JUDGE ICES IOWA LAW COLLARING MIGRANTS

A federal judge issued a temporary block on an Iowa law that directs law enforcement to arrest undocumented immigrants.

The ruling comes just a week after a civil rights group made their case in federal court against the Iowa Senate File 2340. State officials have already pledged to appeal the preliminary block.

On Monday, June 17, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher ordered a preliminary injunction on SF 2340, a law the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa has deemed “one of the worst immigration laws ever passed in Iowa history.”

“As a matter of politics, the new legislation might be defensible,” Judge Locher wrote. “As a matter of constitutional law, it is not.”

The law will no longer take effect on July 1. According to the ACLU of Iowa, the court has yet to indicate whether they will hear from both sides in Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice v. Bird to solve the merits of the case.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said, “I am disappointed in today’s court decision that blocks Iowa from stopping illegal reentry and keeping our communities safe.”

SF 2340 would allow state and local officials to arrest, detain and deport non-citizens who have re-entered the country after previous deportation. The law would also make entry or being found in Iowa an aggravated misdemeanor even if the person has prior permission to re-enter from the federal government or later gained lawful immigration status. This pertains to a number of authorized immigration statuses, including anyone granted asylum, anyone given visas to protect victims of crime and any youth with special protections.

After Monday’s ruling, Gov. Kim Reynolds stated, “I support Attorney General Bird in appealing this decision.” Reynolds has been critical of the Biden administration’s ability to enforce federal immigration laws.

“With this injunction states are left defenseless to the ongoing crisis at our southern border,” Reynolds said. “I signed this bill into law to protect Iowans and our communities from the results of this border crisis: rising crime, overdose deaths, and human trafficking.”

The ACLU of Iowa, the American Immigration Council, the Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, the U.S. Department of Justice and two individual Iowa clients, referred to as Jane Doe and Elizabeth Roe, have filed lawsuits against SF 2340. The American Immigration Council requested a preliminary block of the law, proclaiming it unconstitutional under the Supremacy and Commerce Clauses. According to the Supremacy Clause and Arizona v. United States, a 2012 Supreme Court case, states may not implement their own immigration laws.

Following Judge Locher’s ruling, Iowa ACLU Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen said, “The court powerfully and accurately found that the law is ‘untenable.’ This state law conflicts with federal law and dumps the responsibility of immigration enforcement on state and local law enforcement and judges.”

Storm Lake Police Chief Chris Cole said that he has not received any guidance from the state about how to enforce SF 2340, should it take effect. Cole said, “If someone was arrested, for example, if a judge orders that someone’s going to be deported, we don’t know who’s going to transport them, or where they’re going to be transported to, or who’s going to pay for that.”

Cole said he has spoken to many immigrants in Storm Lake who fear potential deportation and don’t necessarily understand how SF 2340 would affect their immigration status. “There’s a lot of individuals in our community right now who feel very vulnerable, they feel targeted, and they’re afraid of how this might play out. Obviously, that’s very concerning to us as a department,” he said.

SF 2340 is largely based on Texas Senate Bill 4, an immigration law passed last year. The Biden administration claimed that Texas overstepped its constitutional limits in signing SB 4 into law because immigration policy is an exclusive function of the federal government. Biden administration officials have criticized similar state-level immigration laws in Florida, Oklahoma and Arizona as unconstitutional.

Judge Locher, a Biden appointee, wrote, “The fact that Senate File 2340 compels Iowa state court judges to issue orders requiring non-citizens to return to the foreign nation from which they came makes the conflict preemption problem even worse.”

Cole said he worries the law might erode trust between the police and immigrants and could lead to higher crime targeting immigrants.

“One of the cornerstones to a good police department is trust so people are willing to report crimes, be witness to crimes, and come forward when they’re victims,” said Cole. “We need people to come forward and report that, otherwise the criminals will prey on the immigrants and no one will report it out of fear.”