U.S. Supreme Court Must Rule Extreme SB1070 Unconstitutional
Los Angeles CA– On Wednesday, the High Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of SB1070, Arizona's extreme immigration law. Approved by the governor two years ago, Arizona's law has become the lightning rod for anti-immigrants who see it as the answer to the federal government's failure to fix the broken immigration system. Sadly, the law is fraught with enough loaded and broad sections that it may not, certainly not as written, withstand the High Court's review. At least four major sections of the law are so problematic that they face the toughest legal scrutiny yet. The landmark case is titled United States of America v. State of Arizona. The following is a statement for Angelica Salas, Executive Director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), a non-profit community organization based in Los Angeles.
"Let it be resolved, then, that Americans, regardless of skin color, accent, dress style, or where they were born, will not be discriminated against, held suspect, torn apart from their loved ones, or cast out of the American Dream. If allowed to stand, SB1070 endangers our nation's proud immigrant heritage, mocks our constitution, and decreases our moral standing before each other.
Once the Supreme Court is convinced of Arizona's myopic, opaque, and divisive approach to unauthorized immigration, which has historically been the purview of the federal government, we expect them to strike it down. The road to discrimination must reach a dead end.
America is the land of the free, where a man or a woman is judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin or where he was born. America is a multicultural nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. America is better than SB1070."