Arizona files countersuit tied to challenge of its immigration law

Even as the federal lawsuit challenging Arizona's strict immigration law remains tied up in an appellate court, the tensions over the case have ratcheted up, with the state firing a legal shot back at the Obama administration.

Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, filed the unusual countersuit last week against the federal government, accusing it of failing to secure the southwest border against a tide of illegal immigrants. The lawsuit, or counterclaim, was filed as part of the same case in which the Justice Department is seeking to have the Arizona law declared unconstitutional.

The department sued Arizona in July over the immigration law, which empowers police to question people who they suspect are in the country illegally. The law has triggered a fierce national debate. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is considering whether to allow the measure's most contested provisions to take effect.

"We did not want this fight. We did not start this fight," Brewer said as she announced the state's countersuit Thursday at a news conference in Phoenix attended by a handful of protesters. "But, now that we are in it, Arizona will not rest until our border is secured and federal immigration laws are enforced."

The state's lawsuit names Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who preceded Brewer as governor. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, but Matt Chandler, a spokesman for Napolitano, called the lawsuit "a meritless court claim" that "does nothing to secure the border."

Obama administration officials say they have heightened security along the border through measures such as the Southwest Border Initiative launched in 2009.

Legal experts say Arizona has little chance of winning the lawsuit, which seeks a judgment declaring the government in violation of its obligation to secure the border and compensation for Arizona's costs for detaining illegal immigrants. The state says illegal immigrants account for more than 14 percent of its prison population.

Lawsuits against the federal government are barred in most circumstances under a doctrine known as "sovereign immunity," and Arizona lost a similar lawsuit it filed over federal immigration enforcement in the mid-1990s. The 9th Circuit upheld a lower court's dismissal of that case, partly on sovereign immunity grounds.

"They lost then, and I think they're going to lose now,' said Louis Moffa, a law professor at Rutgers University who is an expert on immigration and constitutional law. He said the suit "makes some forceful arguments, but it's a political lawsuit."