By Elliot Polakoff | AZ Family
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) — The Arizona American Civil Liberties Union is joining several other states issuing a travel advisory for Texas in response to anti-immigration laws going into effect in early 2024.
Arizona ACLU representatives see a lot of similarities between these Texas laws and Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, which was signed into law back in 2010 and had local law enforcement ask for proof of citizenship or legal residency during routine traffic spots. Much of that bill was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, but representatives want people to be prepared heading into next year. “This looks eerily familiar,” Rose Law Group Immigration Department Chair Darius Amiri said.
One of the Texas bills signed into law earlier this week allows police to arrest migrants who illegally cross the U.S. border; another creates a five-to-10-year mandatory sentence for human smuggling. “You could be driving your relative to a party or something like that and be pulled over and looking at a mandatory minimum of five years in jail,” Amiri said. “So I do think that the constitutionality of those provisions will be attacked.”
