Clergy group files first lawsuit challenging Arizona immigration law

Attorneys on Thursday filed the first lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a controversial new Arizona law that makes it a crime in the state to lack proper immigration papers and requires local police to determine whether people are in the country legally.

The federal lawsuit, filed by the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, alleged that the law improperly intruded into the federal government's ability to regulate immigration. The complaint seeks an injunction to keep the law, signed last week by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, from going into effect this summer.

"The national clergy felt it was time to move immediately," attorney Ben Miranda said at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Phoenix. "There's a need to calm fears that are out there."

The groups that overturned Proposition 187, California's 1994 anti-illegal-immigrant initiative, in federal court were scheduled to announce later Thursday their intentions to sue to block the Arizona law.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Immigration Law Center also were set to announce in Phoenix on Thursday plans to challenge the measure. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said this week that he was considering a possible legal challenge to the law.

The law, which is set to take effect in midsummer, makes it a crime in Arizona for illegal migrants to be in the state, requires police to check for evidence of legal status and bars people from hiring or soliciting work off the streets.

The key legal issue, according to lawyers on both sides, will be one that also was at the center of the court fight over Proposition 187 in California — whether the state law interferes with the federal government's duty to handle immigration.

"The entire country has been galvanized," said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. "People within the legal community are trying to figure out what we can do. ... We have seen an enormous amount of energy responding to this."

Attorneys who successfully challenged laws against illegal immigrants in California, Texas and elsewhere argue that the Arizona law faces a similar fate because of the federal/state issue. Immigrant advocates also argue that the law could violate guarantees of equal protection if selectively enforced against certain ethnic groups.