U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton
PHOENIX- The judge who will decide whether Arizona’s new immigration law is constitutional hasn’t indicated whether she’ll put the statute on hold before it takes effect next week and had some pointed questions Thursday for challengers at two court hearings.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton also went beyond dry legal analysis to point out some of the everyday realities of illegal immigration and how that applies to the new law.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton:
“You can barely go a day without a location being found in Phoenix where there are numerous people being harbored.”
“Why can’t Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered the United States illegally?” she asked.Attorney John Bouma, who is defending the law on behalf of Gov. Jan Brewer, said the federal government wants to keep its authority while turning a blind eye to illegal immigrants.
“You can’t catch them if you don’t know about them. They don’t want to know about them,” he said.”