Megan Cassidy

The Republic | azcentral.com

Migrant workers who don't want to wait years for a federal judge to halt workplace raids by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office are asking him to do it now.

Members of the immigration-rights group Puente on Thursday petitioned U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell to issue a preliminary injunction on the controversial operations pending the outcome of a federal lawsuit that aims to bar them completely.

Sheriff's officials say they plan to continue enforcing the laws on the books in Arizona.

Puente and several other defendants filed the class-action suit in June, challenging the last illegal-immigration enforcement technique in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's quiver. Deputies have been stripped of their authority to act as federal immigration agents on the streets and in the jails, and a federal court order prohibits deputies from stopping cars or detaining people based solely on a suspected unlawful presence in the country.

The suit names as defendants Arpaio, County Attorney Bill Montgomery, Maricopa County and the director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and it is specifically intended to dismantle two state identity-theft statutes upon which the raids are based.

The laws purport to criminalize ID thefts, but critics say they are more often used to target migrant workers who create fictitious Social Security numbers to gain employment.

The suit alleges that the two statutes are preempted by federal law, which bans local and state authorities from regulating immigration.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued in the Thursday motion that a preliminary injunction on the raids is warranted because the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their suit but will continue to suffer "irreparable harm" in the meantime.

"Our members go to work knowing that they might not make it home if Arpaio and Montgomery decide to strike with another raid," Puente Arizona director Carlos Garcia said in a statement. "Every day that MCSO and MCAO unfairly target our communities is a day too long. We need immediate relief from the harm that the raids are causing."

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from the University of California, Irvine School of Law—Immigrant Rights Clinic, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Law Office of Ray A. Ybarra Maldonado.

Jack MacIntyre, a deputy chief in the Sheriff's Office, denied that the law or the raids are explicitly targeted at immigrants.

"We're targeting people who violate the law on identity theft," he said. "It's not in any attempt to supplant the federal-immigration law but to protect the identifications of the citizens of Arizona, especially Maricopa County for us."

MacIntyre said Arpaio and his deputies will push forward with the workplace investigations, including ones already in the pipeline.

"The threats of these anti-immigration enforcement splinter groups are not going to stop his enforcement efforts," he said.