Utah won national attention this year for promoting a gentler approach to immigration when it passed a law essentially allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the state if they work and don’t commit crimes. Yet on Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center filed a federal lawsuit to stop the implementation next week of another Utah law, one modeled on an Arizona law that was blocked as unconstitutional.
The Arizona law made it a state crime to lack immigration papers and requires police to investigate the immigration status of people they stop. The Utah law does not create a new crime and only requires an investigation into a person’s status after arrests for a felony or misdemeanor. Los Angeles Times
