[Political Junkie Too]

Judge Bolton proceeds from this misapplication of Hines to the absurd conclusion that Arizona can't ask the federal government for verification of the immigration status of arrestees — even though federal law prohibits the said arrestees from being in the country unless they have legal status — because that would tremendously burden the feds...

She's nuts. Federal law specifically establishes an agency within DOJ to handle requests from the state for verification of status. Now she says that it is a burden on the feds for the state to make use of the service that the feds set up for the states in the first place?

She's nuts...

TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part IV > § 1226 (Apprehension and detention of aliens) says:

(d) Identification of criminal aliens

(1) The Attorney General shall devise and implement a system—

(A) to make available, daily (on a 24-hour basis), to Federal, State, and local authorities the investigative resources of the Service to determine whether individuals arrested by such authorities for aggravated felonies are aliens;

(B) to designate and train officers and employees of the Service to serve as a liaison to Federal, State, and local law enforcement and correctional agencies and courts with respect to the arrest, conviction, and release of any alien charged with an aggravated felony; and

(C) which uses computer resources to maintain a current record of aliens who have been convicted of an aggravated felony, and indicates those who have been removed.

(2) The record under paragraph (1)(C) shall be made available—

(A) to inspectors at ports of entry and to border patrol agents at sector headquarters for purposes of immediate identification of any alien who was previously ordered removed and is seeking to reenter the United States, and

(B) to officials of the Department of State for use in its automated visa lookout system.

(3) Upon the request of the governor or chief executive officer of any State, the Service shall provide assistance to State courts in the identification of aliens unlawfully present in the United States pending criminal prosecution.

The federal code requires that the Attorney General create a database of legal immigrants that local law enforcement can call upon for verification of suspected illegal immigrants. The local law enforcement would not access this database directly, but would go through a liaison within the Justice Department. The federal code says that the Justice Department is to make this system available on a 24-hour basis.

-PJ

[Regulator]

Her comments about "overwhelming" the federal immigration enforcement bureaucracy is absurd. It merely points out the severity of the problem. Her claim amounts to the assertion that the problem is so bad, the federal government simply can't cope with it. So Arizona better not try.

What this has to do with the "Constitutionality" of the law God only knows. It is nothing more than political muttering, better known as Legislating from the Bench.

Today we have seen one woman overthrow the duly made laws of the Legislature of the State of Arizona, based on her own prejudices and chatty opinions.

[eggman]

You can't expect a judge to burden the federal government to do the job it is supposed to be doing. Their too busy writing laws that give them a whole set of new powers which they can selectively choose to enforce.