"It's a very complex statute, so whenever someone challenges it they will be challenging subsections of it," Cruz explained. "It's not that easy to tell if someone is committing a crime that makes them deportable."
Cruz said the extent of police powers and the mandate that citizens keep their immigration documents with them, could be problematic and detailed several possible legal challenges if the bill becomes law.
Cruz's comments in print can be seen in the article, titled "Thousands ditch school to protest Arizona immigration bill."
Her on-air comments can be seen in the report "Legal issues loom if controversial immigration bill passes."
Cruz teaches Immigration Law and Comprehensive Law Practice. She also directs the College of Law's Immigration Law & Policy Clinic, which represents unaccompanied minors in immigration removal proceedings and received the 2007 President's Medal for Social Embeddedness at ASU.
Cruz writes articles about immigration law, clinical education and therapeutic jurisprudence, and has co-authored several immigration law manuals used by immigration practitioners and pro-se detainees at Immigration Detention Centers throughout the country.
Her latest paper, "Competent Voices: Noncitizen Defendants and the Right to Know the Immigration Consequences of Plea Agreements" discusses the Sixth Amendment's right to effective assistance of counsel in relation to the criminal prosecution of undocumented workers arrested at the 2009 Postville, Iowa, immigration raids and the pending Supreme Court case Padilla v. Kentucky. The article will appear in the Harvard Latino Law Review Spring 2010.