WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will conclude one of its most significant and controversial terms in decades by taking on one more issue that has divided the nation: Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigrants.
The court’s final oral argument on Wednesday — Arizona v. United States — provides yet another chance for the justices to confront fundamental questions about the power of the federal government. And the rulings the court will issue between now and the end of June could dramatically alter the nation’s election-year landscape.
The court has considered President Barack Obama’s health-care law, has taken its first look at the political redistricting battles being fought across the nation and will decide whether federal regulators still hold the authority to police the nation’s airwaves.
The Obama administration has moved aggressively against Arizona’s SB 1070, which directs law enforcement to play a much more active role in identifying illegal immigrants and makes it a crime for them to seek work. The administration has persuaded courts to put aside key parts of the law.
And, as with last month’s hearings on the health-care law, in the Arizona case the government is asking the court to recognize that the Constitution gives the federal government vast powers to confront national problems, such as illegal immigration.
“As the framers understood, it is the national government that has the ultimate responsibility to regulate the treatment of aliens while on American soil, because it is the nation as a whole — not any single state — that must respond to the international consequences of such treatment,” Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the court in the government’s brief.
Immigration is one of the nation’s thorniest political issues. Obama and his administration have been accused of not properly securing the nation’s borders and criticized for not delivering comprehensive immigration reform. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s tough stance against illegal immigration has angered some interest groups and is said to have cost him among increasingly influential Latino voters.
And even as the pace of illegal immigration has slowed, it has left a changed picture of undocumented immigrants in the United States. According to the liberal Center for American Progress, 63 percent of illegal immigrants have been in the country for more than 10 years and more than 16.6 million people in the United States have at least one undocumented family member.
Tom Saenz, president and general counsel of the Los Angeles-based Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said that while the legal issues in Arizona v. United States “relate to the structure of government, it is still very much a civil rights case.”
The decision will have implications well beyond Arizona. Several states have copied — and toughened — Arizona’s law, and more are considering such steps.
“This debate is not just about SB 1070,” Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) said in a statement when the state filed its brief in the case. “Rather, it is for the constitutional principle that every state has a duty and obligation to protect its people, especially when the federal government has failed in upholding its core responsibilities. SB 1070 is Arizona’s way of saying ‘enough!’ ”
The Obama administration opposed Arizona’s efforts from the start, as it has similar laws passed in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah and elsewhere.
“Arizona has adopted its own immigration policy, which focuses solely on maximum enforcement and pays no heed to the multifaceted judgments” that Congress intends for the executive branch to make, Verrilli wrote in the government’s brief. “For each State, and each locality, to set its own immigration policy in that fashion would wholly subvert Congress’ goal: a single, national approach.”
The Obama administration persuaded a federal judge and then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to keep four sections of the law from taking effect, and they will be at the heart of the Supreme Court’s review. Those sections:
— Require state and local law enforcement to verify the citizenship status of anyone stopped, detained or arrested when there is “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the United States unlawfully.
— Authorize law enforcement officials to make and arrest without a warrant when an officer has “probable cause to believe . . . [t]he person to be arrested has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States.”
— Make it a state crime to be in the United States unlawfully and require non-citizens to carry documents to prove they are legally in the country.
— Make it a state crime for a person who is not lawfully in the country to work or seek work. Federal law puts the burden on employers to verify the legality of those seeking work.
The case before the court offers a rematch of the lawyers who last month argued the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: Verrilli for the government and Paul Clement, president George W. Bush’s solicitor general, representing Arizona.
Clement’s brief opens with page after page of costs and crimes that have accompanied a wave of illegal immigration across Arizona’s borders: Schools, hospitals and jails are overtaxed. Home invasions related to drug smuggling and human trafficking have soared. “Incredibly,” Clement writes, the federal government has even posted signs warning travelers: “Danger — Public Warning — Travel Not Recommended.” “Active Drug and Human Smuggling Area.” “Visitors May Encounter Armed Criminals and Smuggling Vehicles Traveling at High Rates of Speed.”
Clement says SB 1070 is not imposing new immigration standards but merely directing its own officials to make sure federal laws are respected.
“Such cooperative law enforcement is the norm, not something that requires affirmative congressional authorization,” Clement writes.
Verrilli responds that the Arizona law’s “very design discards cooperation and embraces confrontation.”
He describes a complex federal policy of detaining and deporting illegal immigrants prioritized on criminal activity and other factors. The Department of Homeland Security receives funding to remove annually about 400,000 of the approximately 11 million people in the country illegally, he says, and it is up to federal officials — not Arizona’s — to decide who they should be.
And he says Arizona’s decision to impose criminal sanctions on those who seek work is an idea Congress debated and rejected in passing immigration legislation in 1986.
The Supreme Court in its previous term signaled that immigration enforcement is not solely the province of the federal government. In a 5 to 3 vote, it agreed that Arizona could revoke the business licenses of companies that knowingly employ undocumented workers.
But the court in that case said Arizona was in line with an exception in the 1986 law that allows states leeway in the licensing of businesses, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
The same eight justices will hear Wednesday’s Arizona case — Justice Elena Kagan recused herself in both, presumably because of her work on the issue in her previous job as Obama’s solicitor general.
If they split evenly, the 9th Circuit’s injunction of those aspects of the Arizona law would stand and the larger issue of federal authority would need to wait for a challenge to one of the other states’ laws.
As with health care, the case has attracted a raft of amicus briefs. Sixteen states, including Virginia, are supporting Arizona; 11, including Maryland, say the federal government must play the dominant role in immigration.
The stance of the each state follows less the number of immigrants within its borders and more the political party of its leadership.
If the Federal Government was doing its job and freeing this country of the illegal aliens, then the states wouldn’t be trying to take over. The states are bearing the costs of all these illegal aliens, not to mention the costs of deporting them. Illegal aliens are a very big burden to American taxpayers. Look at how many anchor babies the American taxpayers paid for at the cost of $4,500 per anchor. Last I heard, there were 4.3 million anchors that were handed a U.S. birth certificate like it was a piece of Easter candy. The sooner we get rid of these illegal aliens, the better for all Americans. Let’s hope and pray the Supreme Court sees it that way.
In a new Reuters-Ipsos opinion poll ( not
exclusively a rightist newspaper) found about 70 percent of those surveyed
favored state laws that let police check a person’s immigration status and make
it a crime for an illegal immigrant to work in the United States; about 30
percent opposed such measures. WHAT MORE PROOF DOES THIS ADMINISTRATION WANT? THE
AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS COSTLY TRAVESTY? This week the Supreme
Court will hear Arizona vs. United States and if its policing statutes go
against this small defenseless border state, the American voter must push,
pursue and use the severe pressure of the vote to verbally intimidate every
Republican, Democrat and Liberal to get the “THE LEGAL WORKFORCE ACT” in front
of the House, before taxpayers suffer any more at the hands of corrupt
politicians who have sold us into financial slavery.
Repeating that special visas
should be expedited for top professionals in Science, Engineering, and a whole
range of high technology, given us the brain power for a futuristic U.S, but we
must spend the money to check on females who are carrying an unborn infant,
with new detection systems at entry ports, as 400.000 arrivals are ready to conceive annually and
then apply for welfare. Just calculate
the uncompensated cost to hospitals that have to pay for these deliveries, that
are then passed on to taxpayers? By the Congress just amending the Birthright Citizenship Act
of 2011 (H.R.140) the country could discontinue this billion dollar soaking of
individual states? Don’t know who to call in Washington, and then phone 202-224-3121
the switchboard that
will connect you with your Representative? Every prudential contender would be
well advised to read the immigration sullen statistics advanced by “The Heritage Foundation” Can we
afford 2.5 Trillion dollars to legitimize the 20 million plus Illegal’s who
have settled here? That is what the Heritage Foundation has forecasts. Not all
Tea Partier’s have excellent grades as found on NumbersUSA site, that
will halt the illegal alien occupation and the population growth.
NOVEMBER! It could be
the rebirth of America, as the Tea Party, the PEOPLE’S PARTY, the
Constitutional Party gains more seats in the Senate and House. A takeover!
Hundreds of thousands of people, most probably millions, who have never shown
any political interest before, have been made aware that the leftists are going
to press non-citizens in registering to vote. Without any State Boards of
Elections regulations being reevaluated, that shows a picture ID of the person
voting, saying who they say they are, than the whole trust concept will be
compromised? Already in Florida, Georgia and Colorado large numbers of non
citizens and illegal immigrants have been revealed through television
interviews. The U.S. senate
candidate may have been decided by convicted felons who voted illegally in
Minnesota’s Twin Cities. If there had been an honest election and incumbent Sen.
Norm Coleman had won, there would never had been nearly a trillion dollars stimulus package.
With so much at stake the Democrats have a demonstrated a record of
signing up canvassers, who have less than reputable reputations that includes
ACORN, justifiably being prosecuted in
eleven states for registering non-citizens in large numbers. The left have been
crafting committees to overturn any chance of many states, insisting on the use
of showing official ID. Attorney General
Eric Holder, ‘FAST AND FURIOUS PREDATOR’ has failed and shown great reluctance
to prosecute groups, like the re-emergence of the Black Panthers to investigate
intimidation and wrongdoing. Holder has also beneficial for the Democrats in
using a strong arm to harass Arizona and freedom loving states, to stop the
financial bleeding process of taxpayers, burdened perpetually for medical,
schooling of unfunded court mandates. He is being shielded by the Obama Czars
and even Obama himself, who are not apologetic. A TEA PARTY majority in the
Senate and House can at least prosecute Eric Holder and his followers in his
peer’s court.
Most signatories to the European Union
including France must possess some form of official Identification to vote.
Before even Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy could vote, he was seen in
television broadcast of handing over to election supervisors an identification
passport like document. France has had a national ID card for all citizens
since the beginning of World War II in 1940. The majority of countries included
in the European Union must carry some form of picture ID, except for the United
Kingdom that relies on a Drivers License, other than foreign nations who must
carry an ID card.
It is unlikely that
America will ever be issued a national ID card, but if it came about like in
other nations, many of the issues that cause billions of dollars in court
cases, congressional oversight and other situations governing this would be a
thing of the past. And the communist founded ACLU couldn’t torture the American
people no more, with their political correctness doctrine. Its well established
fact by now that because racial profiling has been carefully administered
successfully, that Mohamed Atta who was stopped by the police prior to 9/11
would have been held in custody. This document should be issued to every legal
population of our nation, free as in many other countries. What’s a few billion
dollars when illegal aliens are stealing states blind, with a cost of over a $
hundred billion annually? An official
would visibly serve the citizens to this country, to prove eligibility to vote,
to drive a car, access to health care, to education and be the document for
many other uses. Instead currently there is a marked increase of illegal aliens
voting in state and local races. The
usual group of organizations screaming voter suppression in the State of South
Carolina, as they enacted a voter ID law. So Governor Nicki Haley gave every
voter the opportunity to arrive at the polling station. Out of 50 million
people only 23 voters took the initiative, to be driven to the voting place to
vote?
Currently states with
strict voter ID laws are Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania,
Tennessee, and Wisconsin, South Carolina and Texas. Then states with less
stringent voter ID laws are Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana,
Michigan and South Dakota. States with poor voter ID laws are Alaska, Arizona,
Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, North
Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, Washington. Then there 19
states with no voter Identification laws at all, that could substantially
change the direction of any election from the President, down to the elected
administrators of cities and counties, specific in close races. The Sanctuary
State of California is overwhelmed by illegal migrants and immigrants, who are
treated to all the entitlements that the poorest of Americans receive. In a Democratic run state house, the liberals
seated there will never change the demands for a tougher set of regulations, so
illegal aliens cannot vote and the same can be said for Senator Harry Reid’s
Nevada. Blue state capitols are dead against any rules in elections, to stop
either non citizen, who lean towards the left.
Democrats have been caught with their ‘hand in the cookie jar’ so
to speak, time and time again There is a terrible sense of foreboding when
distasteful organizations as ACORN are concerned, or Democratic legislator run
states who have conveniently ignored the need for picture ID, as simple as a
states card or even a drivers license, that they are fully aware that a utility
bill, internet, phone or television bill can be easily be forged or any
document using a computer printer. External vulnerability is the absentee
ballot, where under the law, county election officials must decide whether the
signature on a request for an advance ballot matches the individual’s previous
signature that could be on a voter registration form or another type of recognition.
This is just asking for fraudulent returns regarding voting document.
As an example a voter was in Andover, Minnesota resident who voted
once in person using her own name and also completed a forged absentee ballot
in an apparent variation of her daughter’s name. The daughter was away at
college and also voted in her college precinct. Election officials detected the
apparent duplicate vote and contacted the daughter who denied voting twice.
Eventually, the mother was contacted and admitted that it was she who completed
the absentee ballot in her daughter’s name. The woman was charged with three
felonies, but was sentenced only to temporary probation and was ordered to
repay the costs of her prosecution. THERE STEALING PEOPLE’S IDENTIFICATION TO GET
WORK AND SO ISN’T THAT A FELONY?
Department of Justice (DOJ) has prosecuted more non-citizen voting
cases in Florida than in any other state.
Florida is not exclusive as thousands of non-citizens are registered to
vote in some states and tens if not hundreds of thousands in entirety may be
present on the voter rolls nationwide. These numbers are major and from local
elections which are often determined by only a handful of votes. Constant
national elections have likely been within the margin of the number of
non-citizens illegally registered to vote. One Naples, Florida voter admitted
she was not a U.S. Citizen, nor a legal immigrant, but election records show
she voted six times
in the past eleven years. Voter fraud has ricochet in the last decade and when
illegal aliens admit they have voted multiple times and not sitting in prison,
something is seriously wrong with our election system?
Think about the undeniable reality that Democrats are essentially
to blame, because they will not entertain any requirement for voter ID, perceptively
full well that that non citizen voter could improve their chances of winning.
That is why the only chance of having a fair election is through voting every
potential Tea Party member candidate who will bring some resemblance of honesty
back to this great nation.
Democrats and the
surrogate Liberals know they can claim millions of extra votes from non
citizens, if they promise them welfare entitlements, food stamps, low income
housing and other benefits. They can also introduce legislation if Obama gets a
second term to shove passage of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, down taxpayer’s
throats. THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP needs more members to SPONSOR “H.R. 2885, to be introduced as
Chairman Smith’s ‘Legal Workforce Act’ instead of blocking its passage. E-Verify has
become bipartisan as more Democrats are realizing that as federal law could
mean placement to American workers and discharging foreign nationals. The Obama Administration has issued a
statement that it is getting E-Verify ready to introduce a big development, from
the DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS) in Preparing the 50-states for
Mandatory E-Verify Law. Republican House leaders are definitely being held
accountable, for making it law sooner.