On Friday, The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law filed in federal court in Phoenix as a class action after seeing the training materials distributed to Arizona law-enforcement meant to guide the implementation of SB1070 set to go into effect on July 29th. According to LULAC and the Center, the training materials do indeed promote racial and ethnic profiling. According to the lawsuit, the training materials ask officers to look at factors such as a person’s ‘dress,’ ‘difficulty communicating in English,’ ‘demeanor,’ and ‘claim of not knowing others … at [the] same location,’ as providing justification for a detention based on suspected undocumented status.”

The lawsuit does take the same position as the suit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, that SB1070 is violating the “supremacy” of the Federal Government to enforce immigration laws, but also expresses concern over the fact that the law also potentially will harm those immigrants who are in “limbo” status, that is those who are here undocumented but with pending petitions.