Judge Enjoins Arizona from Enforcing Most of New Immigration Law

Written By: Gary K. Silberman, Esq.

The day before the Arizona immigration law was set to go into effect, a federal judge prevented the key provisions of that law. The order that forbids Arizona from enforcing that law is a preliminary injunction, which means that the court will still have a trial on the constitutionality of the law, but until then the controversial sections of the law are unenforceable. In order to enter a preliminary injunction, the court had to find (1) that the plaintiffs (the parties that brought the suit) are likely to win at trial, (2) that if the law went into effect, there was a substantial chance that irreparable harm would occur, (3) that the balance of equities tips in its favor and (4) that a preliminary injunction is in the public interest.

Over the next several blogs, we’ll review the provisions that were enjoined and take a look at why the judge found that those provisions were problematic enough to warrant an order preventing them from going into effect until a trial can take place.