Judge blocks parts of South Carolina immigration law
South Carolina is barred from enforcing several key areas of its new law aimed to curb illegal immigration, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, the sixth state to have an immigration law stymied by the courts.
U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel temporarily blocked parts of South Carolina’s measure. He ruled that the federal government has exclusive constitutional authority to regulate immigration and the state’s law would disrupt federal enforcement operations.
The U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of civil rights groups had sued to keep some aspects of the law from going into effect on January 1.
The judge said South Carolina could not require police officers to check the immigration status of a person they stop for even a minor traffic violation if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the country illegally.
This “state-mandated scrutiny is without consideration of federal enforcement priorities and unquestionably vastly expands the persons targeted for immigration enforcement action,” Gergel said.
Gergel also barred South Carolina from making it a felony for anyone knowingly to harbor or transport an undocumented person.
The state cannot require immigrants to carry federal alien registration documents because such registration is under the exclusive control of the federal government, the judge said.
The state Attorney General’s Office did not respond to questions about whether it will appeal the ruling.
GET TOUGH
South Carolina is among the states that have enacted tough new laws against illegal immigration in the last two years, citing inaction by the federal government that has left a void in immigration policy.
But federal judges have consistently blocked the attempts, halting key parts of other immigration laws passed in Alabama, Georgia, Arizona, Utah and Indiana.