Los Angeles became the largest city yet to boycott Arizona business over new immigration law

LOS ANGELES  on Wednesday became the largest city yet to boycott Arizona over its tough new law targeting illegal immigration in a move that likely will affect some $8 million in contracts with the state.The City Council voted 13-1 to bar Los Angeles from conducting business with Arizona unless the law is repealed. The vote followed an emotional council discussion during which many members noted that their ancestors were U.S. immigrants.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa already has said he would approve the boycott.The proposal could affect investments and contracts worth as much as $52 million, including contracts for airport, harbor and trucking services, according to a report from the city’s chief legislative analyst. That report recommends the council consider suspending travel, cutting contracts and refraining from making any new ones with Arizona-based companies.

But Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who co-authored the resolution, said it would be impractical to cancel most of those deals and only about $7 million to $8 million in city contracts probably would be affected.

“US Airways is based in Arizona and they certainly fly in and out (of Los Angeles)” and it would hardly be feasible to end those flights, Hahn said before the council vote.Hahn said the Los Angeles boycott also won’t affect the city’s Department of Water and Power, which has wind farm and nuclear energy contracts in Arizona. Among the contracts with Arizona companies that conceivably could be terminated include those for helicopter services, Taser guns, waste management, engineering and surveillance equipment.

Hahn said “the best scenario” would be to turn around and give those contracts to California suppliers.The resolution claims that Arizona’s new law encourages racial profiling and is unconstitutional. The law, set to take effect July 29, requires police enforcing another law to question a person about his or her immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the United States illegally and makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. Several lawsuits seeking to block its implementation are pending in U.S. District Court in Phoenix.

Some polls have shown strong popular support for the Arizona law and critics are concerned that other states may follow up with their own versions.Several cities across the country have passed resolutions or urged boycotts to protest the law, including California cities such as Oakland and San Diego. A nonbinding resolution approved Tuesday by San Francisco city supervisors urges a boycott of Arizona-based businesses and asks sports leagues not to hold championship games or tournaments there.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said the boycotts are unfortunate and misguided, primarily because the law mirrors a federal requirement that legal immigrants carry immigration papers.”It’s already the law in the United States, and I have a responsibility to stand up and protect the people of Arizona and we will do that,” Brewer said Tuesday.Charges that the law will lead to racial profiling are “just pure rhetoric,” Brewer said.

“I find it really interesting that we have people out there that are attempting a boycott in favor of illegal actions in Arizona. That to me is just unbelievable.”Of the resolution in Los Angeles, Hahn said: “We want to stand back and say that we’re against it. We’re hoping that Arizona will be the last state to do this instead of just the first state to do it.”The city staged a similar economic boycott against South Africa during apartheid and against Colorado after voters in 1992 passed a state law repealing local ordinances that banned discrimination against homosexuals.(AP)

road blocks to Arizona's tough new law on illegal immigration that has thrust the state into the national spotlight

PHOENIX A referendum drive and a lawsuit have emerged as potential road blocks to Arizona’s tough new law on illegal immigration that has thrust the state into the national spotlight.The legal action set to be filed Thursday in federal court is aimed a preventing enforcement of the controversial measure, while the ballot question could put it on hold until 2012.

Signed last week by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, the law requires local and state law enforcement to question people about their immigration status if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally, and makes it a state crime to be in the United States illegally.A draft of the proposed lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press shows the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders will seek an injunction preventing authorities from enforcing the law. The group argues federal law pre-empts state regulation of national borders, and that Arizona’s law violates due-process rights by allowing suspected illegal immigrants to be detained before they’re convicted.

Other Hispanic and civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, are also planning lawsuits. And U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said the federal government may challenge the law.On Wednesday, a group filed papers to launch a referendum drive that could put the law on hold until 2012 if organizers wait until the last minute to turn in petition signatures needed to get the measure on the ballot.

Opponents of the law have until late July or early August to file the more than 76,000 signatures  the same time the law is set to go into effect. If they get enough signatures, the law would be delayed until a vote.But the deadline to put a question on the November ballot is July 1, and a referendum filing later than that could delay a vote on the law until 2012, officials with the Secretary of State’s Office said.”That would be a pretty big advantage” to the law’s opponents, said Andrew Chavez, head of a Phoenix-based petition-circulating firm and chairman of the One Arizona referendum campaign.The legislation’s chief sponsor, Republican Rep. Russell Pearce, said he has no doubt voters will support the new law at the ballot box, which would then protect it from repeal by the Legislature. In Arizona, measures approved by voters can only be repealed at the ballot box.The clergy group’s lawsuit targets a provision allowing police to arrest illegal-immigrant day laborers seeking work on the street or anyone trying to hire them, according to the draft. It says the solicitation of work is protected by the First Amendment.

State Rep. Ben Miranda, a Phoenix Democrat who will serve as the local attorney on the case, said it was important to file the suit quickly to show local Latinos and the rest of the country that there’s still a chance the law won’t be enacted.”I think there’s real damage being caused right now,” Miranda said. “How do you measure the kind of fear … going on in many parts of this community?”At least three Arizona cities also are considering lawsuits to block the law. Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said the measure would be “economically devastating,” and called on the City Council to sue the state to stop it from taking effect.

The council rejected that idea Tuesday, yet the mayor told reporters he retained legal counsel to prepare a lawsuit to file on behalf of the city.Tucson leaders also are considering their options to block the law, and Flagstaff City Councilman Rick Swanson said the city had a duty to protect its residents who might be targeted.

Meanwhile, the effect of the law continued to ripple beyond Arizona.A Republican Texas lawmaker said she’ll introduce a measure similar to the Arizona law next year. Texas Rep. Debbie Riddle of Tomball said she will push for the law in the January legislative session, according to Wednesday’s editions of the San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle.And Republicans running for governor in Colorado and Minnesota expressed support for the crackdown. “I’d do something very similar” if elected,” Former Rep. Scott McInnis, told KHOW-AM radio in Denver.

Arizona immigrant advocates are preparing to move the fight to the courtroom

Arizona’s strict new immigration law escalates, immigrant advocates are preparing to move the fight to the courtroom, where their legal challenges have successfully sunk other high-profile laws against illegal migrants.The American Civil Liberties Union, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Immigration Law Center are set to announce in Phoenix on Thursday plans to challenge the measure.

The law, which is set to take effect in mid-summer, makes it a state crime for illegal migrants to be in Arizona, requires police to check for evidence of legal status and bars people from hiring or soliciting work off the streets.

The key legal issue, according to lawyers on both sides, will be one that also was at the center of the court fight over Proposition 187 in California whether the state law interferes with the federal government’s duty to handle immigration.The announcement of legal action, one of several expected as attorneys across the country scrutinize the law for weaknesses, comes after days of frantic e-mails, conference calls and lengthy strategy sessions. Attorneys haven’t finalized when a court challenge would be filed, but said it would be before the law takes effect.

“The entire country has been galvanized,” said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. “People within the legal community are trying to figure out what we can do…. We have seen an enormous amount of energy responding to this.”

Attorneys who successfully challenged laws against illegal immigrants in California, Texas and elsewhere argue that the Arizona law faces a similar fate because of the federal/state issue. Immigrant advocates also argue that the law could violate guarantees of equal protection if selectively enforced against certain ethnic groups.”The Arizona law is doomed to the dustbin of other unconstitutional efforts by local government to regulate immigration, which is a uniquely federal function,” said Peter Schey, a Los Angeles attorney who led both successful challenges to the 1975 Texas law denying illegal migrant children a free public education and the 1994 California initiative that would have barred public services to illegal migrants. Schey said he also planned to file a separate lawsuit.

But the attorney who helped write the Arizona law said he carefully crafted the measure to avoid those constitutional issues.Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor who handled immigration law and border security under U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft during the Bush administration, said the law does not seek to regulate immigration but merely adds state penalties for what are already federal crimes.

Under the legal doctrine of “concurrent enforcement,” he said, states are allowed to ban what is already prohibited by federal law. As an example, he said, the courts have upheld efforts by Arizona, California and other states to enact sanctions against employers who hire illegal migrants.Kobach, who is running as a Republican candidate for Kansas secretary of state, also dismissed claims that the bill will result in racial profiling. He said he took care to include an explicit ban on using “race, color or national origin” as the sole basis for stopping someone to ask for papers.

“I anticipate that anyone who challenges the law will throw everything but the kitchen sink at this to see if it will stick,” Kobach said. “But this is consistent with federal law.”Indeed, immigrant advocates raise several legal questions. The portion of the law that prohibits laborers from soliciting work in public places is particularly vulnerable, said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF.

The organization has successfully challenged similar laws in Arizona and California. In 2008, a federal judge ruled that an Arizona town could not enforce an anti-solicitation ordinance that advocates said infringed upon the free speech rights of day laborers.In addition, there probably will be due process claims because police officers won’t know who would be eligible for immigration relief, Saenz said. Many arrested won’t have the opportunity to make their claims in immigration court.”There are a lot of people who are going to be arrested and swept into this dragnet who have every right to be in this country,” he said.

Even before lawsuits are filed, immigrant advocates are seeking a commitment from federal officials that they will not enforce the law.On Tuesday, Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee that the law could distract the agency from using its resources to go after serious criminals.”We have concerns that at some point we’ll be responsible to enforce or use our immigration resources against anyone that would get picked up in Arizona,” said Napolitano, who noted that she had vetoed similar measures as Arizona governor.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder also said this week that he was considering a possible legal challenge to the law.Another lawsuit may come from one of Arizona’s own elected officials. Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said this week that he planned to file a lawsuit.”I have under the charter the ability given to me by the people to file a lawsuit on behalf of the people,” Gordon said Tuesday to cheers from a packed City Council meeting and one angry cry of “socialism!”

As both sides gear up for their legal battle, the wild card is the panel of judges who will end up deciding the case.Judges have ruled differently on key immigration questions. In 2007, a federal judge ruled that a Pennsylvania city couldn’t punish landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and employers who hire them. A federal judge also ruled against a Texas measure that sought to ban landlords from renting to illegal migrants.Advocates didn’t succeed, however, in getting the courts to block another Arizona law, which shuts down businesses for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. In 2008, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused to stop the law before it took effect, saying that businesses and immigrant rights groups hadn’t shown an adequate need for delaying enforcement.

Schey said he is not confident that legal challenges against the Arizona case would prevail in today’s political and legal climate. The U.S. Supreme Court is a very different panel today than it was when a narrow majority of 5 to 4 struck down the 1975 Texas law denying free education to unauthorized migrant children.”It’s a far cry from a slam-dunk case,” Schey said. “It’s a very close call with the current composition of the Supreme Court. What’s really needed here is federal leadership.”

But Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Irvine’s law school dean, argued that the Arizona law is a far more brazen attempt to regulate immigration than either the Texas or Proposition 187 cases. The Texas law was overturned primarily on equal protection grounds while the California law was struck down as an unconstitutional attempt to usurp federal immigration responsibility.”It is so firmly established that only the federal government can control immigration that I don’t see it,” he said, referring to chances that courts would uphold the Arizona law. “Even with a conservative court and a lot of sympathy to Arizona’s concerns, I don’t see it.”