Supreme Court upholds key part of Arizona for now; strikes down other provisions
Robert Barnes
The Supreme Court on Monday said states may play a limited role in enforcing laws on illegal immigration, upholding part of Arizona’s controversial law but striking other portions it said intruded on the federal government’s powers.
The justices let stand for now the part of the law that requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they detain or arrest if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the country illegally. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) declared that decision, on the part of the law that had generated the most controversy, a victory.
But the ruling also in part vindicated the Obama administration, with the court rejecting three provisions that the federal government opposed.
The court ruled that Arizona cannot make it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to carry identification that says whether they are in the United States legally; cannot make it a crime for undocumented immigrants to apply for a job; and cannot arrest someone based solely on the suspicion that the person is in this country illegally.
The court also said the part of the law it upheld — requiring officers to check the immigration status of those they detain and reasonably believe to be illegal immigrants — could be subject to additional legal challenges once it is implemented.
The other major decision of the court’s term — the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care law — will come Thursday, on the final day of the term.
In a statement Monday, Obama said he was “pleased that the Supreme Court has struck down key provisions of Arizona’s immigration law.” He added that the decision makes clear “that Congress must act on comprehensive immigration reform,” since a “patchwork of state laws is not a solution to our broken immigration system.” At the same time, Obama said, he remains “concerned about the practical impact” of the part of the law that was allowed to stand.
“No American should ever live under a cloud of suspicion just because of what they look like,” Obama said. “Going forward, we must ensure that Arizona law enforcement officials do not enforce this law in a manner that undermines the civil rights of Americans, as the Court’s decision recognizes.”
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, for his part, issued a statement that did not comment on the specifics of the ruling but instead said the decision “underscores the need for a President who will lead on this critical issue and work in a bipartisan fashion to pursue a national immigration strategy.”
Obama, Romney said, “has failed to provide any leadership on immigration.”
In the Arizona decision, the court acknowledged that the federal government plays the prominent role in immigration policies and said state laws must be carefully written to not intrude.
“The sound exercise of national power over immigration depends on the nation’s meeting its responsibility to base its laws on a political will informed by searching, thoughtful, rational civic discourse,” wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy for the five-member majority.
“Arizona may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration while that process continues, but the state may not pursue policies that undermine federal law.”
Kennedy wrote for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case, because she had worked on it as President Obama’s solicitor general.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented from the decision. Scalia made clear the extent of his disagreement by reading his opinion from the bench.
“Arizona has moved to protect its sovereignty — not in contradiction of federal law, but in complete compliance with it,” Scalia wrote. “If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign state.”
Brewer, in a statement, accentuated the positive in the ruling about her state’s law, designated S.B. 1070. “After more than two years of legal challenges, the heart of S.B. 1070 can now be implemented in accordance with the U.S. Constitution,” she said.
She said the law will not result in racial profiling: “Law enforcement will be held accountable should this statute be misused in a fashion that violates an individual’s civil rights.”
The court let stand the law’s Section 2(B), which Kennedy said “provides that officers who conduct a stop, detention, or arrest must in some circumstances make efforts to verify the person’s immigration status with the Federal Government.”
In explaining that decision, Kennedy’s majority opinion said it was improper to enjoin the provision “before the state courts had an opportunity to construe it and without some showing that enforcement of the provision in fact conflicts with federal immigration law and its objectives.”
Kennedy’s opinion seemed to say that the court would be watching. “This opinion does not foreclose other preemption and constitutional challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect,” he wrote.
Monday’s decision is likely only the first of many legal rulings to come on immigration, as states increasingly are defining a new role for themselves in combating the illegal entry of people into the United States. Arizona’s law has spawned similar efforts in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah, all of which have been challenged in court.
At the April oral arguments over S.B. 1070, chanting protesters said the law had created a climate of fear among Arizona’s mostly Latino immigrant population and predicting that it will lead to racial and ethnic profiling.
But the court made it clear that it was not considering those issues at this time. Instead, the deliberations were a revival of the questions of federal power and states’ rights that marked the court’s deliberations about Obama’s health-care law.
The federal government had contended that the Arizona law, with its aim of “attrition through enforcement,” undermined the federal goal of a cohesive immigration policy by attempting to shift the problem of illegal immigration to other states.
“The Constitution vests exclusive authority over immigration matters with the national government,” Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. said at oral argument.
Former Bush administration solicitor general Paul D. Clement said that Arizona was trying to cooperate with the federal government.
“Arizona borrowed the federal standards as its own, and attempted to enlist state resources in the enforcement of the uniform federal immigration laws,” Clement said.
The Obama administration has taken a tough stance against the Arizona law and against most of the other states that have implemented their own laws. Its lawyers went to court early to block S.B. 1070, and won at both the district court level and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. As a result, the law’s most stringent provisions have not taken effect.
Earlier this month, Obama announced his administration would stop deporting illegal immigrants up to the age of 30 who were brought to this country as children, and who have lived law-abiding lives.
In response to Monday’s ruling, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said the court “was right to strike down the vast majority of the Arizona law.”
But Reid also expressed concern that the provision allowed to stand would put U.S. citizens at risk of “being detained by police unless they carry their immigration papers at all times “ and would “lead to a system of racial profiling.”
He said it was “disturbing” that Romney had called the Arizona law a “model” for immigration reform. “Laws that legalize discrimination are not compatible with our nation’s ideals and traditions of equal rights,” Reid said.
The case is Arizona v. U.S.
Staff writers N.C. Aizenman and William Branigin contributed to this report.