If you’d like to discuss immigration matters, Brian Bergin, bbergin@roselawgroup.com
The Associated Press
Before leading the way for other states to pursue immigration laws, Arizona passed a ban on human smuggling in 2005 that has led to more than 2,100 arrests and 
drawn criticism for a tactic in which people who pay to be sneaked into the country are charged as conspirators to the crime.
Seventy-five percent of the people charged under the smuggling law in the state’s largest county since 2008 have been charged with conspiring to sneak themselves into the country, drawing complaints from immigrant rights advocates that the statute was intended for often-violent smugglers, not their customers.
“It’s just a misuse of the law,” said Antonio Bustamante, one of the attorneys pushing the lawsuit.
A lawsuit that seeks to bar such conspiracy prosecutions is intensifying as lawyers for the state’s biggest county recently asked a judge to throw out the case and immigrant rights advocates seek class-action status that would let any person charged with conspiracy under the smuggling law to join the case.
