By Bobby Eberle
Texas Insider Report: HOUSTON Texas On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Arizonas Illegal Immigration law. Although most of the law was thrown out the basic premise was left intact. That was the majority opinion of the Court. However in writing the dissent Justice Antonin
Scalia took aim squarely at Barack Obama and his administration for selective enforcement of Americas immigration laws.
First a recap ... As reported by the
Associated Press the Supreme Court struck down key provisions of Arizonas crackdown on immigrants Monday but said a much-debated portion on checking suspects status could go forward.
Side note: Heres our liberal bias lesson for today. If someone were to come to this country through legal channels and take up residence in Arizona would that person be the target of Arizonas law that the Supreme Court reviewed? NO! Thus Arizona is not and was not cracking down on immigrants in general. The law was made to address the problem of ILLEGAL immigration and to give Arizona some means of dealing with it. The Associated press with its phrase crackdown on immigrants tries to portray an image that is strikingly different from reality.
Ok back to the story:
The court did not throw out the state provision requiring police to check the immigration status of someone they suspect is not in the United States legally. Even there though the justices said the provision could be subject to additional legal challenges.
The decision upholds the show me your papers requirement for the moment. But it takes the teeth out of it by prohibiting police officers from arresting people on minor immigration charges.
The court struck down these provisions: requiring all immigrants to obtain or carry immigration registration papers making it a state criminal offense for an illegal immigrant to seek work or hold a job and allowing police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without warrants.
Of course the ruling itself lead to more problems than it solves. Arizona police can still stop a person for a minor offense -- say a traffic
violation. In the course of that incident if the officer suspects the person is in the country illegally the officer can ask for proof of citizenship. However if the person IS an illegal alien the officer cant do anything about it. Wow! Thats some solution.
As reported by
The Hill Justice Antonin Scalia in writing the dissent ripped President Obamas new deportation directive when he offered his minority opinion on the Arizona immigration ruling.
The conservative justice accused Obama of selectively enforcing only those immigration laws that he deems appropriate and said states would never have joined the union if the framers of the Constitution had intended for the executive branch to wield power in such a way.
Scalia the longest-serving justice on the high court was not arguing that the administrations policy was unconstitutional.
The President said at a news conference that the new program is the right thing to do in light of Congresss failure to pass the administrations proposed revision of the Immigration Act.7 Scalia wrote. Perhaps it is though Arizona may not think so.
Rather Scalia questioned the administrations motives arguing that it didnt make sense for the U.S. to sue to prevent a state from implementing partial immigration reform while unilaterally enforcing another set of partial reforms.
In his
dissenting opinion Scalia wrote Arizona has moved to protect its sovereignty -- not in contradiction 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.
Scalias opinion should make everyone think about what the Obama administration is doing and how it does NOT comply with the U.S.
Constitution. Whether we are talking about laws on voting rights same-sex marriage or illegal immigration if there are laws on the books the Obama administration CANNOT simply pick which ones to enforce and which ones to ignore. It is up to the courts to rule on constitutionality... not the president.
Arizona is trying to do what the federal government refuses to do. We must crackdown on the flow of illegal immigration before we can ever possibly address what to do about those already here.
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