And here's this, from ABC News, "Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Challenging Arizona Immigration Law: Suit Says Arizona Law Treads on Federal Authority":
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit today challenging Arizona's new immigration law, which takes effect July 29.Michelle's got some links as well.
The suit challenges the law on the grounds that immigration is under the purview of the federal government and that Arizona has overstepped its bounds. Justice also claims that the law is too broad and could result in racial profiling and discrimination.
The lawsuit names Arizona and state Gov. Janice Brewer as the defendants.
While the legal challenge had been expected, signaled by Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama in statements soon after the statute was enacted, the lawsuit is sure to set off a firestorm of debate pitting the federal government against Arizona.
I doubt the feds can win on the racial profiling charge, although I suspect there's a pretty good case under doctrines of national supremacy (I'll look into the case law precedents). I'm interested to see what Gov. Brewer's attorney's have prepared to defend the law in court. The State of Arizona should prevail, I'd think, since it's clear by the nature of the legislation that all the authorized actions under SB 1070 are the same as those under federal law. I also can't see how challenging the law helps the Dems in November (huge majorities approve the bill), so obviously Obama's looking to beef up the Hispanic vote for 2012. He's certainly going to need it, considering how epic fail his administration's been so far.
And by the way, I'll check, but I'll bet there's going to be some big pro-SB 1070 rallies in AZ soon, and I'd like to head back out there for some additional coverage. I'll
1 comments:
The reason why I think the Feds will prevail in this lawsuit, especially as it relates to the Supremacy Clause, and the reason why I think anti-illegal immigration Conservatives should be concerned about the Feds not prevailing in this lawsuit, concerns the precedent it sets in terms of primacy of enforcing immigration law. What makes the Arizona legislation significant is not that it "restates" federal law; but that it appropriates for itself the ability to enforce such law. If Arizona prevails in the courts, then the precedent is set for other states who are more friendly to undocumented immigrants to assert their own "Supremacy" over the subject of establishing and enforcing immigration law. It's just that perhaps some state's may exercise their Supremacy over the Feds in the other direction: i.e. open borders, "sanctuary" states, and non-repatriation policies, etc. It's essentially sanctioning a State's supremacy to decide what really should be a national policy (i.e. regulating borders and managing immigration policies). One of the interesting consequences of the Arizona legislation is that it has required the State of Arizona to usurp the consular functions of the US State Department in terms of deciding not only the enforcement side of immigration policy, but also how immigrants will be allowed into the state. Even some of the loudest anti-illegal immigrant Arizona state legislators are facing the prospect of how to deal with the state's labor needs that the undocumented population is currently filling. They're talking about crafting temporary guest worker programs, etc. In other words, they're talking about becoming de facto consular agents in the negotiation of such programs, but under immigration rules that they themselves set at the state level. Just imagine what this would be like if Arizona prevails in this lawsuit. We'd have potentially 50 separate states with 50 sets of immigration policies and thus the need to have immigration checkpoints at the borders of the individual states themselves? This is all why I think Arizona loses in this lawsuit.
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