Legal Features
State of Arizona v. United States of America
Insisting that an Arizona law allowing police officers to detain persons suspected of being in the United States illegally threatens to move our nation yet one step closer to a “police state” in which basic civil liberties are sacrificed in the interest of quelling popular fears, The Rutherford Institute has filed an amicus curiae brief in State of Arizona v. United States of America asking the U.S. Supreme Court to declare the law unconstitutional. In asking the Court to uphold the lower court rulings in the case, Institute attorneys argue that S.B. 1070 threatens the right of citizens and lawfully-present aliens to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Citing the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the Institute’s brief contends that the law also poses a threat to the rights of all citizens to be free from race discrimination, because race will be used by officers as the overriding factor in determining whether a person is suspected of being in the country illegally.
