Legal Momentum Files Amicus Curiae Brief in Effort to Block Arizona’s SB 1070

Legal Momentum’s Immigrant Women Program has filed an amicus curiae brief in support of a lawsuit filed in Arizona federal court to block implementation of the state’s notorious immigration law, S.B. 1070. The brief, filed in conjunction with Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, pertains to the lawsuit, Friendly House v. Whiting, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), the National Immigration Law Center and the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center.

The brief outlines key areas where Arizona’s new law undermines federal civil rights protections for immigrant women and their families, including those who are victims of violent crime. The law is an evisceration of decades of humanitarian incentives by Congress to protect the health and safety of all people living in the United States, regardless of legal status.

The brief notes that over the past two decades, the United States Congress and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have made major strides towards addressing the vulnerabilities of immigrant women and the widespread barriers to help that are experienced by immigrant victims of domestic violence, trafficking, and sexual assault. Many laws have been enacted to protect these women and families, rights that Congress has called essential for the prevention of violence against women. Specific laws have been established to protect immigrants from arrest or deportation when they report crimes or participate in prosecution. In addition, federal law guarantees that all persons, without regard to immigration status, have access to programs and services necessary to protect life and safety, including shelter, emergency medical services, victim assistance, soup kitchens and disaster relief.

Yet Arizona S.B. 1070 is a direct assault on all of this. Of the countless devastating consequences of the law, it threatens the safe and health of immigrant women and children, it increases the risk that immigrant mothers will be separated from their children, and it punishes immigrant victims of violence.

S.B. 1070 puts immigrant women and their children at risk of being detained or arrested any time they leave their homes. Those in need of aid and federal services will no longer seek help because of fear. These critical services include, but are not limited to, Emergency Medicaid for immigrant women and children, shelters and transitional housing, and community-funded health clinics offering urgently needed health care, including child care.

Additionally, S.B. 1070 devastates the right of a mother to safely care for her children, regardless of legal status. Children will perpetually be at the risk of losing their mothers, who will face the constant threat of deportation in all locations, including the workplace, the home, and even places of worship. Children who are separated from their mothers will be placed in the overburdened foster care system because S.B. 1070 disregards federal “sole-caregiver” humanitarian release protections that offer primary caretaker parents alternatives to detention. In Arizona, 84 percent of children with at least one immigrant parent are U.S. citizens.

Because they are unable to participate in the family law cases that ensue after separation, immigrant mothers often face permanent termination of parental rights. Separation and the subsequent placement of the child in foster care is in nobody’s best interest, especially mothers and their children.

Finally, S.B. 1070 punishes immigrant victims of violence by hindering victims’ ability to report a crime without fear of persecution. In their pursuit of detaining undocumented immigrants, Arizona law enforcement is even allowed to stake out rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters, locations even federal law enforcement are strongly cautioned against operating in. Currently, fewer than 20 percent of battered immigrant women who are undocumented or who have temporary legal status seek help from law enforcement, compared to more than half of battered women generally. These numbers will drastically fall with the implementation of S.B. 1070, as victims will rightly fear deportation and persecution by Arizona law enforcement.

Indeed, S.B. 1070 will cause irreparable harm to immigrant women and children and must be immediately stopped. Legal Momentum’s brief concludes, “SB 1070 deters immigrant women from so much as leaving their homes, let alone from affirmatively contacting law enforcement or going to schools, health care providers and social service agencies related to the care and nurturing of their children. The law chills the exercise of legal rights, stops pursuit of justice system remedies, and cuts off immigrant women and their children from federally funded services that protect life and safety and prevent significant morbidity and mortality among immigrant women.”