This morning, the Supreme Court handed down its decision on SB 1070, Arizona’s economically devastating anti-immigrant law. The Court struck down three of SB 1070’s four provisions and issued strong guidelines to limit the scope of Section 2(b), the only piece of the law that was upheld. Section 2(b), the racial profiling provision popularly known as “papers please,” continues to expose immigrants and communities of color to discrimination at the hands of law enforcement. Today’s decision assures future challenges to the provision and virtually ensures that it will not survive in the real world. As this decision gets returned to the lower courts to define the contours of the guidelines around the “papers please” section, other states should be increasingly wary of following Arizona’s economically destructive and divisive path.
Today, the Supreme Court voted in a 5-3 decision to strike down three provisions of Arizona’s controversial anti-immigrant SB 1070, while narrowly upholding a fourth part of the law that requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect may be undocumented. The decision sends a strong warning to states still considering similar anti-immigrant measures. Progressive States Network’s Director of Policy and Strategic Partnerships, Suman Raghunathan, issued the following statement following today’s ruling.
In this week’s Research Roundup: Recent reports from the Food Chain Workers Alliance on workers in the food production and food services industries, the Center for American Progress on the facts on minimum wage hikes and how austerity is hammering state economies, National Employment Law Project on Walmart’s domestic outsourcing, the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute on working parents’ lack of access to paid sick leave, Make the Road New York on small business support for a paid sick leave standard, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on some basic facts around state and local government workers, Immigration Policy Center on the Obama Administration’s new “deferred action” deportation policy, and a report from researchers at Occidental College and the University of Northern Iowa on the lack of support for most “job killer” allegations in the media.
This messaging resource will help unpack the provisions being challenged, sketch out likely outcomes for the decision, and frame the debate in ways that spotlight the failings of the SB 1070 approach and the way forward: through common-sense immigration policies that expand economic opportunity for all residents, both immigrant and native-born.
"This morning’s announcement by the Obama administration that DREAM Act eligible students and others will be allowed to apply for deferred action and work authorization is a common-sense, humane, and responsible action that will immediately bring hope to hundreds of thousands young undocumented Americans seeking nothing more than to continue to live in their country and contribute to our economy. We applaud the administration for taking decisive, practical action today that immediately allows so many talented young people already living here to, for the first time, see a real future for themselves in their nation."
Wage theft, or the systemic non-payment of wages by unethical employers, is a growing problem affecting millions of workers across the country and costing states billions of dollars in lost tax revenue. Yet, only a few states are starting to address the problem in earnest through legislation – and the vast majority have laws that are grossly inadequate. Those are the conclusions of an extensive, first-of-its-kind evaluation of state laws, Where Theft is Legal: Mapping Wage Theft Laws in the 50 States, released by Progressive States Network. The report grades individual states across the broad body of state laws needed to comprehensively address this growing national crime wave, and concludes that 44 of the 50 states (plus Washington D.C.) deserve failing grades.
Last Friday, Governor Robert Bentley signed into law a head-scratcher of a bill, HB 658, which not only fails to address the catastrophic provisions of HB 56, but doubles down on its failed attrition-through enforcement strategy and cements Alabama’s standing as home to the most extreme anti-immigrant legislation in the country.