Posted on 07/06/2010 4:24:39 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
As widely anticipated, Attorney General Eric Holder today filed a lawsuit against Arizona and Gov. Jan Brewer over the state’s immigration law. The suit seeks a preliminary injunction to stop the law from being implemented.
The court filing states that Arizona law is pre-empted by federal law and therefore violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The filing makes no assertion that the law is discriminatory or risks being applied in a discriminatory fashion, as the president and other officials said they feared would be the case. Interestingly, this suit makes no civil rights charges against the Arizona law.
You can read the complaint HERE and the preliminary injunction brief HERE.
“The State of Arizona has crossed this constitutional line,” write Assistant Attorney General Tony West, United States Attorney Dennis K. Burke and others. “In acknowledged disagreement with the manner in which the federal government has regulated immigration and in contravention of these constitutional principles…The states are not permitted to set their own independent immigration policies, with varying and potentially conflicting enforcement systems and priorities. Were a number of states to act as Arizona has and strike out on their own, federal immigration policy and enforcement efforts would be crippled.”
The suit states that the Arizona law pursues only the goal of “attrition” while ignoring other objectives Congress has established for the federal immigration system.
You can read more about the lawsuit in THIS PIECE by Senior Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas.
-Jake Tapper
UPDATE: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, released a statement saying: “Suing the people of Arizona for attempting to do a job the federal government has utterly failed to execute will not help secure our borders. If the President wants to make real progress on this issue, he can do so by taking amnesty off the table and focus his efforts on border and interior security. It is long past time for this administration to prioritize solving a crisis over imposing an agenda and the first step is to recognize that attorneys and amnesty are not acceptable alternatives to border security and job creation.”
Gov. Brewer, meanwhile, is soliciting donations to help defend the state from the Justice Department lawsuit, tweeting: "We will be very aggressive in defending our law. Donate to help keep AZ safe.”
Not usually, except in the case of immigration, Congress has passed laws specifically requiring states to assist the Feds.
Recently a bank was robbed near where I live. The local police arrested the perp because robbing banks is against state law. After he was charged, the Feds got a Federal indictment (the Feds cannot charge out by complaint like locals but must present their case to a grand jury for an indictment) because robbing the bank was also against Federal law. There was no clash of jurisdiction. Typically the states and Feds cooperate in enforcing laws.
>>”blah, blah, blah,.....at the very bottom, 2- Under federal law, “an alien’s mere unlawful presence is not a crime.....” “
(Except for rare cases) an illegal alien cannot obtain a Social Security card/number. He/she must necessarily, then, not only commit a felony to obtain a spurious SS#, but EVERY time he uses that card/number, as any kind of ID (to obtain a job, driver license, bank account, loan, public benefit, and many others) he commits ANOTHER felony.
Many, if not all of these frauds are already felonies under state law. Being illegally present forms a presumption (reasonable suspicion) of having already engaged in these felonies. The state has a perfect right (even responsibility) to investigate and prosecute these felonies.
It is time to stop pretending.
DG
In all respects, we are being invaded, and the Federal Government is purposefully ignoring their responsibilities.
I think you may have a gas leak. Check your stove.
Ping!
bookmark
“He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them”
—Thomas Jefferson, the United States Declaration of Independence.
That’s an outstanding historical reference.
We could only hope.
But Does Not Make Charges of “Discrimination”
^
Let state-run-media imply that to the folks it want to support Democrats
So let’s get this straight. Holder and his DOJ sue Arizona for nothing more than reiterating and enforcing current Federal law....
....and give the New Black Panthers a free pass despite video evidence.
F**k ‘em.
I really think that the democrats are biting off more then they can chew with using the Supremacy clause as their argument on this.
The Arizona law is NOT in conflict with federal law but in support of it’s enforcement.
Yet santuary cities that clearly void and conflict with federal law are ok with Obama’s DoJ? I would love to hear them spin that one. This is pure politics and not a case of standing for the federal government.
Imagine this: We have federal law which takes jurisdiction over certain waters in the States in order to protect them from pollution. Imagine that the federal government was not enforcing them and allowing certain cities to give sanctuary to polluters. Imagine then that a state mirrors the federal law and decides to go after the people who are dumping chemicals in the waterway. Would the left-wing cry about the Supremacy clause then? Of course not. They would argue that the States were simply backing up federal law. This lawsuit is purely a political temper-tantrum by the Obama DOJ. Nothing more.
Further reading of the suit seems to say that Arizona’s new law, which they cite as generally “attrition through enforcement”, ignores the objectives of the federal immigration system, which they say primarily is the “arrest and detention of those aliens who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety.” (Reading pages 15 through 22)
So, in other words, since Arizona actually DOESN’T discriminate between illegal aliens, the suit says DHS, DOJ, and the executive branch is hindered in their right TO discriminate based on the value, danger, humanitarian need of specific illegals......or at least that’s the why I interpreted it.
Excellent Observation!
I see this lawsuit is over one thing: power
The feds want absolute power - - this lawsuit is necessary.
That should be easy for Arizona to beat. Arizona is not setting their own immigration policy whatsoever. Arizona is going after people who have broken existing laws.
Under Section 1. B. Point 3, pgs 22 to 25, the suit also claims that Arizona’s law also “interferes with US foreign policy objectives”. It states thet “immigration policy is intimately commenced with US foreign affairs and diplomacy”. In fact, the suit claims that merely passing this law, has already “resulted in numerous, specific, and serious diplomatic reactions that threaten multiple United States interests”.
WoW....wonder what those “interests” are?
Very well put and in very few words!
In the Obama/Holder regime armed Black Panthers carrying weapons at a polling place results in no prosecution.
However, the State of Arizona enforcing existing law results in prosecution.
FUBO
&
FUEH
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.Arizona's gov could declare that the armed Mexican drug gangs which have effectively taken over parts of Arizona territory constitute an invasion, and demand the courts issue a "writ of mandamus" against the feds to fulfill their Constitutional duties.
Great point and post.
Using some of your post here is how I am seeing this issue:
What is really ironic here is that for weeks on end the democrats cried that this law was discriminatory but now they are filing a lawsuit claiming that the federal government is being denied their exclusive right to discriminate on how the federal immigration laws are enforced.
The DOJ seems to say that Arizona’s new law, which they cite as generally “attrition through enforcement”, ignores the objectives of the federal immigration system, which they say primarily is the “arrest and detention of those aliens who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety.” (Reading pages 15 through 22)
So, in other words, since Arizona law actually DOESN’T conform to federal discrimination between illegal aliens, the suit says DHS, DOJ, and the executive branch is hindered in their exclusive right TO discriminate based on the value, danger, humanitarian need of specific illegals.
So now they are arguing that it is the federal government ONLY that gets to pick and choose who the law applies to? That the federal government CAN discriminate instead of applying the law EQUALLY to ALL?
I think that the Obama DoJ has a 14th Amendment problem regarding this suit bigtime. They are trying to argue for a right to discriminate in regards to who, where and when the law applies. This type of government endorsed bigotry was outlawed long ago and now the democrats are trying to bring it back.
How would democrats react if this type of interpretation of the Supremacy clause applied to other federal laws? Like laws that give the federal government exclusive jurisdiction over certain land and water within the States? Would they allow a ruling party and Executive branch to pick and choose where and when federal laws designed to protect water and land should be ignored by the federal government? Would they allow sanctuary cities for polluters? And then attack a State for trying to uphold federal law equally for all?
I highly doubt it. This lawsuit is doomed to fail and AZ law will be upheld. This argument for a Supreme right of the federal government to discriminate as to where, when and to whom the law applies is ridiculous.
I would love to see an AZ counter-suit against the Obama regime based on violation of the "equal protection" clause.
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