A federal judge has blocked crucial parts of Arizona's immigration enforcement law that was set to take effect on Thursday.
The law, S.B. 1070, will still take effect Thursday, but lacking some provisions like requirements to check a person's immigrant stats while enforcing other laws, according to the Associated Press. The state is also blocked from enforcing parts of the law that would require people to carry their immigration papers at all times, as well as a part that would have made it illegal for migrant workers to solicit work in public places.
The lawsuit was filed by the U.S. government against Arizona, arguing it would trump federal enforcement and lead to racial profiling.
Members of the Human Rights Campaign joined with civil rights organizations in Arizona in June to protest S.B. 1070. LGBT group Immigration Equality has also come out against the law, stating it would be damaging for binational couples.
"The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community knows all too well how easily people who 'look different' can be singled out for harassment and prosacution," Immigration Equality executive director Rachel Tiven wrote in April. "In addition, LGBT immigrant families are too familiar with the double burden of immigration discrimination. Now Arizona’s LGBT families have yet another reason to be alarmed. The state’s new law threatens to tear apart families, separate children from their parents and rip apart loving couples who are building their lives together. Forty percent of LGBT binational couples in the United States include a Latino family member. For them, and their loved ones, Arizona is now the most dangerous place in America."
A June poll of LGBT adults showed 63% did not support the new law. In contrast, 60% of heterosexual voters supported the law, according to Harris Interactive and Witeck-Combs Communications, which polled 2,700 people in May.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is pictured above.
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