“would allow the State to achieve its own immigration policy.”
Is this not exactly what I said was the problem with section 6? Yes, I read the court decision. No state has ever had control over immigration. Immigration is an enumerated power of the federal government, per the constitution, not the states. The 10th only applies to enumerated powers, and immigration is an enumerated power.
“Today, the Obama administration pulled 287 g authority away from AZ. They did it because they did not like the SCOTUS ruling. In essence, they have taken away AZ’s ability to enforce immigration laws even with trained personnel. This is a travesty and is dispicable.”
SCOTUS has already upheld the ability of the state of AZ to not only document, but enforce federal immigration law within the boundary of the state.
The Obama administration can do whatever they want, but they cannot abrogate the decision of the supreme court of the united states.
AZ should defy the administration and ramp up efforts to document all the illegal immigrants that they do encounter under reasonable suspicion. None of what the Obama administration does to hamper AZ in this has any legal force whatsoever.
When AZ arrests someone under that circumstance, they turn the person over to the Feds for final disposition and determination just like they do with people caught under the 287 (g) program.
SCOTUS has already upheld the ability of the state of AZ to not only document, but enforce federal immigration law within the boundary of the state.
Not so. Where are you getting this nonsense from? SCOTUS did uphold AZ's E-Verify law, but that doesn't mean carte blanche authority to enforce all federal immigration laws. The 289 (g) program requires state and local police to be trained by ICE to enforce to a limited degree immigration law. Now, ICE has taken away AZ's 287 (g) authority. Under the Secure Communities program, which is not supposed to be voluntary, the police are supposed to forward the fingerprints of suspected and artested illegal aliens to DHS.
We also have the SAVE progam that enables state and local authorities to access ICE data bases to determine eligibility for welfare benefits. Law enforcement has that same ability under 287 (g).
The Obama administration can do whatever they want, but they cannot abrogate the decision of the supreme court of the united states.
They are effectively doing that by declaring war on AZ and depriving law enforcement of the needed tools to deal with an out of control illegal immigration problem that is bankrupting the state. Here is what Scalia had to say about Obama's "Dream Act:
The brief for the Government in this case asserted that “the Executive Branch’s ability to exercise discretion and set priorities is particularly important because of the needto allocate scarce enforcement resources wisely.” Brief for United States 21. Of course there is no reason why the Federal Executive’s need to allocate its scarce enforcement resources should disable Arizona from devoting its resources to illegal immigration in Arizona that in its view the Federal Executive has given short shrift. DespiteCongress’s prescription that “the immigration laws of theUnited States should be enforced vigorously and uniformly,” IRCA §115, 100 Stat. 3384, Arizona asserts without contradiction and with supporting citations: “[I]n the last decade federal enforcement efforts havefocused primarily on areas in California and Texas, leaving Arizona’s border to suffer from comparativeneglect. The result has been the funneling of an increasing tide of illegal border crossings into Arizona. Indeed, over the past decade, over a third of the Nation’s illegal border crossings occurred in Arizona.” Brief for Petitioners 2–3 (footnote omitted).
Must Arizona’s ability to protect its borders yield to thereality that Congress has provided inadequate funding for federal enforcement—or, even worse, to the Executive’s unwise targeting of that funding?
But leave that aside. It has become clear that federal enforcement priorities—in the sense of priorities based on the need to allocate “scarce enforcement resources”—is not the problem here. After this case was argued and while it was under consideration, the Secretary of HomelandSecurity announced a program exempting from immi- gration enforcement some 1.4 million illegal immigrants under the age of 30.4 If an individual unlawfully presentin the United States
“• came to the United States under the age of sixteen;
“• has continuously resided in the United States for at least five years . . . ,
“• is currently in school, has graduated from high school, has obtained a general education development certificate, or is an honorably discharged veteran . . . ,
“• has not been convicted of a [serious crime]; and
“• is not above the age of thirty,”5 then U. S. immigration officials have been directed to “defe[r] action” against such individual “for a period of two years, subject to renewal.”6 The husbanding of scarce enforcement resources can hardly be the justification for this, since the considerable administrative cost of conducting as many as 1.4 million background checks, and ruling on the biennial requests for dispensation that the nonenforcement program envisions, will necessarily be deducted from immigration enforcement. The President said at a news conference that the new program is “the right thingto do” in light of Congress’s failure to pass the Administration’s proposed revision of the Immigration Act.7 Perhapsit is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of the Immigration Act that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind.
The Court opinion’s looming specter of inutterable horror—“[i]f §3 of the Arizona statute were valid, every Statecould give itself independent authority to prosecute fed- eral registration violations,” ante, at 10—seems to me not so horrible and even less looming. But there has come to pass, and is with us today, the specter that Arizona and the States that support it predicted: A Federal Government that does not want to enforce the immigration lawsas written, and leaves the States’ borders unprotected against immigrants whom those laws would exclude. So the issue is a stark one. Are the sovereign States at themercy of the Federal Executive’s refusal to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws?
A good way of answering that question is to ask: Would the States conceivably have entered into the Union if the Constitution itself contained the Court’s holding?
Today’sjudgment surely fails that test. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the delegates contended with “the jealousy of the states with regard to their sovereignty.” 1Records of the Federal Convention 19 (M. Farrand ed.1911) (statement of Edmund Randolph). Through ratification of the fundamental charter that the Convention produced, the States ceded much of their sovereignty to the Federal Government. But much of it remained jealously guarded—as reflected in the innumerable proposals thatnever left Independence Hall. Now, imagine a provision—perhaps inserted right after Art. I, §8, cl. 4, the Naturalization Clause—which included among the enumerated powers of Congress “To establish Limitations upon Immigration that will be exclusive and that will be enforced only to the extent the President deems appropriate.” The delegates to the Grand Convention would have rushed to the exits.
As is often the case, discussion of the dry legalities that are the proper object of our attention suppresses the very human realities that gave rise to the suit. Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem. Its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy. Federal officials have been unable to remedy the problem,and indeed have recently shown that they are unwilling to do so. Thousands of Arizona’s estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants—including not just children but men and women under 30—are now assured immunity from enforcement, and will be able to compete openly with Arizona citizens for employment.
Arizona has moved to protect its sovereignty—not incontradiction of federal law, but in complete compliance with it. The laws under challenge here do not extend or revise federal immigration restrictions, but merely enforce those restrictions more effectively. If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State. I dissent.
Scalia gets it; you don't.