UFCW, SEIU lead suit against Arizona immigration law

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4486

By Mark Gruenberg
23 May 2010

WASHINGTON - The United Food and Commercial Workers and the Service Employees, are leading, with civil liberties groups, a class-action suit to stop Arizona’s new law targeting people based solely on the suspicion they are undocumented. The groups sued on May 17 in federal court in Phoenix.

The law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer, R-Ariz., and passed by the legislature’s Republican majority, orders state and local law enforcement officials to stop anyone they suspect of being undocumented and demand they immediately produce proof they legally live in the U.S.

Those who cannot immediately produce such papers are arrested and detained and could be deported.

Both large unions, which have tens of thousands of Spanish-speaking members, were outraged. Both also are among many groups that will boycott Arizona until the law is repealed or declared unconstitutional.

“Arizona's legislation is unworkable, it is unconstitutional and it undermines our nation's rich immigrant history and heritage. It is a recipe for racial profiling and a marked retreat from the values and ideals that make America strong,” UFCW President Joe Hansen said when the class-action suit was filed.

“For our members, this issue is personal. UFCW members have seen first-hand how enforcement-only tactics fuel racial profiling – and lead to the trampling of our Constitution,” he declared. He specifically cited Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, undertaken during the anti-worker GOP Bush government, against unionized Swift & Co., meatpacking plants.

full STORY AT LINK.