New Arizona Law is Dramatic Example of

Federal Government’s Failure to Lead on Immigration

Governor Jan Brewer Fails To Muster the Political Courage to Do the Right Thing

Washington D.C. – Today Governor Jan Brewer signed SB1070 into law. It’s the harshest and most extreme legislation to deal with the broken immigration system anywhere in the country. The new law enshrines racial profiling, prevents local law enforcement from doing their jobs effectively, and will be prohibitively expensive to implement. These problems are in addition to the serious constitutional and legal questions surrounding the new law, guaranteeing that costly legal action is an inevitable outcome on enacting such a proposal. The law is opposed by Arizona law enforcement, a diverse coalition of faith leaders, immigrants’ advocates, civil rights leaders, and legal scholars.

Governor Brewer’s politically expedient decision is likely to have implications for the immigration debate. Emboldened by the success of a harshly anti-immigrant measure in Arizona and a failure of the federal government to lead on immigration reform, anti-immigrant legislators all over the country will likely introduce new extreme measures in their own state legislatures.

This law is bad public policy and won’t solve Arizona’s problems. It’s heat-of-the-moment legislation that gives Arizonans false hope in a state law designed to solve a much bigger federal problem. It will not end drug trafficking, it will not stop violent crime, and it takes the focus of law enforcement away from real criminals. Our broken immigration system is a serious national problem that requires a serious federal solution.

“Governor Brewer’s decision shows a stunning lack of judgment and is an insult to our nation’s constitution,” said Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum and Chair of the Reform Immigration FOR America campaign. “This law only appeals to people’s fear and their understandable anxiety about the economy, and does nothing to serve Arizona, much less our nation.  Governor Brewer’s failure to lead, however, rivals that of federal officials who have failed, year after year, to reform our immigration system and reassert federal control. In the absence of federal action, states have taken matters into their own hands – with increasingly disastrous results. This law is a wake up call to the Obama administration and Congress. The majority of Americans want President Obama and Congress to take immediate action on comprehensive immigration reform.  Enough excuses, the time to act is now. The Republican Party needs to pick a side: the majority of Americans who want immigration reform or the extremists who want to profile anyone who looks or sounds like an immigrant.”

###