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SUPREME COURT MUST REVIEW OBAMA LAWSUIT AGAINST ARIZONASeptember 12, 2011 - For Immediate Release
DENVER, CO. The Supreme Court of the United States must review a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that an Arizona law adopted to address the impacts of illegal immigration is unconstitutional, a nonprofit, public-interest legal foundation with decades of experience in constitutional and immigration issues urged today. Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) argued in its friend of the court brief that a three-judge panel of the appeals court erred when, in April 2011, in a 2-1 opinion, it upheld a ruling by an Arizona federal district court that portions of S.B. 1070 are unconstitutional. The panel’s ruling concerned a lawsuit filed by the Obama Administration that followed similar lawsuits by the ACLU, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), NAACP, and others. In July 2010, the Arizona court agreed with federal lawyers that the Arizona law conflicted with federal law and therefore was preempted. MSLF also supported Arizona before the Ninth Circuit. “Because the panel could not find that Congress expressly preempted S.B. 1070, it used the ‘doctrine of obstacle preemption’ to invalidate the law, thus doing grave harm to federalism and separation of powers,” said William Perry Pendley, MSLF president. “This Court must abandon that doctrine.” On April 23, 2010, Arizona Governor Janice K. Brewer signed Arizona S.B. 1070 into law. Arizona House Bill 2162 made additional changes to S.B. 1070 and was signed by Governor Brewer on April 30, 2010. The intent of S.B. 1070 is, through “cooperative enforcement of federal immigration laws” “to make attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state and local government agencies in Arizona” and “to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States.” After passage of S.B. 1070, seven lawsuits were filed challenging its constitutionality. The lawsuit filed on July 6, 2010, by the United States seeks a declaration that some provisions of S.B. 1070 are unconstitutional because they are preempted by federal law. Concurrently, the United States filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction seeking to enjoin all those provisions until the district court could issue a final decision on the merits. On July 28, 2010, the district court granted the United States’ motion, in part, and preliminarily enjoined certain provisions of S.B. 1070. On July 29, Arizona and Governor Brewer appealed to the Ninth Circuit. On July 30, the Ninth Circuit denied Arizona and Governor Brewer’s motion for expedited briefing and placed the case on its November 2010 calendar. After the Ninth Circuit rules, the case will return to Arizona federal district court. Mountain States Legal Foundation, founded in 1977, is a nonprofit, public-interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system. Its offices are in suburban Denver, Colorado. United States v. State of Arizona, United States Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit, Case No. 16645
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Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) is a nonprofit,
public interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty, the right
to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and economic freedom. It is an Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3) entity
incorporated in the State of Colorado. Csontributions
to Mountain States Legal Foundation are tax deductible. [Mission] [Press
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