Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio can no longer raid Phoenix-area workplaces under the guise of enforcing Arizona state laws that community advocates say were actually used to target and terrorize immigrants.
Immigrant rights organizations in Arizona hailed the Jan. 5 temporary order from U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell.
They said the two identity theft statutes in question were used to “criminalize” undocumented workers who were supporting their families.
The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), which is part of a class action lawsuit to stop the raids, released news of the court decision.
Campbell ruled that the raids, which resulted in the arrests of more than 700 immigrants over the years, are likely to be unconstitutional and that they cause “irreparable harm” to people who are working. Many of the immigrants who sued are members of Puente, a Phoenix-based human rights groups.
The two laws make it illegal for a person without immigration documents to use stolen or fake identity documents to secure employment, according to The Arizona Republic.
The judge’s order also applies to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. Lawsuit supporters contend that the state laws violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
“Arpaio and Montgomery are being stripped of the tools they used to illegally terrorize immigrant workers and families,” Carlos Garcia, executive director of Puente, said in a statement.
“We hope that justice will continue to prevail, that not one more worker is arrested for providing for his or her family and that the racist, anti-immigrant machine for which Arizona is known is dismantled completely.”
Campbell’s decision ends a form of cruelty, at least for now, that keeps families apart and disrupts neighborhoods in the Phoenix area, said Jessica Karp Bansal, NDLON’s litigation director and an attorney who is working on the case.
“Neither the Maricopa County sheriff nor the county attorney are above the law, and this decision stands for the principle that they can no longer unconstitutionally criminalize the immigrant community with impunity,” she said in a statement.
The Arizona Republic noted that the workplace arrests could lead to felony convictions, and that until last year when a controversial state law was thrown out by a federal court, immigrants arrested in the business raids were ineligible for bail.
After the arrests, federal immigration agents arrived at the county detention center and the deportation process began.
The media organization cited a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office spokesman as saying that Arpaio disagrees with the judge’s ruling. Whether local law enforcement officials should be participating in immigration enforcement – typically a federal responsibility – remains controversial throughout the country.
In December, Arpaio’s office confirmed that it was disbanding its immigration squad that made workplace raids. A month earlier, another federal judge dismissed another Arizona state about smuggling that Arpaio used in immigration enforcement operations.
For Noemi Romero, a worker arrested during a 2012 raid, the lawsuit and decision this week illustrate what can happen when people organize and shed their fear.
“When I was led away from my job in handcuffs, I never thought I would see the day that we took Arpaio and Montgomery to court instead of the other way around,” Romero said in a statement. “Now, others in our community won’t have to suffer like we did.”
In recent months, workers in various U.S. cities have stepped up to challenge what they consider to be unfair laws or employment practices.
In November, Chinese immigrant restaurant workers in San Francisco won a $4 million settlement from their employer. In the same month, restaurant workers in Los Angeles won a long-fought victory over unpaid wages at a restaurant in Little Tokyo.
Immigrants in Texas also are fighting to be paid for the hours that they have worked.