discrimination against anyone who looks or sounds `foreign,’ including American citizens and legal residents.”
The groups said that the new law subjects citizens and others to unlawful interrogations, prolonged detentions, and arrests. “Individuals perceived as `foreign’ by state or local law enforcement agents will be in constant jeopardy of harassment and unlawfully prolonged detention and arrest,” the lawsuit said.
ACLU lawyer Andre Segura said in a statement the law needs to be blocked “as it tramples our American values, interferes with federal laws and risks turning South Carolina into a police state.”
This week, the U.S. Department of Justice asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to block enforcement of Alabama’s law until an appeal can be heard. The court will have to decide whether to issue an injunction. A federal judge in Birmingham already as blocked parts of the law. The Justice Department says the U.S. Constitution doesn’t give states the authority to deter illegal immigration or regulate an issue with foreign policy implications.
Advocacy groups have told the courts Latino residents in Alabama are being told they’d have water service cut off if they don’t prove their immigration status.

Read more: http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/10/12...#ixzz1acXShDAF

[wetibbe]

I can tell you what should be done with the ACLU but it would be too provocative.