Posted on 04/11/2011 10:34:07 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Court rules against Arizona immigration law Photo 1:09pm EDT
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court upheld a preliminary injunction against parts of Arizona's controversial immigration law in a ruling released on Monday.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lower court did not abuse its authority by enjoining key sections of the state law that were challenged by the Obama administration.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Question. Does what you say mean that states cannot recognize/act on crimes where/when the federal government has laws dealing with such crimes. What comes to mind is someone caught by state police trying to blow up an interstate highway bridge. Does the state cop instead of a formal arrest just say don’t do it until I call the feds? Or does it all hinge on the state cop having to have a state law that allows him to make an arrest?
If it goes back to Susan Bolton, AZ may make some language changes and the parties may reach some resolution. The majority opinion ridiculed the dissent, perhaps not uncommon in the 9th, but the ridicule may reveal the majority’s concern over how well it will fare on appeal.
At the heart of the case, is whether AZ’s law was preempted by federal law. The majority places great weight on the fact the AZ law is superseded by federal policies; which, in this case if not all, are clearly Executive branch wishes and not the intent or will of Congress expressed as written law. IMO, one reading is that whatever the political party in power wishes supersedes state legislation via the Supremacy Clause. Imagine where that will take us if we were to have a political party that believes America needs to be “remade”.
The majority view that there is a foreign policy interest to be considered is particularly disgusting as that suggests the Executive branch somehow has the authority, through inaction, to erase our borders. Any such policy interest should be pursuant to the expressed will of Congress; but, of course...
Whatever, this from the dissent: “…states are free ‘to communicate with the Attorney General regarding the immigration status of any individual…and are also free otherwise [than by communication] to cooperate with the Attorney General in the identification, apprehension, detention, or removal of aliens not lawfully present in the United States”.
The dissent earlier demonstrated existing federal statutes did not limit relevant state action and then states: “…it would be absurd to assume that Congress would permit states to check a person’s immigration status, but would not allow the state to hold the suspected illegal alien until a response were received”.
Lets talk again in a few months.
I suppose the state could formally ask the Feds to do something about it.... assuming the Feds wanted to do something about it, of course.
The Federal Government has, after all, made a point of saying it's their job; a formal request could very well force them to do so in a case like that of Tucson.
It seems to me that there's no new Federal legislation needed to cover this -- the DoJ files suit all the time against cities that violate federal laws and regulations.
The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution is what it is. The judge ruled, and the 9th Circus agreed, that what Arizona did, violates the Constitution.
We can agree on the absence of effective federal action; it's more a question of addressing them in ways that don't violate the Constitution.
And the majority actually agreed with that. The problem is that Arizona did not pass a law saying "free to communicate," they passed a law that requires Arizona to verify the immigration status of "any person" before releasing them from jail.
The USSC is going to strike this law down. Arizona chose a stupid way to address the problem, and they ended up trying to argue that the law does not really mean what the plain words clearly say.
It will be helpful for you to understand that no court has yet made a final decision as to whether the AZ law violates the Constitution.
The judge, Susan Bolton, did not so rule. Her preliminary injunction is based only on her belief there is a “likelihood” of unconstitutionality. Bolton expressed concern the government would likely suffer irreparable harm should enjoined provisions of the law take effect.
For instance, she believes that harm includes such things as an increase in requests for immigration status determination that will overtax federal resources. Further, notwithstanding federal law that federally-issued immigration documents be carried at all times, that the workload of federal officials would be increased because they do not now enforce that law.
Those are "cry me a river" concerns and meanwhile, of course, AZ bleeds both red and green on a daily basis.
The 9th, after wringing its hands that our foreign policies would be damaged, merely held that Bolton did not abuse her discretion by enjoining SB1070; it did not otherwise rule on anything.
You and I may agree on one thing: WTH is Congress on this issue?
Lets be sure to talk again in a few months.
Actually, as you can see from the quote, the court made that very point. And the fact is that the sentences are incompatible. The declarative nature of the second sentence is the controlling language here. That word, "shall," is a big word, with a specific legal meaning, and it controls the entire section. The Arizona lawmakers seriously screwed the pooch there, no two ways about it.
Now I do see the preemption argument since the INA does in fact give specific authority to the Attorney General of the United States to determine the States' role in assisting with immigration.
Right -- and that's why the Supremacy Clause argument carries weight, and why the Supreme Court is likely to side with the original injunction.
Now this is where I got pissed. Congress has made its own ambiguous laws by stating under DHS directives that DHS will respond to identity inquiries.
Well, yeah. But the blame for that can be spread very wide. For example, Tom Tancredo gets a lot of blame for the failure of the last attempt, because he was so busy stinking up the place with his self-aggrandizement, that he shut himself out of actually having a say on the contents of the bill. And the "build the wall" crowd are too silly to be taken seriously by those who know that this is a mostly political process.
For a lot of reasons, dealing with the immigration issue is a lot more complicated than a lot of people are willing to admit. Some of those reasons are good, others are not -- but sorting through the reasons, and finding ways of dealing with them that can pass political muster, will require a willingess to work toward and accept partial victories; and to look for different ways to address the problem (such as dealing with the Americans who pay illegals to come here).
But I seriously doubt that you could make a legitimate argument that we've been "actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay."
As for your Article I comment, that's really an emotional argument that is easily painted as bigotry by the other side of this debate, and in some cases that charge is in fact correct correct.
In reality, we're not being "invaded," per se. Instead, Americans are paying those people to come here. And as for "delay," this has been going on for decades, and could go on for more decades, without the sort of immediately looming catastrophe that Article I has in mind.
And my last point, since Arizona is being sued for trying to actually protect its LEGAL citizens, why then shouldn't cities like San Francisco be sued as well for declaring itself a Sanctuary City?
Arizona is being sued for overstepping its jurisdictional bounds -- an issue that extends well beyond the present situation. As for places like San Francisco, you're exactly right: the DOJ really should step in and sue, for the very same reasons they're suing Arizona.
If you read the opinion you will find the objections of foreign meddlers being used as a legitimate objection to SB1070 in more then one place.
This little act of heresy is legitimised by reference to the comments of a Secretary of State in the past.
Umm, who cares?
This is a patchwork of BS where a Mexican hegemonist "judge" throws a dirt clod of crap against a wall to see if anything sticks. It's the legal equivalent of cocktail argument, and the presiding judge - Carlos Bea - said so in the opinion.
The entire stupid diatribe will be deconstructed by Scalia, Roberts and Thomas, and Kennedy will go along. It's nothing more then a cheap attempt at obfuscation.
Meanwhile, I received an email stating that Oklahoma has been busy passing laws that the left hates just as much as the AZ immigration law. I cannot vouch for the truth of this information. I’ll leave that up to the OK posters to do that.
Oklahoma recently passed a law in the state to incarcerate all illegal immigrants, and ship them back to where they came from unless they want to get a green card and become an American citizen. They all scattered. HB 1804.
Oklahoma passed a law to include DNA samples from any and all illegal’s to the Oklahoma database, for criminal investigative purposes. Pelosi said it was unconstitutional SB 1102
Several weeks ago, we passed a law, declaring Oklahoma as a Sovereign state, not under the Federal Government directives. Joining Texas , Montana and Utah as the only states to do so.
More states are likely to follow: Louisiana, Alabama , Georgia , the Carolina ‘s, Tennessee , Kentucky , Missouri , Arkansas , West Virginia , Mississippi , Florida . Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again. HJR 1003
More states are likely to follow: Louisiana, Alabama , Georgia , the Carolina ‘s, Tennessee , Kentucky , Missouri , Arkansas , West Virginia , Mississippi , Florida . Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again. HJR 1003
Meanwhile, I received an email stating that Oklahoma has been busy passing laws that the left hates just as much as the AZ immigration law. I cannot vouch for the truth of this information. I’ll leave that up to the OK posters to do that.
Oklahoma recently passed a law in the state to incarcerate all illegal immigrants, and ship them back to where they came from unless they want to get a green card and become an American citizen. They all scattered. HB 1804.
Oklahoma passed a law to include DNA samples from any and all illegal’s to the Oklahoma database, for criminal investigative purposes. Pelosi said it was unconstitutional SB 1102
Several weeks ago, we passed a law, declaring Oklahoma as a Sovereign state, not under the Federal Government directives. Joining Texas , Montana and Utah as the only states to do so.
More states are likely to follow: Louisiana, Alabama , Georgia , the Carolina ‘s, Tennessee , Kentucky , Missouri , Arkansas , West Virginia , Mississippi , Florida . Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again. HJR 1003
More states are likely to follow: Louisiana, Alabama , Georgia , the Carolina ‘s, Tennessee , Kentucky , Missouri , Arkansas , West Virginia , Mississippi , Florida . Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again. HJR 1003
Call me back when you want to discuss like a grownup.
So when are the 9th Circus going to smack down mayors instituting "sanctuary city" statutes?
I think the more relevant question is, when is the DoJ going to ask the courts to do so?
You point to one of the key elements of the majority view:
…that this cooperation is to occur on the federal government’s terms, not on those mandated by Arizona.
My take on such language is that a state law pertaining to activities within its borders and not in conflict with federal law may nonetheless be superseded via the Supremacy Clause by Executive branch policies, in this case “government terms”. If that is accurate, it dismisses the intent of Congress in favor of whomever controls the Executive, and that is quite troubling.
The better view on the above point may be that of the dissent at 4868:
The majority would read that inability[a state’s inability to remove illegal aliens] as evidence of congressional intent that state officers cannot act at all with respect to other aspects of immigration enforcement that lead to removal, save on the orders of federal officers pursuant to the provisions of written agreements as set forth in…
Sec. 1 of SB1070 clearly was a call to the various AZ agencies to work together with fed agencies. AZ’s law might have been less offensive to the court had the final sentence in Sec.1 provided:
The provisions of this act are intended to work together with federal immigration laws to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States.
Regards -
Read the opinion yourself. Anyone with a modicum of judgement can see that Paez pulled totally ad hoc arguments out of his hat.
Hm. As I said, when you’re ready to discuss like a grownup, let me know.
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