Local Law Enforcement may cooperate with Immigration Enforcement
In a March 22, 2005 ruling, in Muehler v Mena, in unanimous decision from a Court known for its 5-4 splits, the United States Supreme Court essentially said that asking about immigration status during a lawful police contact (or, by implication, any lawful contact) was as fundamental a question as asking for name, address and date of birth. Indeed, the Court made clear that no predicate "independent reasonable cause' need exist to inquire into immigration status. It is the Law of the Land.
Calling a decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals “faulty,” the Supreme Court held that “mere police questioning [regarding one’s immigration status] does not constitute a seizure.” The Court continued its landmark ruling on this issue by stating that “the officers did not need reasonable suspicion to ask Mena for her name, date of birth, or immigration status.”...
If there were even a hint that merely asking about immigration status is discriminatory (as claimed by proponents of the proposed Ordinance), then you might expect to have had at least one dissenter in that decision: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Justice Ginsberg was general counsel of the ACLU from 1973 to 1980 and sat on its National Board of Directors from 1974 to 1980. Justice Ginsberg's joining the entire court in this decision speaks volumes about its judicial wisdom and legal common sense.
Congress expressly intended for local law enforcement to act in cases in which officers have reason to believe that an individual is in the country illegally, even though immigration law enforcement is not their primary responsibility. In 1996, Congress passed and President Clinton signed legislation that protects individual officers who act to enforce federal immigration laws, even if their departments have non-cooperation policies.
ping