PHOENIX (AP) - A judge on Friday upheld an Arizona law that made immigrant smuggling a state crime, rejecting arguments that it was never intended to target immigrants—only the human traffickers they hire. Judge Thomas O'Toole said there was no evidence that lawmakers "intended to exclude any prosecution for conspiracy to commit human smuggling."
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has used the law to charge more than 200 people, most of them immigrants accused of paying to be smuggled into Arizona.
Defense lawyers and the law's author said it was intended to apply only to smugglers. Defense attorneys also called it an unconstitutional attempt by the state to regulate immigration, which they contend is under the exclusive control of the federal government.
The Arizona Legislature passed the law in August amid growing frustration over the state's porous 375-mile border with Mexico and the huge health care and education costs for illegal immigrants and their families.
The Pew Hispanic Research Center estimates that 500,000 of the state's population of about 6 million are illegal immigrants.
In the case decided Friday, 48 illegal immigrants were charged as conspirators to human smuggling after they were discovered in a pair of furniture trucks in March about 50 miles west of Phoenix. Some have pleaded guilty to solicitation to commit human smuggling, a lower-tier felony that carries up to a year in jail.
Timothy Agan, one of the attorneys who challenged the law, said he plans to appeal the ruling to the Arizona Court of Appeals.
The law's use has been limited mostly to Maricopa County, the state's most populous county and a hub for smugglers transporting illegal workers across the country.
