A series of decisions handed down by federal courts recently have overturned laws in Arizona designed to target illegal immigrants.
According to the Los Angeles Times, one of the decisions directly undermines the efforts by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, "America's toughest sheriff," who has been using a state identity theft law to conduct workplace raids and prosecute immigrants who have sought employment while in the country illegally.
Federal law dictates that it is not a crime to seek employment regardless of immigration status, but Arizona had changed the legal definition of identity theft, making it a crime to seek employment without valid documentation.
A group of immigration rights groups successfully sued Arizona, the county, and Arpaio, arguing that federal law supersedes state law.
"These laws were one piece of a tool kit that Sheriff Arpaio used to terrorize immigrant communities," said the plaintiff's attorney, Jessica Karp, according to the Times, "and that tool kit is being taken apart."
The plaintiffs included a woman convicted for seeking employment under the definition of identity theft in Arizona along with a taxpayer who objected to the use of tax dollars to enforce the law, the Times reported.
A defendant in the case, County Atty. Bill Montgomery, however, said the ruling reflects a lax attitude toward illegal immigration by the Obama administration.
"While pretending to address the concerns of people admittedly violating the law, the victims of identity theft are deprived of the state of Arizona's protection," Montgomery said in a statement, according to the Times.
The defendants are considering an appeal but U.S. District Judge David Campbell, who ruled on behalf of the plaintiffs and ordered an immediate end to the state's application of identity theft law, said an appeal would likely not succeed.
"Plaintiffs have shown that they are likely to succeed on the merits, that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction, and that the balance of equities and public interest favor an injunction," Campbell wrote, according to the Times.
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