Appeals court reverses ban on Sheriff Joe Arpaio workplace raids
Megan Cassidy, The Republic | azcentral.com12:28 p.m. MST May 2, 2016
A federal court of appeals has lifted a judge's ban on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's controversial workplace raids, according to a decision released Monday.
The ruling reverses a preliminary injunction issued last year by U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell. Campbell is presiding over a federal lawsuit in which Puente Arizona and other civil-rights groups are challenging the merits of two state laws that make it a felony for undocumented immigrants to use stolen identities to obtain work.
In Campbell's January 2015 ruling, Campbell said the laws likely were unconstitutional because they are pre-empted by federal law.
Monday's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling disagreed.
The opinion, issued by Senior District Judge Robert S. Lasnik and Circuit Judges Barry G. Silverman and Richard C. Tallman, rejected the notion that the laws uniformly were pre-empted by federal law.
The panel found that although some applications of the laws may conflict with the federal government, there wouldn't be an issue when they were used against U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
It is unclear how the ruling would affect the day-to-day operations of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.
Arpaio had disbanded his work-site unit before the preliminary injunction.
He could not be immediately reached for comment.
“It’s a setback, but we think we will prevail. We are considering a number of different options going forward.”
," said Jessica Vosburgh, a staff attorney for National Day Laborer Organizing Network
Plaintiffs' attorneys said they disagreed with the legal analysis that the panel used to come to their decision.
"It’s a setback, but we think we will prevail," said Jessica Vosburgh, a staff attorney for National Day Laborer Organizing Network. "We are considering a number of different options going forward."
Although the underlying suit challenges the laws themselves, it names Arpaio and County Attorney Bill Montgomery as defendants, arguing that they used the laws less for law enforcement and more as a deportation machine.
Attorneys representing immigrant-rights group Puente, the American Civil Liberties Union and several other plaintiffs filed the motion for a preliminary injunction shortly after filing a class-action lawsuit in June 2014. That suit seeks to eliminate the last legal footing Arpaio had to conduct his own brand of immigration enforcement using workplace raids.
The ID-theft provisions were enacted as part of an attempt by lawmakers to crack down on employers of undocumented workers under the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act.
Under federal law, workers are required to show employers identification proving they are authorized to work legally in the U.S.
Undocumented immigrants, however, often used documents with invented, borrowed or stolen Social Security numbers to get jobs.
The Arizona law made it a felony to use ID theft to gain employment, even in cases where the worker was using fictitious names with invented Social Security numbers that belonged to no one.
After the law was passed, Arpaio, and former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, used the ID-theft provisions as legal backing to conduct work-site raids that overwhelmingly targeted workers, not employers.
Montgomery continued the practice of prosecuting undocumented workers for ID theft after taking office in November 2010.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/...aids/83835390/ 
