Strict immigration enforcement won one and lost one Wednesday in the courts.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed an appeal by a coalition of civil rights groups that are challenging the “show me your papers” provision of Arizona’s immigration law, known as SB 1070.
The provision calls on police, while enforcing other laws, to question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned parts of the Arizona enforcement law known as SB1070 but ruled that a key provision on requiring police to ask people about their immigration status under certain circumstances can be implemented.
The Obama administration challenged that law in 2010 after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law.
In Montgomery, a federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a request from Alabama officials to reconsider its latest ruling in which the court invalidated some provisions of the state’s immigration law.
The Montgomery Advertiser reports that the court rejected a request that the full court review the decision of a three-judge panel.
The court did not give a reason for denying the request.
In August, the court invalidated several parts of the state’s immigration law.
These included provisions that made contracts with immigrants unenforceable and that made it a crime to “harbor, conceal or shield” undocumented immigrants from law enforcement.
The 11th Circuit ruled the contracts provision was designed to make the lives of undocumented immigrants so difficult they would be forced to leave the state.
The appeals court ruled that the Alabama schools provision wrongly singles out children who are in the country illegally.
Alabama was the only state that passed such a requirement and the 11th Circuit previously had blocked that part of the law from being enforced.
The court also upheld Alabama’s “show me your papers” provision in Alabama’s law that allows police officers to ask someone they stop for another reason -and who they suspect may be in the country illegally- for their immigration documents.
Both private groups and the Obama administration filed lawsuits to block Alabama’s law, considered the toughest in the country.
