lawyer

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the most hotly disputed part of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, S.B. 1070, which requires police to determine the immigration status of someone arrested or detained when there is “reasonable suspicion” they are not in the U.S. legally. The ACLU, along with a coalition of civil rights organizations, will continue to challenge the Arizona law on other constitutional grounds.

After SB 1070 passed in 2010, two dozen copycat bills were introduced in state legislatures across the country; five passed in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah. The ACLU and a coalition of civil rights organizations have filed lawsuits in all six states.

Laws inspired by Arizona's SB 1070 invite rampant racial profiling against Latinos, Asian-Americans and others presumed to be "foreign" based on how they look or sound. They also authorize police to demand papers proving citizenship or immigration status from anyone they stop and suspect of being in the country unlawfully.

Today, the political tide is turning against immigration policy modeled after SB 1070. After observing the widespread harms caused by these laws, legislators in Mississippi, Virginia, Kansas and many other states are distancing themselves from this discriminatory model.