Federal Judge David Campbell today said workplace raids ordered by Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery are probably unconstitutional and should stop immediately, until a final decision is reached on the issue.
This preliminary injunction in the suit Puente v. Arpaio prohibits Arpaio and Montgomery from enforcing two Arizona laws that have been used to convict hundreds of undocumented workers, charged with identity theft for using fake or stolen IDs to get jobs, as reported by The Associated Press today.
Arpaio enjoyed sending his troops to random locations, where he suspected there would be undocumented workers. He arrested a lot of people that way.
From an American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona press release:
Judge Campbell concluded that these workplace raids cause irreparable harm and that plaintiffs are likely to succeed with their legal challenge. He ordered an end to the workplace raids.
“This comprehensive and careful court order should be the final nail in the coffin for these unconstitutional raids,” said Dan Pochoda, senior counsel for the ACLU of Arizona.
“This is an enormous victory for our community,” said Carlos Garcia, executive director of Puente, a Phoenix-based human rights group that is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. “Arpaio and Montgomery are being stripped of the tools they use to illegally terrorize immigrant workers and families. We hope that justice will continue to prevail, that not one more worker is arrested for providing for his or her family and that the racist, anti-immigrant machine for which Arizona is known is dismantled completely.”
Arpaio also recently lost a chance to move forward with a lawsuit against Obama over his recent immigration action, which protects many undocumented parents of U.S. citizen or legal resident children from deportation.
His 2014 didn’t end right, and 2015 is starting shitty, too.
Sorry, Joe.
This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2015.
That’s a crock. I wonder how the judge would feel if an illegal used his identity to get a job.
Why not move the operation to DMV? I heard the government hustled the illegals over there.
“stripped of the tools they use to illegally terrorize immigrant workers and families”
It’s like 1984. Up is down. Legal is illegal. Enforcing the law is illegal, but violating the law is sanctioned by the court.
I guess we should do what the ACLU wants and just stop having a border. Flood the market with cheap illegal labor. It’s good for the rich and the American worker be damned. Nobody likes the American working class, not Republicans, not Democrats.
Maybe now Gung-ho Joe can try investigating the thousands of other crimes that he ignored while on his crusade.
Anything that makes the ACLU happy can’t be good. ACLU…American Clueless Losers Union.
Sad, we used to be a nation of laws, now thanks to the American Clueless Losers Union…or ACLU and liberal judges and a prick of a president the criminals (illegals) can now pick and choose the laws they see fit.
So ID theft is NOT against the law? I bet the Chi-com and Ruski hackers are glad to hear that news.