By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services/Arizona Daily Star
Arizona goes back to court this week over SB 1070, this time to defend a provision aimed at day laborers.
Attorneys for the state contend the provision in the 2010 anti-illegal immigrant law making it a crime for someone to enter a car stopped on the street to go to work elsewhere is a way of controlling traffic, which is a legitimate goal of the state.
That same law also criminalizes drivers who stop to pick up laborers.
But they have to convince the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a trial judge was wrong earlier this year when she barred the state from enforcing the provision.
Judge Susan Bolton said the real purpose behind the provision is not traffic control but to attack the practice of day laborers hanging around home improvement stores waiting for offers. And being a day laborer, she said, is not a crime.
If you’d like to discuss immigration matters, Brian Bergin, bbergin@roselawgroup.com
