For immediate release
Contact Person: Victor Sanchez 407-924-1802
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court correctly decided that some provisions of
SB 1070 were unconstitutional but the Court allowed the racial profiling
provision to go into effect.
The provisions of SB1070 that were struck down include: making it a
state crime for an undocumented person to seek or engage in work in Arizona.
The provision allowing for warrantless arrests of those suspected of
immigration violations was also struck down by the High Court. Rights Working
Group welcomes the court’s decision on those provisions of the law, noting that
the decision should serve as warning to other states considering passing
similar laws that such an unwarranted intrusion into federal immigration
enforcement is unconstitutional. Though the Court upheld SB 1070’s racial profiling
provision, the decision leaves open the door for it to be overturned on other
grounds and opportunities for the lower courts to keep the law from going into
effect based on existing challenges to SB 1070 from civil rights groups.
As an organization that we fight for an immigration reform, we calls on
the nation to stand with communities of color in Arizona, who will bear the
brunt of this racial profiling law, and to continue to fight for constitutional protections—such
as the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the law—to be
restored. WE also calls for passage of the End Racial Profiling Act, which
would ban racial profiling based on race, religion, ethnicity, national origin,
and gender at the federal, state and local levels.
We urges President Barack Obama to exert leadership in fighting against
all forms of racial profiling, adopt policies that will require all law
enforcement agencies to ban racial profiling. We also calls on all advocates of
racial equality and fairness to redouble their efforts to fight against SB1070
and all other discriminatory laws.
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