Once Arizona enacted its controversial new immigration law, many predicted it would lead to a plethora of lawsuits from those who felt they were a victim of racial profiling. But who knew the U.S. Government would be first in line to file the very first lawsuit?
Earlier this week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department was strongly considering a federal lawsuit against Arizona’s new immigration law. “We are considering all of our options. One possibility is filing a lawsuit,” Holder said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Possible grounds for the lawsuit would be whether the Arizona law could lead to civil rights violations, he said.
Holder added that the main concern regarding the Arizona law is that “you’ll end up in a situation where people are racially profiled, and that could lead to a wedge drawn between certain communities and law enforcement, which leads to the problem of people in those communities not willing to interact with people in law enforcement, not willing to share information, not willing to be witnesses where law enforcement needs them. I think we could potentially get on a slippery slope where people will be picked on because of how they look as opposed to what they have done, and that is, I think, something that we have to try to avoid at all costs.”
