Posted on 06/25/2012 7:26:29 AM PDT by pabianice
SCOTUS strikes-down 3 of 4 S1170 provisions; says immigration is under federal control. One section -- allowing police to check immigration status after legal stopes -- sent back to 9th District Court for review.
I suspect there may be much more going on in this case than meets the eye. The conservative justices are very smart guys, all five of them. I think they were wise enough to look ahead at the damage this AZ law could do to the GOP & conservatism because of the liberal media coverage of the enforcement of these state immigration laws. The liberal media coverage of enforcement would have been a public relations disaster for the GOP and conservatives. We would have seen endless news reports about situations when “poor Jose and Christina and their two children traveled to AZ from Mexico and were just trying to do honest work to feed themselves when they were arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to six months in jail merely for seeking work. Their children ended up in state custody...their family was torn apart...all because of those Wascally Wepublicans who passed this horrible law in Arizona.” Those reports would have been quite damaging to the GOP.
Then there would be the poor Mexicans who are pulled over for minor traffic violations, don’t have a driver’s license, and are arrested on immigration charges and held for two weeks until trial in some overheated jail in Arizona or Alabama. The potential for politically damaging news coverage was massive before this ruling. I think Roberts and the other four conservatives saw this potential damage and decided to stop this political disaster before it started. That’s a big reason why they struck down the AZ law that allowed local police to arrest people for minor immigration violations. You’ll never hear them say that publicly but I suspect that was a big part of their thinking on this case.
And lawful American citizens don’t want to be harassed by “immigration traps” in small towns where they get pulled over for going 2 MPH over the speed limit and have to sit on the side of the road for 20 minutes while local cops check their background at a glacial speed and then wander slowly back to your car. I’ve been in that situation a few times and it ain’t no fun. Although a driver’s license is sufficient in AZ to prove citizenship, do you really want local police pulling over everyone for very minor traffic offenses while they look for illegal immigrants?
The right way to defend the border is to defend it AT the border and not by harassing people hundreds of miles inside the border. We know how to seal the border. For various reasons, our federal government just hasn’t made the decision to close off the Mexican border. The way to proceed here is to elect Romney and then put pressure on him to finally close the Mexican border. Use those drones that the Obamites want to send after farmers to patrol the border, end illegal immigration, and to rescue immigrants who are running out of water in the summer or freezing in the winter (because their “coyotes” didn’t prepare them for the harsh conditions along our border). That’s the right way to solve the illegal immigration problem. I support the Conservatives on the SCOTUS on this decision. Gov. Brewer and the democrats can now both declare victory while leaving immigration enforcement largely to the federal government.
Maybe you should read Scalia's decent, he felt the need to go to the Court and read his decision.
There is nothing good about this decision in spite of what Seculow said this morning. Police officers that stop and ask will be subjected to legal consequences yet to be determined by the 9th Circus.
Levin will be very pleased right?
In any case, since the president has the power to enforce only the laws he likes and make up his own laws when he wants too, why should we not feel good?
So was Jimmy Hoffa's.
IMHO, it seems that Obama WON this case. The entire AZ law was essentially struck down while the one major provision that was upheld was NOT in fact upheld. It was sent back to the notorious Ninth Circuit Court for review, the Ninth Circuit court, mind you. Gee, I wonder how the 9th Circuit Court will rule on this section of AZ's statute.
In short, SCOTUS granted broad powers over immigration to the Federal government and SCOTUS declared that the states do NOT have any concurrent powers over immigration granted by the US Constitution. Through this decision, SCOTUS has said that the states may only enforce the provisions of immigration law that federal law says they can. The states cannot act on their own to enforce federal immigration law, if the federal government refuses to do so--even if the states are trying to save the lives of their citizens.
That's what the Obama Administration wanted, and that's what they got. AZ got a consolation prize, a temporary victory which can be easily and entirely erased once the 9th Circuit reviews it.
You got that right. Wait until the 9th Circuit is finished interpreting this decision. They will change a 3/1 decision into 4/0 decision.
Thank you for the pings
“Like the fall of Rome, the will to defend our own boarders isn’t even there anymore.”
Great article here about our national suicide, and our leaders’ role in it.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3409
dagogo redux thank you for the link. Great article!!! Definitely recommended reading.
My thoughts exactly. Maybe some on the SC were inviting this action?
That was essentially what this case was all about. Read the dissenting jurists who Roberts sold out. Any hope for that is now history.
This is so incredibly wrong I have no idea what to say. That decision will go back to the 9th Circuit. In any case they are not deporting anyway. The 900,000 that were just legalized have families and now they become anchor babies.
Big Sis just announced they would not accept any more calls from AZ police on illegals. Drop Dead Arizona.
States have sued several times for education and medicaid refunds, they don't get them.
Homeland Security suspends immigration agreements with Arizona police
The Obama administration said Monday it is suspending existing agreements with Arizona police over enforcement of federal immigration laws, and said it has issued a directive telling federal authorities to decline many of the calls reporting illegal immigrants that the Homeland Security Department may get from Arizona police.
Administration officials, speaking on condition they not be named, told reporters they expect to see an increase in the number of calls they get from Arizona police — but that won't change President Obama's decision to limit whom the government actually tries to detain and deport.
"We will not be issuing detainers on individuals unless they clearly meet our defined priorities," one official said in a telephone briefing.
The official said that despite the increased number of calls, which presumably means more illegal immigrants being reported, the Homeland Security Department is unlikely to detain a significantly higher number of people and won't be boosting personnel to handle the new calls.
"We do not plan on putting additional staff on the ground in Arizona," the official said.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Arizona may not impose its own penalties for immigration violations, but it said state and local police could check the legal status of those they have reasonable suspicion to believe are in the country illegally.
That means police statewide can immediately begin calling to check immigration status — but federal officials are likely to reject most of those calls.
Federal officials said they'll still perform the checks as required by law but will respond only when someone has a felony conviction on his or her record. Absent that, ICE will tell the local police to release the person.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said the court's decision frees police up to perform immigration checks. In anticipation of the ruling, she issued an executive order calling for guidance to be issued to every police department on how to fairly carry out the law.
"We will move forward, instructing law enforcement to begin practicing what the United States Supreme Court has upheld," she said.
But the Obama administration is under pressure from immigrant-rights groups to cut down on the number of people it is deporting and has taken a number of steps to try to limit deportations of rank-and-file illegal immigrants and focus instead on those with criminal records or repeated immigration violations.
Last week, Mr. Obama said he would halt deportations for most illegal immigrants under 30 who were brought here as children.
On Monday the administration officials also said they are ending the seven 287(g) task force agreements with Arizona law enforcement officials, which proactively had granted some local police the powers to enforce immigration laws.
The task forces, named for the section of law that allows them, have proved popular among many localities but have been a political headache for the Obama administration, with immigrant-rights groups saying they led to abuses.
On Monday the administration officials said they had concluded the seven agreements they had signed with various departments in Arizona weren't working and took the Supreme Court's ruling as a chance to scrap them.
© Copyright 2012 The Washington Times, LLC
Seems like that's the easy part. Keeping them conservative after they are sworn in seems to be where we got the problem.
If this ends up being the case, the whole thing will rest firmly on Roberts then, because Kennedy would not vote the wrong way without Roberts also covering for him. Without that cover, the fear of the people would act as the natural check to Kennedy as he considers screwing the Constitution.
If Roberts gives Kennedy cover so that the Constitution is so blatantly shafted - especially after Roberts knew enough to ask the right skeptical questions during the hearings - I will consider it proof that Roberts is compromised, threatened by Soros’ goons.
If Obamacare is upheld I will be flying every American flag I have upside-down. I will be sending all my elected officials letters with the flag upside-down. The Fourth of July will be the perfect day for us to show our love of country and the ideals of both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, by flying our flags upside-down, as a signal of distress.
BINGO -- in other words, Arizona can check whatever it chooses, but we're not coming to get them. You can house them but not deport them. Your checks of their status will be a mere academic exercise accomplishing nothing. A predictable result of a ruling that the most conservative elements on and off of the court knew would happen.
So Sheriff Joe needs to arrest the illegals, find out they are illegals, and then publish their names, illegal status, and photos in the paper EVERY TIME - along with notation that the feds refused to do a darn thing about it so any crimes committed by these people after released is (more) blood on Eric Withholder’s hands.
And Arizonans should not be required to pay any federal taxes. For them to do so is taxation without representation - since dear old Big Sis decided not to provide federal services to Arizona.
I don’t think it is possible for me to despise anybody more than I despise these enemy combatants taking over the US government.
We need to start writing the next Declaration of Independence.
Big Sis just issued a statement that they would not be taking calls from AZ police on immigration violations.
Put a fork in the Republic.
The classical anchor baby was one who, when grown to the age of majority, could then act as legal sponsor for his or her parents. This was a process taking at least 18 years.
Nothing that slow is afoot now.
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