“I don’t understand how you could extrapolate from upholding the AZ law that other states like CA could write their own immigration laws. That is pure nonsense.”
Section 3. AZ is setting a criminal punishment for those found to be illegally in AZ. Under what grounds? AZ saying that is what they believe to be appropriate.
If the federal government were to uphold AZ setting it’s own laws, then other states would follow suit, and likely as not, laws which would provide them with visa waivers, cards, etc.
These immigrants would now be legal and AZ couldn’t enforce their own provisions to deport them.
Whereas, by upholding in part, AZ can enforce federal law by recording everyone who is found without documentation, and sending them to the feds.
The court gave AZ what you are saying they asked for, the ability to enforce federal law, not the ability to set their own law over and above federal law.
If the federal government were to uphold AZ setting its own laws, then other states would follow suit, and likely as not, laws which would provide them with visa waivers, cards, etc.
Section 3 was meant to enforce existing federal immigration law. It is a giant leap that other states could issue visa waviers, cards, etc, which are in direct conflict with existing federal immigration law. States are expressly prohibited from doing such things by the Constitution.
AZ would turn over those apprehended to federal immigration authorities for their disposal. AZ is not setting its own laws, but mirroring federal law just like states do with kidnapping, bank robberies, etc.
These immigrants would now be legal and AZ couldnt enforce their own provisions to deport them.
AZ 1070 doesn't authorize the deportation of anyone. Just like every other state, they are handed over to ICE, which then makes that determination thru federal immigration courts. You are misrepresenting what is in AZ 1070.
In addition to any violation of federal law, a person is guilty of willful failure to complete or carry an alienregistration document if the person is in violation of 8
It is beyond question that a State may make violation of federal law a violation of state law as well. We have held that to be so even when the interest protected is a distinctively federal interest, such as protection of the dignity of the national flag, see Halter v. Nebraska, 205 U. S. 34 (1907), or protection of the Federal Governments ability to recruit soldiers, Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254 U. S. 325 (1920). [T]he State is not inhibited from making the nationalpurposes its own purposes to the extent of exerting its police power to prevent its own citizens from obstructingthe accomplishment of such purposes. Id., at 331 (internal quotation marks omitted). Much more is that so when, as here, the State is protecting its own interest, the integrity of its borders. And we have said that explicitly with regard to illegal immigration: Despite the exclusive federal control of this Nations borders, we cannot conclude that the States are without any power to deter the influxof persons entering the United States against federal law,and whose numbers might have a discernible impact ontraditional state concerns. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202, 228, n. 23 (1982).
The Courts opinion relies upon Hines v. Davidowitz, supra. Ante, at 910. But that case did not, as the Court believes, establish a field preemption that implicitlyeliminates the States sovereign power to exclude thosewhom federal law excludes. It held that the States are not permitted to establish additional or auxiliary registration requirements for aliens. 312 U. S., at 6667. But §3does not establish additional or auxiliary registrationrequirements. It merely makes a violation of state law the very same failure to register and failure to carry evidenceof registration that are violations of federal law. Hines does not prevent the State from relying on the federal registration system as an available aid in the enforcement of a number of statutes of the state applicable to aliens whose constitutional validity has not been questioned. Id., at 7576 (Stone, J., dissenting).
One such statute is Arizonas law forbidding illegal aliens to collect unemployment benefits, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §23781(B) (West 2012). To enforce that and other laws that validly turn on alien status, Arizona has, in Justice Stones words, an interest in knowing the number and whereabouts of aliens within the state and in having a means of their identification, 312 U. S., at 75. And it can punish the aliens failure to comply with the provisions of federal law that make that knowledge and identification possible.
In some areas of uniquely federal concerne.g., fraud in a federal administrative process (Buckman Co. v. Plaintiffs Legal Comm., 531 U. S. 341 (2001)) or perjury in violation of a federally required oath (In re Loney, 134 U. S. 372 (1890))this Court has held that a State has no legitimate interest in enforcing a federal scheme. But the federal alien registration system is certainly not of uniquelyfederal interest. States, private entities, and individuals rely on the federal registration system (including the E-Verify program) on a regular basis. Arizonas legitimate interest in protecting (among other things) its unemploymentbenefits system is an entirely adequate basis for making the violation of federal registration and carry requirements a violation of state law as well.
The Court points out, however, ante, at 11, that in some respects the state law exceeds the punishments prescribedby federal law: It rules out probation and pardon, whichare available under federal law. The answer is that it makes no difference. Illegal immigrants who violate §3 violate Arizona law. It is one thing to say that the Supremacy Clause prevents Arizona law from excludingthose whom federal law admits. It is quite something elseto say that a violation of Arizona law cannot be punished more severely than a violation of federal law. Especiallywhere (as here) the State is defending its own sovereign interests, there is no precedent for such a limitation. The sale of illegal drugs, for example, ordinarily violates statelaw as well as federal law, and no one thinks that the state penalties cannot exceed the federal. As I have discussed, moreover, field preemption cannot establish aprohibition of additional state penalties in the area of immigration.
Finally, the Government also suggests that §3 poses an obstacle to the administration of federal immigration law,see Brief for United States 3133, but there is no conflict in terms, and no possibility of such conflict, [if] the state statute makes federal law its own, California v. Zook, 336 U. S. 725, 735 (1949).
It holds no fear for me, as it does for the Court, that [w]ere §3 to come into force, the State would have thepower to bring criminal charges against individuals for violating a federal law even in circumstances where fed- eral officials in charge of the comprehensive scheme determine that prosecution would frustrate federal policies. Ante, at 11. That seems to me entirely appropriate when the State uses the federal law (as it must) as the criterion for the exercise of its own power, and the implementation of its own policies of excluding those who do not belong there. What I do fearand what Arizona and the States that support it fearis that federal policies of nonenforcement will leave the States helpless before those evileffects of illegal immigration that the Courts opinion dutifully recites in its prologue (ante, at 6) but leavesunremedied in its disposition. §5(C)