BREAKING: Judge Issues Injunction Against Arizona Immigration Law

Breaking at this hour:  Federal Judge Susan Benton has blocked two key provisions in Arizona's "Papers, please" law, SB1070, before the law is scheduled to go into effect tomorrow.  Benton's injunction covers both the part of the law that requires police to ask for citizenship information whenever stopping anyone and the part that deems failure to have such information on hand at the time of a stop as a state crime.

PDF of the ruling is here.

More as it comes in.

[UPDATE]  As Bob Cesca points out:

Meanwhile, the section of the law that allows citizens to sue law enforcement wasn't blocked. This is one of the weirdest and most ridiculous provisions of the legislation. Not just the Arizona legislation -- all legislation. Ever.

Expect those lawsuits to be filed very very soon.   How the hell does that crazy-ass provision work?  "I saw me one of them illegals today, therefore you're not enforcing the law, therefore I'm going to sue the pants off you!"

Really?  I bet that's going to help.

[UPDATE 2]  More on Judge Benton's decision from the NY Times:

“Preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely pre-empted by federal law to be enforced,” she said.

“There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens,” she wrote. “By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.” 

My favorite right-wing reaction?  Col.  Mustard.

The decision was a surprise to me in that it struck the provision -- which was most controversial -- as to checking immigration status of persons already arrested or stopped for some other offense if there were a reasonable suspicion that the person was in the country illegally.

The most controversial and unconstitutional part of the law gets struck down because of the patently ridiculous and unenforceable burden on Arizona's cops as to what constitutes a "reasonable suspicion" of a person being in the country illegally, without that suspicion being able to be applied in any sane or reasonably consistent way short of A) racial profiling, B) asking everybody for documentation, also stuck down, or C) the person wearing a t-shirt that reads "Undocumented and proud of it" while dragging an unconscious Border Patrol agent around behind them, and the law professor finds it a "surprise".

This guy?  Awesome.