Obama administration will sue Arizona over immigration policy
The Obama administration has decided to go forward with the threatened lawsuit against Arizona’s immigration law, and the approach will be that the state has pre-empted the federal government’s over-arching right to regulate immigration.
Never mind that the feds have been completely derelict in their duty to do so. Never mind that the people of Arizona are in danger because of the feds’ failure to protect. Unsurprisingly, the Obama administration has decided to make a federal case out of this and to challenge the rights of states to defend themselves when the federal government will not.
And Obama may win, if legal scholar Kevin R. Johnson’s reasoning is correct:
It is not an appropriate legal response to say, as some Arizona legislators and supporters have, that Senate Bill 1070 simply enforces federal law. It is for the federal government to decide how, when and why to enforce federal immigration law ”“ law over which it has the exclusive authority.
The Supreme Court a few years ago rejected a remarkably similar argument in striking down a California law that sought to recover monies from insurance companies for victims of the Holocaust in more aggressive a fashion than the U.S. government; in so doing, the court acknowledged “he basic fact is that California seeks to use an iron fist where the President has consistently chosen kid gloves.” Here, it is Arizona that seeks to act with an “iron fist” toward immigrants, while, in the eyes of many of the law’s proponents, the president has used “kid gloves.”
So if Johnson turns out to be correct, when the US has a federal administration in power for which encouragement of illegal immigration (and even, eventually, amnesty for illegals) happens to offer the political advantage of their acquiring more voters, and those in charge are determined to fail to do the will of the people and enforce our immigration laws, there’s nothing the individual states and their people can legally do to stop them.
[NOTE: It occurs to me that the Holocaust survivor payments case that Johnson cites as precedent involves a discretionary matter rather than one of states’ citizens safety and self-preservation. This might end up making a difference in the present court challenge, although I’m not sure in whose favor it would go.]
The Rule holds – Everyday a fresh assault on America, on America’s sovereignty, its prosperity, its laws, its traditions, etc., etc.
I am convinced that Obama thinks that if he does not do something to harm or weaken America on a given day, then its been a bad, slow, or dull day.
He’s a man on a mission, let there be no mistake. He hates America. He hates Americans. He answers to other powers than the people and institutions of America.
We sowed the wind with this guy. We are reaping the whirlwind.
There is no stopping him. As someone on some other blog said: It’s November or never.
We have, maybe, one more shot. Not two.
At least he is using the space program (or what’s left of it) to reach out to the Islamic world. That way we can have hate propaganda go where no man has gone before.
Mike Mc. tragically democracies deserve what they get more than other systems of governance, we’ll see in November whether Americans are worthy of America. Odd an off year election being the most important in our history.
I agree that Obumbles consistently is remarkable, but I have to disagree with you when you say his attacks are daily, to me they appear weekly or semi-weekly; for instance it last six weeks we had Sestak, Nasa outreach to Islam, DOJ racism, the Arizona suit, suspending the Jones act six weeks late, inadequate management of the Gulf oil crisis, refusal to adequately patrol the Arizona border without a bribe (action on amnesty). I realize I am missing stuff but that just supports my plea that we get together and start an Obama Knave/fool database to keep track of the One’s onslaughts.
There is good news though, he has invited Netanyahu here so he get the Israelis to make peace with the Arab world by stop being so aggressive (sarcasm on) .
The difference I see between the cases – and, while not a lawyer, I rather suspect it to end up a bigger one than the quote thinks it will is that the holocaust one is for something *outside of the state*. It would be like Arizona deciding that Texas ought to pay them for every illegal they find.
Further it was an enforcement of a *federal regulation*, not additional ones for the state. For instance if the federal govt decided not to prosecute for a federal kidnapping charge that doesn’t mean the local state govt can prosecute theirs – it just means they can’t try a federal crime in state courts.
In a similar vein Arizona can’t force the deportation of said illegal – that isn’t in the ability of a state to do it. Nor can they prosecute any federal statute and force the feds to comply. But they can, and should be able to have their own punishments for being in the country illegally. At the very least they could fine the crap out of their employers (which as I understand is a big part of the bill too).
Last I checked the Constitution doesn’t say that the responsibility for enforcing illegal alien laws is with the feds. Nor does it prohibit the states from passing their own laws pertaining to illegal acts within their borders. As such I do not see this one going very far.
Now, of course that doesn’t necessarily matter as to how the judges will rule – if we have seen anything they are quite capable of rationalizing any decision they want. The legislation may also run afoul of some other right and have chunks of it struck down too.
My law school days (and lessons on Constitutional Law) behind me, I’ll give this a stab off the cuff. Any state law that seeks to operate in an area expressly preempted by federal, will be found void due to the Supremacy Clause of the Constiution.
While immigration policy (definitions, requirements, naturalization, etc) is clearly preemptive federal law, immigration enforcement (determining the status of a immigrant) is another matter. The creation of ICE, and it’s history of working with local authorities in processing for deportation illegals arrested by local authorities (or working with local authorities to conduct raids on illegal immigrant dominated bsuinesses) is clearly established. Several states, including Calif. have legislation whose language mirrors AZ law.
This lawsuit is about garnering support from Hispanics, and sparing Dems in congress the need to be on the record for amnesty. The Obama admin gets to proclaim it’s amnesty sreet cred, Dems in congress get a breather from pushing unpopular legislation, and no one has consider the fact the American public favors AZ, with polling of 70%.
This is highly relevant and disputes legal scholar Kevin R. Johnson’s reasoning…
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in Muehler v. Mena that questioning someone regarding their immigration status is NOT a violation of Fourth Amendment rights – provided that person is already lawfully detained.
Muehler v Mena establishes that “officers did not need reasonable suspicion to ask Mena for her name, date and place of birth, or immigration status.”
Even though this was a gang-related case, “no additional Fourth Amendment justification for inquiring about Mena’s immigration status was required.”
If that’s true in California, it’s true in Arizona.
This is a strong precedent, with six justices from that unanimous decision remaining on the bench.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-1423.ZO.html
Continuing from above, this lawsuit is NOT about rescinding the Arizona Law, which in light of Muehler vs Mena is highly problematic.
This lawsuit is about Obama placating his Hispanic base.
Given that the lawsuit is likely to be counter-productive in pissing off more people than it satiates and that Axelrod is sure to have so advised Obama, it’s a clear indication of the dissatisfaction with Obama and political pressure brought upon him by Hispanic activists.
Obama has lost much of the independent vote and is sure to lose more. He simply can’t afford to lose his base as well.
But 2012 is already over, Obama has lost the confidence of the American people and, that decline is going to accelerate to even greater levels of distrust and rejection.
Pingback:Living Proof that President Obama is more interested in his socialist agenda, than he is protecting our borders | Political Byline
I have to wonder sometimes if legal scholars have any common sense whatsoever.
I should think that there are two issues, and really only two. The answers to the following questions should be definitive.
1. Does Arizona law define requirements to immigrate to Arizona, contrary to federal requirements? Does Arizona law establish quotas for immigrant residing in Arizona? Does Arizona law contravene the status of any immigrant as defined by federal statues?
2. Does Arizona law violate any of the individual rights established in the Constitution?
If the answers to such simple questions, and any others of a like nature is negative, I fail to see where preemption can be claimed.
As an aside, I do believe there are instances in which prosecution is undertaken by state authorities in cases in which both state and federal laws have been violated. The notorious sniper attacks in the Washington, DC area killed a number of people several years ago. I am sure they could have been prosecuted under various federal laws, but the federal government deferred to the states. And states without the death penalty deferred to states which had that option; if I remember correctly.
Every litigator, the Federal Gov. included, must consider what happens if they don’t prevail. This is where Obama takes all the risk. Anything short of overturning the Arizona immigration law will be a significant black-eye for Obama. Not because he didn’t get his way. Rather, because he overrode 70% of the U.S. population, failed to even read the law before criticizing it; then, rather than addressing/fixing the problem, sued. This will make him look even more weak and out of touch. Then what does he do? Continue to criticize a U.S. state even after the law’s validity has been addressed? This is a test case and failure (for Obama’s lawsuit) will open the flood gates for other states to do what Arizona has done. How will those he wishes to benefit (illegals) view his efforts then?
I understood the Arizona law to require law enforcement officers to inform Federal officials in cases where illegal immigration was suspected.
Surely there’s a substantive distinction between “informing Federal officials” and “enforcing Federal law.” Arizona was not proposing to conduct its own prosecutions, right?
Conversely, would Johnson have us believe that state law enforcement officers would not inform Federal officials if they encountered someone potentially in breach of a Federal law that lacked a state counterpart? So if an AZ highway patrol officer encountered evidence that someone had committed, say, espionage, or plotting to assassinate the President (each of which, I assume, is a Federal but not a state crime), he should not report it to the Feds?
That’s hard to believe.
This really is a mind blowing event taking place. I’m struck by the fact that the fed uses the word pre-empted. It more like AZ in light of the vacuum, stepped into the breach.
This unanimous Supreme Court decision from 2005 seems determining here: Muehler v. Mena: that the Constitution “does not require officers to have an independent reasonable suspicion before questioning a subject about their immigration status.”
What’s left then?
Seems to me the core thing to argue is that clearly defined federal laws shouldn’t be subjected to lax enforcement due to vote pandering ideologues in political power. Which if allowed, means we may concievably get to the point where black panther thugs could get away with voter intimidation at polling precincts….Oh wait a sec.
Pingback:Oh my . . . the Justice Department’s suit against Arizona does not charge “discrimination†| MorallyRight.org
Geoffrey the Brit –
Some excellent points.
But if Obama is the tyrant I have him pegged for, he will make a play to stay on in 2012 even if 70% of the country despises him. He will contrive something, or manufacture something. I would not put suspending the election and declaring martial law past him.
This era may very well come down to bricks and bats in the streets. It may be like the movie The Streets of New York, but national and technologically advanced.
The sine qua non of anything good is this November. We lose that then it’s calamity and chaos all down the line for decades.
I don’t understand why the hispanics want all of these hispanics to come here. Aren’t they presumably trying to get away from hispanics? That’s why they came here? Why bother to leave if it’s gonna become just like Mexico?
From NRO: One of the law’s drafters answers the anticipated objections:
http://article.nationalreview.com/437656/defending-arizona/kris-w-kobach
It sounds like they did some serious homework.
This principle applies a forteriori to politicians. Only in extremis (I’m apparently on a Latin kick tonight – sorry) does any politician wager his prestige on an uncertain outcome. To do so is simply stupid, but we’ve seen it again and again with the Kenyan Keynesian: e.g., the Skip Gates fiasco, and flying off to Copenhagen to importune the Europeans for the Olympics (which, to anyone with any knowledge of Europeans whatsoever, was absolutely guaranteed to scupper Chicago’s chances), to name two examples. Going all in on a test of strength you might lose is stupid, unless the issue is utterly critical.
Good point. I don’t get this either. Hispanic friends of mine here in SoCal violently oppose illegal immigration, much more so than I do. (I’d rather have Mexicans here than liberals. They don’t want either.) So while this is purely anecdotal, and doubtless utterly unrepresentative, I don’t know of a single Hispanic who favors illegal immigration, and still less amnesty. Of course, most of them are ex-Marines, and make me look squishy left, God love ’em.
The part I really don’t get is why blacks would support Mexican immigration. Have they really failed to figure out that Mexicans will compete for low-skill jobs, and in general have a considerably stronger work ethic?
Occam’s Beard
While their “leaders” do, not all do. From African American News & Isssues: Revisiting the Immigration Reform Debate
More at the link.
I find this confusing.
The Federal Governement is suing the State because the State wants to help the Federal Government apprehend illegals. The Feds case is a) that’s our job and b) we don’t want to be overloaded with your referrals.
Now here’s where I’m confused. There are other crimes that are Federal in nature, like bank robbery.
If an Arizona policeman catches a bank robber, you think he shouldn’t refer the criminal to the Feds?
If a robbery is in progress should the locals say, “That’s not our concern.”
Senseless, right?
Occam:
I live outside Phila. Not a day goes by when I don’t see 50 illegals working in the area (outside in landscaping or construction).
Each one travels a minimum of 2000 miles to cut Mrs. Smith’s lawn or build Mr. Jone’s house or pave his driveway.
12 miles East there are 1/2 million African AMericans who are paid by liberals to remain poor, unemployed and criminal. They get government largesse and resentemtns and excuses in exchange for being something the tyrants can point to for why they need more money and power.
The illegals are salt-of-the-earth types. But if they go away, so do the excuses and the Statism Plantations.
The illegal is the best thing the liberals have going. They will never stop them. They will do everything possible to keep them either illegal or else residents of inner cities like the blacks they work for.
And they do work for the welfare state. That is their main job. They send the rest of their money home to Mexico.
The truth is that Obama and those who oppose Arizona’s S.B. 1070 are in favor of illegal immigration and just don’t want to admit it.
This is easily proven by asking anyone who is against S.B. 1070 on “civil rights” grounds to write a law themselves which achieve the same thing while preserving the civil liberties they so claim to cherish.
Of course, they never do.
I love how the complaint keeps focus on the AZ law “undermine the federal government’s careful balance of immigration enforcement priorities and objectives.” Now that ought to make for a nice juxtaposition with the BLM signs warning Americans to avoid land south of Interstate 8. Not to mention, the citation of the President of Mexico’s address to Congress as countries and international organizations who don’t like the law.
In any case, inquiring into immigration status during a lawful stop was upheld by the 1st circuit regarding a state trooper traffic stop in Rhode Island. So the bulk of the law can be executed now without the actual law but just by using US code for authority.
All the nice legal arguments aside the real issue is safety. The right of the citizen to be protected in his home and country from invaders. And to be clear, that is what the illegal ‘immigrant’ is, an invader. Now taking the issue of safety at it’s value, the first responder is the individual as recently affirmed in McDonald via a 14th Amendment argument and enforced via the 2nd Amendment.
I live in the border area and my town has come to resemble what I used to see in Juarez. Run down bodegas and cruddy looking stores. I do not begrudge those looking for a better life and want to see them have a legal path to entrance rather than have to pursue illegal entrance.
The system is broken for many reasons too numerous to detail at this juncture but be sure that the illegals bring crime, drugs and the attendant violence with them from the failed narco state that Mexico has become. They kill innocents in high numbers via drunken driving and violent confrontations.
If the Feds will not protect us then what are we to do?
Give me good practical answers.
As I’ve said in this venue before, living in SoCal, I have a lot of sympathy with the Mexicans in general and illegal aliens in particular, albeit not enough to legitimize the latter. They’re decent, family-oriented, hard-working people, and many surprisingly patriotic toward the US for giving them a chance at a better life. I’d trade liberals for Mexicans, legal or not, straight-up any day.
Mike Mc,
100% American here. The last name is a play on my actual surname and, on my dad’s side we do trace our family back to England, so it fits.
“But if Obama is the tyrant I have him pegged for, he will make a play to stay on in 2012 even if 70% of the country despises him. He will contrive something, or manufacture something. I would not put suspending the election and declaring martial law past him.”
All Obama’s fiscal moves point to engineering an economic collapse.
Arthur Laffer is predicting it in 2011.
See: Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704113504575264513748386610.html
It’s not just Laffer either, Rep. Paul Ryan is predicting it too. Obama’s New Budget Will ‘Literally Crash the U.S. Economy’
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/62959
Here’s my take on Obama’s Plan: http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/obamas-plan/
Occam’s Beard . . .
You mention that all the Hispanics you know are against illegal immigration. That’s funny because . . .
All the Hispanics “I” know are against illegal immigration.
I wonder if there’s a statistic here. Maybe “most” legal Hispanics are against illegal immigration. Someone should do a “study” about this phenomenon.
Why would Hispanics be any different from any other immigrant group? I don’t know too many legal Rumanian immigrants who are in favor of illegal immigration.
I am surprised this law has lasted so long. We should thank the people at fox for mainstream media going down the toiled as cited by The Committee for Media and Newspaper Integrity.
http://www.newspaperintegrity.com
It goes without saying the Feds have no appetite for enforcing immigration laws.
It is the Feds responsibility, but they’re not fulfilling that responsibility so Arizona had no choice to take the matters into their own hands.
I just saw a very short piece on German Yahoo news that Calderon welcomes the lawsuit. This is just the kind of reporting Obama loves. It makes him sound nice and caring to people who are totally ignorant of the situation and the laws. And of course, it confirms the image of his opponents– those bible-thumping, gun-toting, xenophobic, neo-Nazi conservative Republicans who voted for Bush.
“As I’ve said in this venue before, living in SoCal, I have a lot of sympathy with the Mexicans in general and illegal aliens in particular, albeit not enough to legitimize the latter. ”
Where I live has one of the highest concentrations in the nation. Apparently Morristown Tennessee is one of the big hubs for them as they can easily get a US ID card. I am pretty sure I know a number of illegals and I find what you wrote to be true by far too.
I’ve never understood why some political group didn’t decide to crack down on illegals yet really open up the legal immigration from Mexico. Make it required to learn English and – therefore – assimilate into our culture and I’m all for a large influx of hard workers in our country. That is what got us where we are today.
Your going to loose unions? Oooh, there’s a threat – you espouse what is mostly a conservative idea and you are going to loose the unions? Did you ever have them to loose in the first place?
You want to make those Hispanics love you? Allow their families in *legally* and punish those that circumvented the system those legals went through. The illegals are taking their jobs too and few really like that someone else just blew through the border after all the work they put in to get here.
Really, give me people who work as hard as they do, have them pay taxes, and have them become Americans and I’m a happy camper. If they need to bring their Grandma over then so be it. I’ll take all of them any country wants to send here – why should we limit the number of hard working individuals in this country?
Reward illegals and you get illegals, give people a sane legal path and most will take it. It is then easy to crack down in those that do not.
So are sanctuary cities preempting federal law? Isn’t that what they, the Obama quagmire, saying?
On the question of whether alleged-President Obama really does meet the Constitutional requirements to occupy the office of President of the US, the courts have ruled that mere US citizens do not have the standing to petition the courts to order that the explicit language of the US Constitution be followed. So yeah, I think we can expect that the Obama administration will find a compliant jusdge to rule in their favor.
Julia NYC: “… Why bother to leave if it’s gonna become just like Mexico?”
Because the political elites, the governing class — and thus the policy is consistent across all Mexican administrations — of Mexico is intentionally conducting a slow-motion invasion-and-conquest of the US. This is their model.
The Mexicans know not the destructive trap they are walking into. In twenty years the federal govt will insure through vote buying handouts that their work ethic will be destroyed and their families obese, fractured and lacking in self reliance.
Human nature is great at detecting a vat of sewage as something you could possibly drown in. Not so much a vat of chocolate.
Absolute madness!!
@RantTherapy: “What’s left then?”
The quote which preceded your question excluded a pivotal point: that the question on immigration status was after being lawfully detained.
@SteveH: “Human nature is great at detecting a vat of sewage as something you could possibly drown in. Not so much a vat of chocolate.”–love it, that’s my new intartubz sig!!
“… and the approach will be that the state has pre-empted the federal government’s over-arching right to regulate immigration…”
=================
But– Arizona’s new law mirrors federal law, so they’re not “pre-empting” the Feds with their own new approach. (Someone elsewhere ?Krauthammer? said that the LAW is the same for AZ and the feds, so that shouldn’t be an issue for the court; but he says the POLICY (ie not enforcing the law) is different; he wonders if the manner/ lack/ of implementation is sufficient to satisfy a court that the Obummer Admin’s case has merit to proceed.)
An aside-
It’s interesting to me: on several anti-jihad websites, they discuss the concept of “lawfare” in which Islamicists attempt to facilitate our destruction by using our own rule-of-law AGAINST us in essentially a “war by jurisprudence”. Obama and His Posse are doing the exact same thing. As far as I can tell, America is under full-fledged civil (non-armed, non-military) attack from our own president and his advisers & appointees, AND the legislature, AND the judiciary, AND the “watchdog press”. (–Hmm, interesting thought– can you have a “civil war” that’s top-down, elites-vs-commoners? I thought it was usually the “impoverished masses” who revolt against the crushing oppression of their overlords…)
I swear I don’t have a history of paranoia, BUT– I truly believe every one of these groups listed above is going all-out to destroy me and my country. Damn them all.
Damn. Them. ALL.
I couldn’t agree more.
Btw, I am told there’s a hefty proportion of Mexicans in the USMC, because if they successfully see their enlistment through to an honorable discharge, they thereby gain citizenship. (So they’re kind of inverse liberals.)
Ya gotta love people like that.
I’ve never understood why some political group didn’t decide to crack down on illegals yet really open up the legal immigration from Mexico
because to be fair, we limit immigration to a certain number from each country and its the same.
if they did as you said, they would either have to raise the number for every country… or find some way to claim it legal to favor Mexicans…
the reason they are doing it the way they are doing it, is that with a cap of 50k a year… they can only bring in half a million mexicans a decade.
but with their open borders BS, they can bet 10 million in a decade, and then have so many as to make us have to act like stalin in order to fix it.
since we wont act that way, we in effect are weakened by actions that their system would never allow and can handle.
our failure is their proof
proof of what?
that under survival of the fittest as a whole, the fittest are not the smart ones that can make gew gaws and super weapons and technology the problems.
the one that is fittest fixes a bridle to those and gives them oats and limits them preserving their familial positions. (in the game of king of the hill, there is no winner, just player that occupy the hill longer than others).
so in essence, our letting the soviets and progressives win, proves that they are right and that our system should fail.
a system that was superior would never let itself be put in these corners to solve problems it should never have.
how comfortable the people are before eradication doesn’t really have a value as superior, does it
[and when the crap hits the fan, do you think that the feminists will let us have pin up pictures to get us to fight for them? yeah… we will fight and save the world for her 3.bp.blogspot.com/_uy9QWMOL7QI/SDWdVOyrJWI/AAAAAAAADF8/-nOe6XLs3TE/s1600-h/dworkin_ugly.jpg ]
so far we are not thinking about external acts.
Obama may think that things are planned, but he hasn’t realized that once we are weak enough for him to do what he wants in any way he wants, we will be so weak that Russia and china and others will do what they want with obama and who will obama call to save him and his prize? he had disarmed them from saving him too.
The socialists, or rather to use Occams latin skew, the Sinister tempted Eve against Adam..
and now, mankind will be thrown out of the lastest garden. and the gods of Olympia will live there. just as they did in the great palace… and other places.
Maybe, like Stalin’s police battalions, they’ll put Dworkin and Kagan pinups behind us. That would certainly make me charge towards the enemy.
>>So if an AZ highway patrol officer encountered evidence that someone had committed, say, espionage, or plotting to assassinate the President (each of which, I assume, is a Federal but not a state crime), he should not report it to the Feds?
That’s hard to believe.>>
But _so_ tempting…!
Pingback:NBC Reporter Discovers New Immigration Law Causing Illegals to Leave Arizona | MorallyRight.org