June 25, 2012, - 12:51 pm
Supreme Ct Ruling “Upholding” AZ Immigration Law Toothless, Irrelevant b/c of Obama Non-Deport Policy
Like most of you, I’m glad that the U.S. Supreme Court, today, upheld the key parts of Arizona’s immigration law, including allowing police to ask immigration status of those they stop and do ask for papers proving it. But not too glad because the important parts were not upheld, leaving the law toothless. And before you celebrate, remember that the Obama immigration policy–not to detain or deport most of those without violent criminal records–makes the Arizona law largely moot. In fact, unless Arizona runs its own deportation system, it will be hard-pressed to then get rid of these illegal aliens. Many Arizona officials worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. But since the Obama administration won’t deport those the Arizona police stop and discover to be here illegally, Arizona is going to have to find a way to do that. In some cases it has, with Maricopa County (which includes Phoenix) busing the illegals to the border. But it’s expensive. And Arizona simply doesn’t have the resources to do it all on its own. It will need the cooperation of ICE and especially ICE’s ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations), and it won’t get it, due to Obama policy. So good luck with that. In fact, Justice Kennedy, writing the majority opinion, said that legal cases challenging the law and arguing for federal pre-emption and supremacy can go forward. The Obama administration can take that as a green light to challenge Arizona’s deportation efforts, since the Obamaniks can claim that deportation is strictly the federal domain. So, giving the Arizona police the ability to determine the citizenship and/or legal status of a person is meaningless, unless Arizona has the power to do the rest of what Obama’s (and Bush’s before him) ICE isn’t doing. Don’t look for that to change under Mitt Romnesty.
Plus, the Justices struck down the other parts of the law necessary to make it tough for illegal aliens to remain here. They struck down the section of the law making it a crime to apply for or hold a job in Arizona without legal work authority, the section allowing a police officer to arrest someone if the officer believes that he has committed a crime that could cause him to be deported, no matter where the crime took place, and the section making it a violation of Arizona law for immigrants not to carry valid immigration papers (it’s disappointing that Justice Alito voted with the majority on this provision and that Justice Roberts voted with them on all three of these provisions). So, essentially, the Supremes rendered the law toothless by giving the police the ability to check if someone is here illegally and do little else other than check.
More:
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a constitutional challenge to a central provision of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law. . . . That provision, requiring police to conduct immigration checks on individuals they arrest or merely stop for questioning whom they suspect are in the U.S. illegally, does not appear to violate the Constitution by intruding on the federal government’s powers to control immigration, the court said.
All eight justices who ruled on the case voted to allow the mandatory immigration-check requirement to go into effect. They split on three other disputed provisions of the law, with a majority of the justices ruling that each of those parts of the law could not be enforced because they intruded improperly into a policy sphere reserved to the federal government. Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in the ruling.
The justices said further legal challenges to the mandatory immigration check provision can go forward after that part of the law takes effect. . . . “This opinion does not foreclose other preemption and constitutional challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect,” Kennedy wrote.
Good luck with that ruling. Like I said, it makes the immigration status check by police little more than an irrelevant check. A lot of other stuff that must go with it has been stricken. So, the “victory” is pyrrhic.
Tags: Arizona, Arizona immigration law, Barack Obama, Enforcement and Removal Operations, ERO, ICE, Immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, John Roberts, Justice Alito, Justice John Roberts, Mitt Romnesty, Obama, Romnesty, Samuel Alito, Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court
Obama is temporary. The law is permanent (until challenged). One step at a time.
FK: Doesn’t matter. Romney is for amnesty. He’s as much as said so in claiming that his “long-term policy” would make Obama’s new policy about not deporting illegal alien “kids” irrelevant. DS
FrenchKiss on June 25, 2012 at 12:53 pm