Posted on 07/29/2010 7:48:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Attorney General Eric Holder could have dictated most of Judge Susan Bolton’s decision blocking key parts of the Arizona immigration law.
The judge twists facts and logic to support the Justice Department’s claim that the state law preempts the federal immigration scheme. To do so, she accepts Justice’s implicit argument that it’s not the letter of the federal law that matters, but what parts of the law the executive decides to enforce. If her reasoning stands, we will basically cut Congress out of immigration policy and the states out of enforcement. Instead, our immigration system will entirely depend on executive discretion at a time when the executive has little interest in enforcing the law.
Judge Bolton notes that the Department of Homeland Security has set up a national operations center to promptly apprise local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies of the legal status of aliens they encounter in the course of their work. Federal law requires that DHS “respond to an inquiry by a federal, state, or local government agency, seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status . . . for any purpose authorized by law, by providing the requested verification or status information.”
Bolton bizarrely turns this explicit acknowledgment that the federal government envisions a state role in enforcement, and this requirement that the feds cooperate with states and municipalities, against Arizona. If the state finds too many suspected illegal aliens, it will overburden the system. “An increase in the number of requests for determinations of immigration,” she writes, “will divert resources from the federal government’s other responsibilities and priorities.” Earlier in her decision, Judge Bolton sets out the different kinds of preemption, e.g. field preemption (where federal regulation is so comprehensive it “occupies the field”) and conflict preemption (where a state law is at odds with a federal law). This is something utterly different: “We can’t be bothered to answer the phone” preemption.
Judge Bolton makes much of the burden that will be placed on legal aliens by the Arizona law. At the margins, there will be some, of course. If they are stopped or arrested and suspected of being in the country illegally, they will be asked for proof of their legal status. Surely this is not unreasonable, since federal law requires that aliens carry proof of their legal status.
Taking her cues from the Justice Department suit, though, Judge Bolton worries that this arrangement will inconvenience too many aliens without proof of their legal status, such as “individuals who have applied for asylum but not yet received an adjudication” (who, we are sure, are flooding across the Mexico-Arizona border constantly). If they are arrested and their status is checked with the federal government, she continues, their release might be delayed. She deems all of this intolerable.
It will constitute an unacceptable “intrusion of police presence into the lives of legally-present aliens,” she maintains, and runs counter to the 1941 Supreme Court decision in Hines v. Davidowitz, which held that Congress wanted to protect legal aliens from “inquisitorial practices and police surveillance.” Here Judge Bolton slips from the merely implausible to the inadvertently hilarious. If you are arrested, it’s difficult to avoid “police surveillance” during your arrest. And checking in with the federal government about an arrestee’s status — via an information-sharing system set up exactly for the purpose — can hardly constitute an “inquisitorial practice.”
The bottom line is that Arizona wants to enforce the law against illegal aliens. It wants them to be cognizant of the fact that the state is serious about the law, and therefore to conclude that it’s best to leave or not come in the first place. Arizona did not deem these people illegal aliens. The federal government did, in laws passed by Congress and signed by the president of the United States. Arizona thinks those laws mean something. If the Justice Department’s suit — and Judge Bolton’s line of argument — prevails, then we’ll know that they don’t. The real law of the land will be our current, de facto amnesty, imposed by executive whim.
When the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and the Judiciary are all trampling the Constitution...it is left to the states and the people to set it straight. We have the ballot box this November and in 2012. I pray we do not have to resort to the next “box” preserved to us by the 2nd amendment to get it done.
Arizona should just go ahead and enforce its law and get the state’s part of standing up to this travesty started.
A Comprehnsive Plan for US Southern Border Enforcement
http://www.jeffhead.com/secureborder/
read later
The law is for the people and not for those think they rule us to argue over during the day and then step over the dead and bleeding bodies of the people while they go off to the opera together.
Then hire more staff you knitwit. This is NOT an objection for the judge to make. Has nothing to do with the law she is called to interpret.
Judge Bolton makes much of the burden that will be placed on legal aliens by the Arizona law. Surely this is not unreasonable, since federal law requires that aliens carry proof of their legal status.
Judge Bolton has obviously never flown since 9/11. The unreasonable search and proof of legal status that is required of all Americans gets no governmental concern over its "burden that is placed" on legal citizens.
This ruling is headed for an embarrassing overturn on appeal. Grounds for impeachment of this "judge".
What an unmitigated idiot!! Protecting our borders is one of the greatest priorities of the Federal Government.
I think we can summarize Judge Bolden’s findings as a confused affirmative action hire who suffers from menstral cramps. Maybe that law thing is above her paygrade. Who knew?
Arizona, ignore the ruling. Do as you please and force the issue to court.
How can she overturn the green card requirement that it be carried at all times is beyond me.
I’d be willing to bet she didn’t even know of the green card requirement.
Hey Judge Bolton. Arizona has a common border with Mexico. In case you learned differently.
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.Also known as "the Supreme Law of the Land."-- Article 4, Section 4, United States Constitution
Do as you must and force the issue to court
I'm betting the 9th overturns her on all but one issue.
If you tell her that Arizona has a common border with two countries, Mexico and New Mexico, I'll bet she would not know differently.
I’ve said this from the moment I heard about the ruling. Judge Bolton based her ruling on WHINING by the Feds rather then the rule of law.
Ping!
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