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SALT LAKE CITY -- Federal prosecutors will be heading to Utah this month to decide if they should join a lawsuit against Utah's new immigration laws. Utah's attorney general says the law is constitutional, but the ACLU has a different take.
On December 2, the ACLU and the state of Utah will face off in federal court over Utah's immigration enforcement bill HB497. The Department of Justice is still deciding if they want to sue Utah as well and they're sending some prosecutors to the state to talk about the bill.
"The fact they are coming here, are talking with the attorney general, shows their concern about the law," said ACLU of Utah Executive Director Karen McCreary.
She said Utah's law invites racial profiling, requires people to carry papers, and interferes with the feds immigration policy - thus making it unconstitutional.
Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told Utah's Morning News he doesn't think the feds will join the lawsuit because of changes that make the law different from what was passed in Arizona and Alabama.
"They recognize the Utah law really tries to do something different" than laws passed by state legislatures in Arizona and Alabama, which are being challenged by the DOJ, Shurtleff said.
"They're getting a lot of pressure to join, nonetheless," he said, referring to the lawsuit against the Utah law filed by civil rights organizations earlier this year.
The state has argued in documents filed in U.S. District Court that "Utah's effort to enable local law enforcement to communicate and cooperate with federal officials and respond to that problem in a reasonable, unobtrusive manner.
"This court should defer to the wishes of the state and its legislators and allow the state to govern and address this issue as it sees fit."
The ACLU of Utah and the National Immigration Law Center, however, have argued that the law is unconstitutional and will turn Utah into a "show-me-your-papers" state.
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Written by [Randall Jeppesen](<mailto: rjeppesen@ksl.com>) and Marjorie Cortez.
