Supreme Court signals it's OK with parts of Arizona's immigration law

[jimmy olsen]

Ugh, if every state starts passing their own laws to enforce immigration law things are gonna get messy fast.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/25/11388195-supreme-court-signals-its-ok-with-parts-of-arizonas-immigration-law?lite

Supreme Court signals it's OK with parts of Arizona's immigration law

Updated 1:35 p.m. ET: The U.S. Supreme Court indicated Wednesday it appears ready to uphold one of the most controversial parts of Arizona's immigration law: a requirement that police officers check the immigration status of people they think are in the country illegally.

Wading into a highly divisive issue in the middle of a presidential campaign year, conservative and liberal justices who heard oral arguments on Wednesday morning seemed to find no strong objection to that section of the law.
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Justice Anthony Kennedy, who casts the deciding vote in many cases, referred to the "social and economic disruption'' that states endure as a result of a flood of illegal immigrants and suggested that states such as Arizona have authority to act.

"You can see it's not selling very well," Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the more liberal-leaning judges, told Obama administration Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, referring to his arguments that the law would lead to harassment of citizens.

Arizona appeared to have a tougher time defending two other provisions of the law that are now blocked: making it a state crime to have no federal immigration papers and making it a state crime for an illegal immigrant to look for work. Neither is currently a federal crime.

The court session ran 20 minutes beyond the scheduled hour, with Verrilli arguing the case for the Obama administration and Washington attorney Paul Clement, who served as President George W. Bush's solicitor general from 2005 to 2008, representing  Arizona and its Republican governor, Jan Brewer.


Chief Justice John Roberts dismissed the administration's arguments that the Arizona law conflicted with the federal system, saying Arizona's measure is "an effort to help you enforce federal law.''
   
The four conservative justices, Roberts, Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, all asked tough questions of Verrilli. Fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas did not ask any questions, but based on past votes is expected to support the Arizona law.

Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case because she had previously worked on it while serving as the solicitor general for Obama.

Verrilli tried to persuade the justices that they should view the law in its entirety and said it was inconsistent with federal immigration policy. He said the records check would allow the state to "engage effectively in mass incarceration" of undocumented  immigrants.

But Roberts said the state merely wants to notify federal authorities it has someone in custody who may be in the U.S. illegally. "It seems to me that the federal government just doesn't want to know who's here illegally and who's not," Roberts said.

The Obama administration argues that only the federal government, not states, has the right to set immigration policy.  It says Arizona cannot impose immigration laws that conflict with federal laws.

Arizona says it enacted SB 1070 because the federal government has failed to stop an influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico. It says its law doesn't conflict with federal statute, and in fact does specifically what the federal law is supposed to do.

The legislation was signed into law by Brewer in April 2010 but key parts of the law were put on hold by lower courts pending action by the Supreme Court on the challenge from the Obama administration. Arizona's law has inspired similar laws in other states.
Brewer was on hand for the final argument of the Supreme Court's term.

Outside the Supreme Court, supporters and opponents of the law held their own court, giving speeches, holding banners and singing songs. At one point, supporters of the law started singing, "The Star-Spangled Banner," The Wall Street Journal reported.  Opponents joined in, and both groups sang the end of the national anthem together, the Journal reported.
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The Supreme Court is expected to render a decision before the end of June.

It's the second high-profile case involving the Obama administration to be argued this year before the Supreme Court. Last month, the court heard oral arguments on a constitutional challenge to Obama's sweeping health care law.

One of the main architects of the Arizona law, former Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, has described the unabated flow of illegal aliens into the country as one of the "greatest threats to our nation."

"We have a national crisis, and yet we continue to ignore it," Pearce, who was removed from office last year in a recall election, testified on Tuesday at a U.S. Senate hearing.

NBC's Pete Williams and The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

[DGuller]

This is a tough one.  Obviously states taking matters into their own hands is not ideal, and given Arizona's proclivity for abusing police power, all the more troubling.  On the other hand, I think it's fair to say that the federal government abdicated its role of protecting states neighboring Mexico from illegal immigration.  That's kind of its job.

[Valmy]

Immigration reform: yet another issue the Feds seem powerless to even address much less solve.  I wait with apprehension what Texas will do with this precedent.

[PDH]

We need another Missouri Compromise.  That way the government can work again for a couple of decades while I work on dying.

[Valmy]

We need another Missouri Compromise.  That way the government can work again for a couple of decades while I work on dying.

Is all we need to do is re-admit Maine as a state?

[PDH]

We need another Missouri Compromise.  That way the government can work again for a couple of decades while I work on dying.

Is all we need to do is re-admit Maine as a state?

Worth a shot.

[CountDeMoney]

This is a tough one.  Obviously states taking matters into their own hands is not ideal, and given Arizona's proclivity for abusing police power, all the more troubling.  On the other hand, I think it's fair to say that the federal government abdicated its role of protecting states neighboring Mexico from illegal immigration.  That's kind of its job.

Meh, we tried that.  Posse comitatus.

[jimmy olsen]

Puerto Rico for a blue state, Alberta for a red state says I.

[Admiral Yi]

The easiest fix would be to tear down the border fence between California and Mexico.  Arizona is not any wetback's first choice

[Valmy]

Well they are not going to be coming much longer according to that other article.  The problem shall: fix itself.

[CountDeMoney]

"It seems to me that the federal government just doesn't want to know who's here illegally and who's not," Roberts said.

Hell, it's been like that for decades;  we'd call for an undocumented alien, and INS would be, "well, call us when you've got 8 or 9 of them."

INS and ICE simply wouldn't come out for one or two illegal immigrants, and no local or state law enforcement agency is going to send a paddy wagon to a ICE-designated detention facility several counties away from its jurisdiction to drop off a single wetback.  Even in the immediate post-9/11 era with a Republican governor, our agency wouldn't get any traction with INS/ICE.

If all you've got them on is being an illegal and no other criminal charges, it's catch and release.

[Barrister]

Puerto Rico for a blue state, Alberta for a red state says I.

Like we'd want to join a poor country like the US.

I say admit Alaska into Confederation.

[Berkut]

Yeah, in this case I cannot really fault Arizona.

The Feds are saying that the law steps into their terroitory, but it seems like it is territory they've made a rather conscious decision to simply ignore.

The Feds are basically telling Arizona "Hey, it's not your job to deal with illegal immigration, it is ours! However, we are not going to do it. But we don't want you to do it either. Oh, by the way, we aren't interested in helping you pay for any of the costs associated with illegal immigration either..."

[Eddie Teach]

Like we'd want to join a poor country like the US.

I say admit Alaska into Confederation.

Over Katmai's dead body!

[Razgovory]

Puerto Rico for a blue state, Alberta for a red state says I.

Like we'd want to join a poor country like the US.

I say admit Alaska into Confederation.

Alaska gets more federal money per person then any state in the Union.