Constitutional Law

Arizona Border County Sheriff Calls S.B. 1070 "Absurd"

By Suzanne Ito, ACLU

Last night on the Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow interviewed Antonio Estrada, Sheriff of Santa Cruz County, which is on the U.S.-Mexico border. When Maddow asked his opinion of Arizona's new racial profiling law, S.B. 1070, Sheriff Estrada said:

It's absurd. I'm totally against it and I really hope it goes away. It's like a nightmare. I think it's something we cannot afford to be [saddled] with…we cannot, as small agents, especially here along the border, cannot afford to have another level of responsibility and jurisdiction. We're not prepared for it, we're not trained for it, and we shouldn't be doing federal work.

The ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, the ACLU of Arizona, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the National Immigration Law Center have teamed up to challenge this extreme new law. We'll be filing the lawsuit Monday, and will have more details soon.

Full post as published by Blog of Rights on May 14, 2010 (boomark / email).