For Federal Judge in Arizona, Not All Words Are Equal

John Park / August 06, 2010

Last week, a federal judge appointed by President Bill Clinton, Judge Susan Bolton, blocked the enforcement of Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which was passed in an effort to control the flow of illegal immigrants into Arizona. In order to do that Judge Bolton gave a reading of the law and the evidence that the parties presented that fails to meet one of the fundamental principles of statutory interpretation: The court should give effect to each of the words of a statute if possible.

Section 1373(c) of Title 8, U.S. Code, requires the Department of Homeland Security to “respond to an inquiry by a Federal, state, or local government agency, seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship status . . . for any purpose authorized by law, providing the requested verification or status information.” To do that, the United states told the court that DHS established the Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC), which, “serves as the national enforcement operations center that promptly provides immigration status and identity information to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies regarding aliens suspected of, arrested for, or convicted of criminal activity.” The United States explained, “Congress established the LESC to provide alien status determination support to federal, state, and local law enforcement on a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week basis.” (All emphasis in quotations is mine.) (more…)