Closed captioning of: Justice Dept. to sue Ariz. over immigration
>>>
in a dramatic the
justice department
is taking the
state of arizona
over its
immigration law
. the feds will file a lawsuit as early as today asking a
federal court
to strike down the legislation. here with me now
pete williams
. pete, what are the grounds that the
justice department
is filing this suit?
>>
well, they'll basically say that the
federal law
is the
king of the hill
here and the constitution and
federal law
prevents the states from trying to take over this enforcement process for themselves or even to help out in a major way that interferes with federal enforcement of
immigration law
and that is one contention that they'll argue here. this does interfere and enforcement is the job of
federal law
enforcement agents who have the right training to enforce the
federal law
. they'll also say there is some questions here of the procedure for those who are detained. it's different under the
state law
than it would be under the
federal law
and they'll also say that they'll rely on the similar conclusion that the federal guj w judge who blocked a law in
illinois
when the
justice department
sued
illinois
over it
immigration law
. it's different, the
illinois
law would prevent employers from participating to make sure they weren't hiring illegal aliens but the government said
illinois
was interfering with
federal law
and the judge agreed with them and they hope the same thing happens here in
arizona
. a matter of the
federal government
saying it's federal
immigration law
and should be enforced by the feds and not the state. although, chris,
arizona
argues their law parallels the
federal law
, they're just trying to help.
>>
isn't their part of the argument, i understand some of the other
federal agencies
may weigh in on this. they feel that this law would put an undue burden on them?
>>
yes. they say that they have a limited capacity and that's
arizona
. by the way, that's one of
arizona
's arguments here.
arizona
is saying we're just trying to supplement what the
federal government
is doing because it's not doing enough in
arizona
and they say the federal argument here that this will overwhelm the system just shows that
arizona
is right.
>>
all right, thank you very
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