Arizona’s new immigration law, SB1070, is set to go into effect July 29, 2010. Today Megyn Kelly, host of FOX News’ America Live, announced that the Mexican government has officially filed a suit in Arizona State Court challenging the new law.
This announcement comes just one week after President Obama told Sen. John Kyle (R-AZ) that he would not secure the Mexican border because Democrats would lose it as a bargaining chip against Republicans, who he feared would then not support a future comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill (amnesty).
Polls taken since the April passage of the Arizona Bill have shown consistently that at least 60% of Americans support the bill. A PEW Research Poll taken May 9, 2010 showed 73% of Americans approved of requiring people to produce documents verifying their legal status, 67% approved of detainment of anyone unable to prove their immigration status and 62% approved of letting police question anyone they think might be an illegal.
The Arizona Law specifically prohibits racial profiling of any kind and only allows the police to ask individuals for identification if they are investigating a crime. Nevertheless President Obama plans to challenge the law.
However, three unanimous Supreme Court decisions and one longstanding federal law do not bode well for the president's challenge.
De Canas V. Bica (1975)
The US Supreme Court defined the federal government’s exclusive power of the “regulation of immigration” as "essentially the determination of who should and should not be admitted into the country, and the conditions under which a legal entrant may remain." Arizona has not assumed the authority to import and deport any person under SB1070.
In De Canas the court also found that states have the “police power” to enact and enforce laws that target illegal immigrants specifically when they adversely affect the lawful residents of the state and doing so is not an infringement on the federal government’s authority to enforce Immigration Law.
United States v. Brignoni-Ponce (1975)
The US Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, found that Federal Officers monitoring areas near the US Border can stop vehicles based on any two of the following broad factors: Characteristics of the area, proximity to the border, traffic patterns, previous experience with illegal aliens, type or aspects of the vehicle, number of passengers, passenger’s clothes, passenger’s haircut and passenger’s race or ethnicity.
Justice Powell wrote in that opinion, “the public interest demands effective measures to prevent the illegal entry of aliens at the Mexican border… these aliens create significant economic and social problems, competing with citizens and legal residents for jobs, and generating extra demand for social services.”
Muehler v. Mena (2005)
The US Supreme Court ruled that it was not a violation of Isis Mena’s protection from “unreasonable searches and seizures”, guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, for a State police officer to inquire about her immigration status while detaining her. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote in the court’s unanimous opinion that “the police officers did not need reasonable suspicion to ask Mena for her name, date and place of birth, or immigration status.”
Aliens and Nationality Act (1940)
Title 8 United States Code, Section 1304 (reviewed and reemphasized by Congress in 2005) requires all adults in the United States that are not legal residents to carry their immigration papers at all times:
Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d) of this section. Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.
With respect to the Supremacy Clause, the crutch of the DOJ’s case to come against the Arizona Law; there is no difference between the new Arizona Immigration Law and a state law making possession of methamphetamines illegal and requiring its law enforcement officers to enforce that law in addition to requiring them to assist federal authorities in the federal enforcement of the like. If it were not the same every state law against the possession of methamphetamines would be challenged by drug dealers and declared unconstitutional as an “infringement on federal authority.”
Under a system of law like that no state would have the authority to require its law enforcement officers to cooperate in the enforcement of federal laws. State authorities could not charge people for murder, nor defend the civil liberties guaranteed in the US Constitution.
Despite being at odds with US Supreme Court precedent, federal statutes and a majority of Americans; Obama plans to push ahead with his controversial challenge to Arizona’s Immigration Law and Mexico will be standing beside him, literally.
Sources:
Davenport, Paul. Mexico Asks Court to Reject Arizona Immigration Law.
Montopoli, Brian. Senior Official: Obama Will Challenge Arizona Immigration Law.
Bobby Brown - Hello everyone. I've been gone for awhile but now I'm back. I appreciate all the comments. I studied Political Science and History at ...
