Legal Commentary

Nebraska's Fremont City Council Suspends Imposition of Immigration Law

By Jeralyn

The ACLU reports that the city council in Fremont, NE has suspended the enactment of its anti-immmigrant resolution that would requires prospective renters to provide the Fremont Police Department with information about their citizenship or immigration status prior to renting any home.

The ACLU filed suit (documents here.) The law passed on June 21 and was scheduled to go into effect on July 29. It's a law that, like SB 1070 in Arizona, invites discrimination against those "who look or seem foreign." [More...]

"The city of Fremont did the right thing by stopping this unconstitutional ordinance from going into effect right now," said Jennifer Chang Newell, staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project.

"Allowing the law to go into effect before the court rules on whether it's constitutional would needlessly create even more divisiveness in the town and increased hostility toward Latinos and other people perceived as being foreign. In the meantime, we will continue to fight to stop this ordinance from ever going into effect."

On to Arizona. The Judge is still considering whether to stay the law, set to take effect on July 29. Hundreds of union members in Los Angeles are forming a caravan to travel to Phoenix Thursday and protest.

True to form, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is planning an big outside jail to house the protesters. He's also going to conduct his 17th crime and immigration sweep on Thursday, even if the law is blocked from taking effect.

Across Arizona, police are being trained how to spot the undocumented.

Many of the state's 15,000 police officers have been watching a DVD released this month that signs that might indicate a person is an illegal immigrant are speaking poor English, looking nervous or traveling in an overcrowded vehicle. It warned that race and ethnicity do not.

Some agencies added extra materials, including a test, a role-playing exercise or a question-and-answer session with prosecutors.

Lots of other action is also expected Thursday:

A march from the state Capitol is planned at 4:30 a.m., followed by a prayer service, a rally outside Arpaio's office and later that afternoon a concert outside a Maricopa County jail, according to the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network. The protesters both from Arizona and elsewhere plan to show up without identification and hold peaceful rallies.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 28, 2010 (boomark / email).