Appeals court invalidates arrest of undocument immigrants

Washington Post - A federal appeals court, in a strong rebuff to local law enforcement agencies that aggressively pursue people they suspect of being illegal immigrants, ruled Wednesday that the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office did not have the right to arrest Roxana Santos, a Salvadoran dishwasher who was seized while eating a sandwich outside her workplace in the fall of 2008 and jailed for the next 45 days.

The ruling, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, appeared to clarify and strengthen a somewhat ambiguous Supreme Court decision last year in Arizona v. United States, in which the high court expressed reservations but did not explicitly state how far local police may go when they seek to identify, arrest and aid in deporting individuals who might be in the country illegally but are not involved in criminal activity.





The high-profile issue of whether police can enforce federal immigration law also was raised last year in Alabama and several other states where officers had been accused of harassing illegal immigrants at traffic stops and in other situations, either to force them to leave the area or to have them deported.

“We hold that, absent express direction or authorization by federal officials, state and local law enforcement officers may not detain or arrest an individual solely based on known or suspected civil violations of federal immigration law,” the court concluded after a long and detailed analysis of the encounter between Santos and the officers.