Comprehensive Reform the Only Way To Avoid 50 State Patchwork of Immigration Laws 

Washington D.C. – Today, the Department of Justice filed its long-awaited lawsuit against SB1070, Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, on grounds that the state’s new immigration law illegally intrudes on federal prerogatives. It invokes the legal doctrine of preemption, a concept in the Constitution’s supremacy clause that says federal law supersedes state statutes. The following is a statement from Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum and Chair of the Reform Immigration FOR America Campaign. 

“The Department of Justice did their job and took a strong stand in defense of the United States Constitution and to protect American citizens. Let me be clear: Arizona’s law is the wrong approach, and we fully support the administration’s effort to overturn this law.  The President described it as “misguided,” but it’s worse than that. Arizona’s law violates the Constitution, represents an unchecked government intervention that violates the constitutional rights of every American, undermines law enforcement’s ability to fight crime, and discriminates against U.S. citizens based on skin color or accent.  

While public opinion research has shown that a majority of Americans support the Arizona law, it is also true that equal or greater numbers of Americans support comprehensive immigration reform.  The only responsible path for the President, now that the Department of Justice has filed this suit, is to redouble his efforts to ensure that there is a federal solution to our nation’s broken immigration system – comprehensive immigration reform. We cannot, and should not have a 50-state patchwork of immigration laws. Immigration is a federal responsibility and the Department of Justice reasserted control today.