SCOTUS says Arizona police may check immigration status

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
6/26/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Other provisions of Arizona law struck down.

The US Supreme Court has delivered its ruling on Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law. In a 5-2 split decision, the justices upheld one of the four provisions of the law. The court has ruled that police may ask to check the immigration status of people they stop, but seeking work while in the country illegally will not constitute a crime.

The Supreme Court has rendered its decision, largely striking down most of Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law.

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WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Individuals who have no immigration paperwork also remain free from prosecution.

Chief Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority decision and was joined by Roberts, Bader-Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor. Justice Elena Kagan was recused.

Anotnin Scalia and Clarence Thomas both upheld the entire law in their rulings. Justice Altio said he would have struck down only one of the provisions.

Ultimately, the decision appears to be grounded in what each justice feels is within the realm of a state's power. Kennedy wrote "Arizona may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration while that process continues, but the state may not pursue policies that undermine federal law."

However Scalia took a different view writing, "If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign state."

The ruling now clears the last roadblock preventing enforcement of at least one provision of the law. Until now, the provisions have been blocked by lower courts. Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer referred to the decision as "a victory for the rule of law." She added in a statement, "I am confident our officers are prepared to carry out this law responsibly and lawfully."

Arizona has already started training officers to enforce the law without racial profiling. Other states have followed Arizona's example and have modeled tough anti-illegal immigration laws of their own.

However, in their various rulings the justices revealed they were concerned about the states enforcing greater penalties than those envisioned by Congress for illegal immigration.

Recently, the immigration issue has become a hot topic in the presidential race with Obama making overtures to illegal immigrants, promising an estimated 800,000 young illegals, brought into the country as children, work permits and protection from deportation. And although Obama will permit them to take US jobs, they will not be entitled to US citizenship.

� 2012, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Keywords: Arizona, immigration, illegal, supreme court, justices, ruling

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1 - 2 of 2 Comments

Starzec
11 months ago
Rob, It is not the system that is broken. It is, as you correctly observe, that the American Public has very little tolerance for lettuce at $5+/ head. So to keep it priced at what American's believe lettuce should be priced at and will buy, cheap labor- ie illegal immigrants- helps keep that price down. So who is to blame exactly? The American public lettuce consumers for demanding a better price for lettuce, the lettuce farmer for wanting the best possible price for his crop, or the workers who cross the border and take jobs picking lettuce at 5 cents/ head? This is capitalism at its finest: to maximize profits and maintain customer base, the farmer hires illegals to pick his crop.
Are you suggesting the federal government step in and regulate this? Isn't that at odds with a capitalist system?
Rob
11 months ago
In my opinion, this decision demonstrates the brokeness of our federal government. It was not suprising that SCOTUS honored the federal government's authority on immigration matters, but it's absolutely fair to say that the government has done nothing to stem the tide. I also believe that Arizona does have an obligation to protect it's citizens. I think the main issue with the immigration debate is a lot like other things. We assume it's very black and white and a simple yes/no answer will suffice. But when you are dealing with human beings, it's often black and white. Truth is that a lot of businesses and just about every citizen of the US has benefitted and continues to benefit from cheap labor. In some instances this labor is done so "legally" as our products come from countries where the labor rate is but a fraction of that which is here. But sometimes the labor cannot be outsourced so there are many industries in the US that use this labor. And those industries fall on both sides of the political isle. At some point we have to acknowledge that while this all proves for good political drama, it's nothing more than that. Neither side is really interested in solving this problem. They scurry around trying to be on both sides of the issue and nothing gets done. I suspect this is a problem that neither party will bend over backwards to solve. The status quo will remain. But perhaps when Arizona begins forcing the cheap labor out of their state, it will be interesting to see what happens to their economy. I would bet that illegal labor built most of that state.

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