Arizona Gets Help In Defense From Federal Lawsuit, Congressman Harper Among Critics of Obama Lawsuit

One News Now has a story on a Christian law firm that will assist Arizona in its defense against the Obama Justice Department's lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of The Grand Canyon State's immigration enforcement statute.

The lawsuit argues that Arizona's new measure, which requires state and local police to question and possibly arrest illegal aliens during the enforcement of other laws, like traffic stops, usurps federal authority.

President Barack Obama has called the state law "misguided," but Jordan Sekulow, director of international operations with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), contends that Obama's grievance is what is misguided.

"For President Obama to invoke race in this, which he did in that speech -- calling this divisive, saying this may lead to people being pulled over because of how they talk or what color their skin is, and then, of course, invoking religion -- is totally misguided," Sekulow argues

Not missing an opportunity to cry wolf, Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, cheered the lawsuit. Maybe he was "Jealous" that Obama was stealing some of his "poor me" mojo, and wanted to ride the President's coat tails. At any rate, he had the following statement

“In filing this lawsuit, the Obama administration has taken a strong and principled stand against Arizona’s discriminatory law," said Jealous. "African-Americans have the misfortune of being all too familiar with the pernicious effects of racial profiling, and we welcome the addition of the administration to the broad spectrum of organizations already challenging this unconstitutional law.”

Sekulow says that while a crackdown on illegal immigration has the support of the majority of Americans, many Christian groups "have bought into President Obama's propaganda."

The international operations director adds challenging the constitutionality of Arizona's border enforcement law is not going to do anything to solve the root problem: the continued failure of the federal government to protect the United States from the illegal alien invasion.

"You have drug wars going on 12 miles from the Arizona border where 21 people are killed, and this is creeping right into the state," he notes. "So what our leaders have done here in our country is made it a political issue."

Sekulow says the ACLJ is going to file an amicus brief supporting the border state's law.

Mississippi Congressman Gregg Harper joined other conservative members of the House condemning the adminstrations decision to follow through with the lawsuit.

"It is illegal to be in the United States without proper documentation, plain and simple. Those who are here illegally should have to face consequences," said Harper. "Arizona had taken a reasonable and constitutional approach to end this decades-old problem that has continuously been ignored by the Obama Administration. Illegal immigration is a matter of national security."