Federal judge temporarily blocks Iowa immigration enforcement law

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a state law that would have allowed the arrest and forced removal of immigrants in Iowa if they had previously been denied entry.

Judge Stephen Locher of the Southern District of Iowa said in a ruling Monday that the law was preempted by federal law, siding with the Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice and the federal Justice Department who sued the state over the law.

“As a matter of politics, the new legislation might be defensible. As a matter of constitutional law, it is not,” he wrote in his ruling.

The law, which was scheduled to go into effect July 1, would allow Iowa law enforcement officials to arrest and charge a non-citizen with a crime if they are in the state and have previously been blocked from entering the country or deported. A judge would then be able to order the person to leave the country or face prison time.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican who signed the bill into law, and Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird said they would appeal the decision.

"With this injunction states are left defenseless to the ongoing crisis at our southern border," Reynolds said in a statement. "Plainly, the Biden administration is failing to do their job and enforce federal immigration laws allowing millions to enter and reenter without any consequence or delay."

Bird said in a statement that Biden had failed to secure the southern border, causing states to take border enforcement into their own hands.

"Iowa never would have had to pass this law to begin with if it weren’t for Biden’s open borders," Bird said. "Rather than suing Iowa for enforcing immigration laws, he should do his duty to secure the border."

The ACLU of Iowa celebrated the ruling in a statement, calling the law “among the worst anti-immigrant legislation in Iowa’s history.”

"The court powerfully and accurately found that the law is 'untenable,'” ACLU of Iowa legal director Rita Bettis Austen said. “This state law conflicts with federal law and dumps the responsibility of immigration enforcement on state and local law enforcement and judges. Local law enforcement in Iowa have spoken up to say that they don't want this duty, given the significant ways that such enforcement would erode the ability of local law enforcement to protect public safety."

The law is similar to a Texas law that is temporarily blocked while an appeals court weighs a challenge.

Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice (MMJ) sued Bird and county officials to stop the law last month, and Biden's Justice Department sued the state in a separate lawsuit. The injunction covers both lawsuits.

Iowa MMJ sued on behalf of two anonymous Iowa residents who gained legal residency after previously being deported from the U.S. They argued they could be prosecuted under the law despite being legal residents of the U.S. The state, though, argued that they lacked standing because they were not covered by the law.

Locher sided with the plaintiffs, pointing out that there is no language in the law that exempts legal residents from being charged with a crime. The law states that any non-citizen who was previously asked to leave the country, who is found in the state, can be prosecuted under the law.

While the law was modeled after federal legislation, the Legislature specifically left out language that would exempt legal residents from being charged with a crime under the law, Locher said.

It follows that they have a credible fear of prosecution, and thus standing to challenge Senate File 2340,” Locher wrote. “The Attorney General’s promise not to prosecute people within Senate File 2340’s plain language doesn’t change this.”

The Justice Department argued the law risks antagonizing foreign governments, undermining federal immigration policy, and causing retaliatory treatment of U.S. citizens abroad.

“The immigration laws passed by Iowa and other states, if allowed to go into effect, will create ‘a piecemeal system of immigration’ and force the federal government to ‘navigate an impossible patchwork of regulations affecting the enforcement of federal law’,’” Locher wrote, quoting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.

Biden announced a plan this month to block migrants from being granted asylum when encounters at the border reach a certain level. The executive action came after Republican lawmakers opposed a bipartisan deal that would have imposed immigration restrictions through Congress.

Activists vow to keep fighting law in court

Activists vowed to continue fighting the law as it goes through the appeals process, celebrating the win they were granted on Monday and preparing for more legal proceedings.

Petra Mujica, an Iowa City resident and member of the eastern Iowa immigrant aid group Escucha Mi Voz, said the ruling is only buying more time, and the group will continue to rally against the law.

"We have to keep fighting, we have to keep going on, because this is not over yet. We have not received what we want," she said in a call with reporters Monday night. "We want to stop the law, we want to cancel the law. That's what we want."

Escucha Mi Voz and the Iowa City Catholic Worker, two groups that work with immigrant communities, will still hold planned demonstrations in Iowa City, Waterloo and Des Moines on July 1 to protest the law, representatives said.

"We believe that it's alright to keep fighting, because we are here, we are part of Iowa," said Manny Galvez, a member of Escucha Mi Voz. "We are part of the communities, the workplaces, the churches. And it's not fair that because some governor is playing a political game, an electoral game, we can separate families.“