 A demonstrator cries as he is arrested during a protest against Arizona's controversial Senate Bill 1070 immigration law outside Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office in Phoenix July 29, 2010. REUTERS/Joshua Lott
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PHOENIX - Police arrested at least 30 protesters who took to the streets of Phoenix Thursday after Arizona adopted a new immigration law, even though its most intrusive provisions had already been blocked by a U.S. court.
Hispanic and labor activists, delighted by Wednesday’s last minute ruling, pushed ahead with protests in central Phoenix, chanting, banging drums and blocking a street to challenge the law’s remaining measures aimed at illegal immigrants.
Tensions over the law inflamed a national debate over immigration, which has festered for decades and promises to play into the elections in November, when President Barack Obama’s Democrats are fighting to retain control of Congress.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was expected to file an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco later in the day to reinstate the provisions, heralding a long legal fight that is expected to reach the Supreme Court.
Analysts said the ruling by a U.S. District Court judge on Wednesday would “at least hit the pause button” for as many as 20 other states around the country where Republican lawmakers are considering similar rules to those in the Arizona law.
“If the Supreme Court upholds the injunction that will most likely put a real damper on any potential legislation,” said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Texas.
The Republican-controlled state legislature passed the law three months ago to try to drive nearly half a million illegal immigrants out of Arizona, and stem the flow of human and drug smugglers over the border from Mexico
In a victory for Obama, who is trying to reassert federal authority over the issue, a U.S. District Court judge on Wednesday granted an injunction against the most controversial elements, which had drawn wide popular support in this state bordering Mexico.
The blocked provisions included one that required a police officer to determine the immigration status of a person detained or arrested if the officer believed they were not in the country legally.
HAVE TO CARRY DOCUMENTS
Immigrants would also have been required to carry their documents at all times and undocumented workers would have been forbidden to solicit work in public.
Measures not subject to the stay, and which went into effect on Thursday, included offenses making it illegal for drivers to pick up day laborers from the street and to transport or harbor an illegal immigrant.
The law is popular with a majority of Americans and 65 percent of Arizona voters, although opponents charge it is unconstitutional and would lead to discrimination against Latinos, and Latino-looking Americans.
Late on Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a $701 million package aimed at bolstering security along the U.S. border with Mexico, funds Obama sought earlier in the year as the fight in Arizona over illegal immigration grew.
The money, which includes $208 million for 1,200 additional border patrol agents deployed to the southwest border, must still be approved by the Senate and it was not clear if that would happen before the chamber’s summer recess that begins late next week.
Several hundred activists rallied in central Phoenix, blocking the street outside a sheriff’s office. A group also obstructed the entrance to a jail in the city center, to protest the remaining measures in the law, known as SB 1070.
A Reuters witness saw police arrest more than 30 activists, including elderly women. The protesters offered no resistance and police led them away in plastic handcuffs.
“MORE TOOLS FOR COPS“
“We welcome the fact that the judge blocked some of the provisions in SB 1070 but ... we are continuing action to overturn the rest of the law, “ said Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
“Today is going to be worse that yesterday because there will be more laws on the books, more tools for cops,” he said.
Scores of day laborers set out to seek work at informal day labor sites in Phoenix, despite the new provision making it illegal for drivers to stop for them.
“We’re not criminals, we’re not hurting anyone ... We wish people would know that,” said Franco Escamilla, an undocumented laborer from Mexico said as he waited outside a Home Depot store in Phoenix.
A sheriff known for his tough approach to illegal immigrants in the Phoenix area, said he would push ahead with a crime and immigration sweep as planned on Thursday.
“It’s business as usual for this sheriff’s office,” Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.
