By Maria Ortiz
Jun 20, 2024, 8:54 PM EDT
Iowa Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird on Thursday appealed a federal court’s block on a state anti-immigrant law which makes it a state crime for undocumented immigrants to enter Iowa and authorizes police to arrest immigrants who have been denied entry to the United States or who have previously been deported.
The law SF2340, which was due to take effect on July 1, unites Iowa and Texas, with its law SB4, in the attempt to enforce United States immigration laws outside the federal government system.
Attorney General Bird said in a statement that “Iowa will not back down. “Today, my office filed an appeal to defend Iowa’s immigration enforcement law that keeps Iowa families safe.”
“We cannot afford to sit idly by any longer while the border crisis of the [presidente] Biden rolls out a welcome mat for drug cartels, human traffickers, and suspected terrorists to invade our home communities. If Biden doesn’t do his job to secure our borders, Iowa will.”
Last Monday, federal Judge Stephen H. Locher put a stop to the implementation of the law by stating that Only the federal government has the constitutional ability to make United States immigration policy.
The measure known as SF 2340 faced a lawsuit led by the American Immigration Council and the American Civil Liberties Union, which managed to stop it.
The legal complaint argues that the state measure conflicts with existing federal law and “will have a number of dramatic consequences for Iowans.”
It also alleges that the law creates new crimes for anyone in Iowa, including a child, who has reentered the country after being deported, even if they are authorized to remain in the US.
The organizations described the law as one of the worst immigration laws ever passed in the state’s history.
With the approval of state measure SF 2340, Iowa joined other Republican states such as Texas and Florida that have issued laws against undocumented immigration.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, defended the law when she signed it last April and also lashed out at the White House.
Reynolds is among the governors who have supported his Texas counterpart, Republican Greg Abbott, in his challenge to the Democratic Administration, and deployed soldiers from the Iowa National Guard and police from the state Department of Public Safety to the Texas border with Mexico.
Keep reading:
• Iowa Governor signs a law like SB4 that authorizes the arrest of certain immigrants
• Organizations demand Iowa law that allows arrest and deportation of previously deported immigrants
• Appeals court extends blocking of SB4 law on immigration arrests in Texas