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PHOENIX—Dozens of protestors were arrested Thursday, July 29, the fi rst day Arizona enacted its immigration law.
Despite a federal court judge’s blockage of key provisions of SB 1070 including sections that required offi cers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and to have immigrants carry their papers at all times, opponents of Arizona’s immigration law went ahead with their planned protest and several were arrested when they confronted offi cers in riot gear, the Associated Press reports.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who signed the controversial law in April, through a spokesperson said she would immediately appeal US District Judge Susan Bolton’s decision last Wednesday to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
"[Just] a bump in the road," said Brewer to the AP.
Arizona has one of the nation’s largest illegal immigration populations, with more than 400,000 undocumented residents. There are several thousand Filipinos who also live in Arizona but the exact number of undocumented Filipinos is unknown in the region.
The AP reports that the state’s border with Mexico is awash with smugglers and drugs that funnel narcotics and immigrants throughout the US, and supporters of the new law say the infl ux of illegal migrants drains vast sums of money from hospitals, education and other services.
But many opponents of Arizona’s law saw Bolton’s decision last Wednesday, July 28, as a win saying that if the law was enacted as is with officers being allowed to check a person’s immigration status and for immigrants to carry their paperwork at all times that it would lead to racial profiling and other forms of discrimination.
"There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new (law)," Bolton ruled. "By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose."
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