US Supreme Court Approves States to Follow Arizona's Immigration Laws: Putative President Insists on Violating those Laws

In all the analysis of whether Arizona or Pres. Obama came out on top in the Supreme Court’s ruling on S.B. 1070 today, the key question is: how well did unemployed Americans fare?

And the answer is: Very well.

Combined with another Court ruling
on an Arizona law last year, states now have all the legal room they
need to pursue attrition-through-enforcement measures that cause illegal
aliens to depart from a state, opening up jobs for unemployed Americans
and legal immigrants.

Although headlines have focused on the court knocking down three of
four provisions before it, it should be noted that S.B. 1070 began with
14 sections. After all the challenges at several court levels, 11 of
those sections are still standing – and the court today ruled against
only half of the twelfth. The one that was cleared today by the Court
was the right of police to question people about their immigration
status. This may be the most important provision in causing illegal
aliens to leave Arizona, judging by the frenzy of concerned reaction by
the pro-amnesty forces and the Obama administration.

We have always regarded S.B. 1070 as supplementary to the far more
important, earlier Arizona bill that requires every employer to use
E-Verify to keep illegal aliens and tourists from taking jobs. The Obama
administration also opposed this effort, but the Court last year
entirely upheld the right of states to protect its workers in that way.

Combining the two rulings, Arizona now has the Supreme Court-approved
model to show all other states that they don’t have to sit idly by
while an estimated 7 million illegal aliens take U.S. jobs in
construction, manufacturing, service, transportation and even some in
the professions. These are the occupations where most of the 20 million
Americans who are unemployed or forced into part-time work are also
seeking a job.

Since 1986, the prevailing theory about illegal immigration in
Washington has been one of inevitability – that nothing can be done to
cause illegal aliens to leave once they get into the country. Hence,
Congress passed seven amnesties between 1986 and 2000.

Now, Arizona – and presumably a number of other states – can be full-effort laboratories to prove inevitability a false theory.

We are heartened that even in writing the majority opinion that
blocked three parts of Arizona’s law, Justice Kennedy recognized that
decisions by three straight presidents to significantly ignore federal
immigration law have put states in a bind.

“The pervasiveness of federal regulation does not diminish the
importance of immigration policy to the States,” he wrote. “Arizona
bears many of the consequences of unlawful immigration. . . . Statistics
alone do not capture the full extent of Arizona’s concerns. Accounts in
the record suggest there is an ‘epidemic of crime, safety risks,
serious property damage, and environmental problems’ associated with the
influx of illegal migration across private land near the Mexican
border.”

In his dissent, Justice Scalia
was much more specific, citing the Obama administration’s announcement
just two weeks ago that it would refuse to enforce the law against
illegal aliens who would benefit from the DREAM Act amnesty that Congress has rejected three times.

“After this case was argued and while it was under consideration,” Scalia wrote, “the Secretary of Homeland Security announced a program exempting from immigration enforcement some 1.4 million illegal immigrants under the age of 30.

“The president said at a news conference that the new program is ‘the right thing to do’ in light of Congress’s
failure to pass the Administration’s proposed revision of the
Immigration Act. Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to
say, as the Court (majority) does, that Arizona contradicts federal by
enforcing application of the Immigration Act that the President declines
to enforce boggles the mind.”

As if to underscore Scalia’s assessment of the current administration
as a nullifier of congressionally-passed laws, Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano only hours after the ruling, announced that
she would suspend yet another enforcement required under federal
immigration laws. Because the Court ruling will result in a lot more
illegal aliens being brought to the attention of the feds, she said, her
department will suspend the 287(g) program in Arizona, and pledged that
nothing in the ruling will interfere with the administrative amnesty
announced last week.

Fortunately, all states now have a bright green light from the Court
to follow Arizona’s lead in enforcing the laws in the way that Congress
intended, even if the president insists on violating those laws.