Ariz. attorney general says Obama administration has duty to challenge state’s immigration law

Arizona official: Challenging law is Holder’s duty

WASHINGTON — Arizona’s top law enforcement official acknowledged Thursday that Attorney General Eric Holder has a duty to challenge the state’s new immigration law if he thinks it is unconstitutional.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard was grilled by a Democratic congressman in a House hearing Thursday about criticism of the Obama administration’s challenge of the state’s immigration law, which is scheduled to take effect July 29.

Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, asked Goddard, also a Democrat, whether Holder is duty-bound to uphold the Constitution and to challenge the law if he thinks it’s unconstitutional.

Goddard responded: “If that’s his sincere belief, he has no choice.”

Under more questioning from Green, Goddard further acknowledged that if he were attorney general and found a law unconstitutional he also would have to challenge the law.

“Why can we not afford the same integrity, the same honor, the same measure of truth and veracity to this attorney general that we would accord you?” Green said.

Arizona’s immigration law requires law officers, while carrying out other law enforcement duties, to ask people they reasonably suspect may be in the country illegally for documents proving they are citizens or legally in the U.S.

Holder is suing the state on grounds that the law usurps federal authority to enforce immigration laws.

Goddard was in Washington to testify before a House homeland security subcommittee on efforts in his state to combat smuggling of illegal immigrants and the success of investigations of wire transfers in disrupting money being sent to smugglers who are part of criminal organizations in Mexico.

Early in the hearing, Rep. Candice Miller of Michigan, the subcommittee’s ranking Republican, took a swipe at the administration’s challenge. “I think it is ironic that we are here to examine efforts by the administration to combat alien smuggling when his administration has sued the state of Arizona,” Miller said.

Goddard has criticized the law but has said he would defend it. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, has refused to allow Goddard to participate in the state’s defense of the law. Instead, she invoked a provision of the law that allows her to hire private lawyers.

Separately, Goddard urged Congress to focus on dismantling Mexican drug cartels by following their money. He asked for $50 million in aid for a fund the four border states — Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico — can tap to investigate and intercept cartel money flowing south.

Goddard also said the federal government should find ways to stop cartel money crossing the border through what he called “stored value” money cards.

“It’s a gaping hole in our security fabric that so much money goes virtually unimpeded across the border to the illegal cartels,” he said.

Online:

House Committee Homeland Security Committee: homeland.house.gov

Arizona Attorney General’s Office: www.azag.gov/