Posted on 07/10/2010 3:19:32 PM PDT by SandRat
A seventh challenge to Arizona's tough new immigration crackdown says training materials designed to teach police officers how to enforce the law give "vague and ill-defined factors" as reasons to question someone's legal status.
Officers aren't supposed to use a person's race to determine whether there's reasonable suspicion they're in the country illegally.
But the lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court, says the training materials developed by state police bosses allow officers to rely on things like whether a person speaks poor English, looks nervous or is traveling in an overcrowded vehicle. They can also take into account whether someone is wearing several layers of clothing in a hot climate, or hanging out in an area where illegal immigrants are known to look for work.
That will lead to "widespread" racial profiling of Hispanics, the lawsuit says.
"It's like having a law that tells police to go out and arrest all children but to not use the fact that a person looks like a child," Los Angeles-based attorney Peter Schey, lead counsel for the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit, said Saturday.
"Rather than training police officers about who is and who is not really deportable, the training materials focus on vague and ambiguous factors, such as a person's dress or limited ability to speak English or demeanor, whatever that means," Schey said. "An average law enforcement officer using those standards is inevitably going to focus on a person's physical appearance or race while being sure not to say that in his or her report."
Schey estimated that 2 million of the nation's roughly 12 million illegal immigrants are not eligible for deportation because they're in the process of seeking legal status.
The Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, which developed the training materials, did not return a phone call seeking comment Saturday. Spokespeople at the office of Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the law April 23 and ordered the board to develop the training materials, also did not return a call seeking comment.
The law, set to take effect July 29, already faces legal challenges from two police officers, other groups and the U.S. Justice Department, which says the law usurps the federal government's "pre-eminent authority" under the Constitution to regulate immigration.
The law's backers say Congress isn't doing anything meaningful about illegal immigration, so it's the state's duty to step up. They object to social costs and violence they say are associated with illegal immigration.
The latest lawsuit's filers, including the League of United Latin American Citizens, expect it to be heard by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, who is hearing the six other legal challenges. Bolton said this week that she is making no promises to rule on the lawsuits before the law takes effect.
The enforcement guidelines being challenged were adopted by the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board and will be distributed to all 15,000 Arizona police officers.
Police departments will decide the best way to teach their forces. There is no requirement that all 15,000 Arizona police officers complete the training before the law takes effect.
The new law generally requires officers enforcing another law _ like speeding or jaywalking _ to question a person's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
Border AZ SB-1070 Ping
We have our entire police force in the county trained to enforce immigration laws. The county stopped when Obowma said the feds would no longer pay for detention.
Instead the county used stimulus funds to add lights and new paving to the illegals encampment city out in the farming areas.
Alinzky Rules, overwhelm the system
Just like the liberals are making our Constitution via living and breathing, rotate on a moments demand, grayed out and not enforceable.
We can't let it happen.
I guess that means that only dark skinned minorities "speak poor English, look nervous or travel in overcrowded vehicles."
These liberals are such blatant racists.
ankle biters.
The law goes into effect this month ;-)
Critics say L.A. lawyer Peter Schey is ruining America by helping hordes of illegal immigrants stay here. Schey says his work's far from done.
By Susan Goldsmith
Peter Schey was raised on the story of the Nazis marching into Paris during World War II. His gentile mother and communist Jewish father escaped from France on one of the last planes to England. They were German refugees and knew what France's Jewish community was in for. In London, Schey's father met with Joseph Kennedy, then U.S. ambassador to Britain. He pleaded with Kennedy to issue visas for French Jews so they could come to the United States. But Kennedy wasn't persuaded. These people weren't America's problem and the U.S. government was not interested in helping them. The elder Schey was ushered out of the ambassador's office; in the months to come, thousands of French Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
... It was just a tragic story about someone who tried in his small way to alter the course of history and couldn't. But the story touched something deep inside the dark-haired, inquisitive boy and launched him on a mission he's still on today. Schey is obsessed with doing what his father couldn't, and for the last 25 years he's been on a single-minded course to prevent the U.S. government from closing its eyes to human suffering around the world. His preoccupation has changed America's demographics and radically altered the ethnic makeup of U.S. public schools.
One of the nation's preeminent immigration attorneys, Schey has helped more than 1 million illegal immigrants become American citizens. He was one of the first lawyers in the country to bring class-action lawsuits against the Immigration and Naturalization Service on behalf of illegals. He successfully led the fight against Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot measure that would have denied government benefits such as healthcare and education to undocumented residents of California. Schey also won the landmark 1982 Plyler v. Doe case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which allowed illegal immigrant children to attend public schools. Currently, he's representing more than 300,000 immigrants who were shut out of the 1986 federal amnesty program after they briefly traveled abroad. In April, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that at least 50,000 of Schey's clients in the case should be legalized. (He'll continue to battle the INS on behalf of the other 250,000 undocumented residents denied amnesty.)
"I think the government is genuinely afraid of him because of Peter's consummate skills as a lawyer. The government finds it very difficult to litigate against him," says nationally known immigration attorney Ira Kurzban. "He has pioneered a number of major class-action lawsuits [on behalf of illegals] dating back to the 1970s... His work has affected millions of people."
Schey is part of the reason that the multicultural faces of Los Angeles and other big cities around the country look the way they do. He was one of two attorneys who helped win political asylum for 30,000 Salvadorans who fled the U.S.-sponsored war in their country in 1982. In another class-action case, he forced the INS to reverse its policy of denying political asylum to Haitian refugees. He eventually won the right for more than 5,000 Haitians to permanently reside in the U.S. Through a petition he filed with the Organization of American States in the '90s, Schey forced the U.S. government to stop automatically returning Haitian boat people apprehended at sea before they had a chance to petition for asylum in the U.S.
Because of Schey's negotiations with the State Department, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president, who was ousted in a military coup, returned to power in 1994.
His legal and diplomatic swashbuckling has made him a god among human rights activists, the left-liberal crowd and many clergy members. He is the guy who brilliantly uses the Constitution to make sure this country keeps its arms open to the world's tired, huddled masses. He pushes the courts to protect the rights of those who've come here illegally -- until he can persuade the government to make them citizens.
"This man has championed this cause. It's in his blood," says Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles). ....
Congressman Howard Berman (D-Mission Hills), a member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims since 1985, says Schey is one of a tiny handful of attorneys who've "had the greatest imprint on immigration law in the country. The guy is smart, he's very forceful and he's a passionate advocate."
Is the State of AZ doing any fund raising to offset the cost of the legal defense?
“Locate the offices for the lawyers or groups filing the suits. Report them for suspected OSHA, NLRB, EPA infractions. Have a few slip-and-fall injuries at their places of business.”
I would just start filing civil rights suits against every ACLU member and donor. I would also go after the Sierra Club, PETA, NARAL, Moveon, etc. Just file massive lawsuits.
Reagan beat the Soviets by forcing them into bankruptcy. The formula works. Why aren’t we learning a lesson from Reagan?
Yep!
Go here http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-201107-0-days0-orderasc-.html&sid=b3adb305cbe7af1ca48fb50e17a3afd5
The judge should dismiss them all for not having any standing, like the lawsuits suing Obama to prove his natural born status.
Yesterday, I read that no American citizen had standing to question the eligibility of the Won because they couldn't individually demonstrate specific injury. So how does this suit, which alleges vague grounds as to how the law might be enforced in the future, merit standing? Don't they have to find some people who have been harmed (although illegals shouldn't have standing, so they'd have to find an offended citizen who was asked to show papers and released) as an example before moving on to the larger issue of the law's constitutionality?
As you can see, you beat me to the standing issue by one post!
Seems that you are the racist, elevating racial background over the nation's laws.
Peter Schey! Peter Schey! Peter Schey!
As much as a pain in the a_ _ it would be, I suggest the police stop everybody, issue them a legitimate “pass” document that states they are an American citizen (make sure the document cannot be easily reproduced illegally).
Everyone else is in deep doo doo if they can’t produce legitimate paperwork or pass a database source, and will be processed and deported. As long as the cops pull over everyone overtime and proceed with a quick check of this nature, the illegals will be caught, or flee and the rest of us can get on with life the way it used to be in America up until about 30 years ago. Oh, and you have to seal the border first otherwise it will become a never ending nightmare, kind of like it already is.
Already got mine, a U.S. Army Retired ID card as a Commisioned Officer.
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