What’s the point in allowing officers to check the papers if nothing can be done?
This is exactly why Texas stayed out of passing Arizona type laws.
While Rick Perry supported Arizona, he realized it would get bogged down in expensive and fruitless federal interference.
I don’t agree with the way the federals handle their end of the bargain but the valid argument was the federal government has already claimed immigration as its own province and has rules in place with which the Arizona law will conflict.
Here’s a question for everyone. Does this mean that if we take both houses this fall that they can pass laws granting some enforcement back to the states? Essentially making this ruling moot?
Again, it’s not a mockery. If each state were to have it’s own immigration laws, that would mean that the US would lose complete control over immigration. We dodged a bullet today - had AZ’s law been upheld, there would be nothing stopping CA from issuing ‘visa waivers’ to everyone who wanted them, effectively making everyone who went to CA a legal immigrant.
SCOTUS just put a stake through that gambit and puts the onus on we the people to elect a president who does support immigration restrictions.
The problem is that republicans already screwed us here by nominating Romney. With either Romney or Obama, we are screwed on federal enforcement of immigration.
This is why it was so important for conservatives to get behind Santorum. Since they didn’t they screwed themselves in the foot, not just for today, but at least for the next four years.