On April 25, 2012, the United States Supreme Court will hear the case of Arizona v. United States, pertaining to the constitutionality of the Arizona immigration law, most commonly known as Arizona SB 1070.
On April 23, 2010, Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed an immigration law, known as the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act or, more commonly known, Arizona SB 1070. The law presents a number of issues, both legal and moral. Indeed, although the SB 1070 was scheduled to take effect on July 29, 2010, a preliminary injunction has prevented many of its provisions from actually taking effect. A United States Supreme Court decision in the coming months may resolve the fate of Arizona SB 1070 and similar laws in states like Alabama and Georgia.
Arizona SB 1070 requires the Arizona police to determine a person’s immigration status during any lawful stop, detention or arrest, if the police has a reasonable suspicion that the person does not have legal status in the U.S. This means that a policeman must check on a person’s immigration status during a traffic stop, if he or she has a reason to believe that the person is in the U.S. unlawfully. When is a policeman’s belief that a person is out of status reasonable? Well, that is unclear. What is clear is that, according to NY Times, the law gives the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.
Further, Arizona SB 1070 makes it a crime (misdemeanor) for a foreign national who is at least 14 years of age to be in the state of Arizona without carrying certain registration documents. A person arrested for such a misdemeanor may be subject to monetary fines and possibly even jail time. This is true even if the foreign national is visiting the Grand Canyons on a valid tourist visa, but forgot his or her passport in the hotel room. A person thus detained (or detained in any other manner) cannot be released without confirmation of his or her lawful immigration status.
Soon after its passage, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and a number of other organizations, sought to challenge the Arizona immigration law’s constitutionality. The DOJ seeks to invalidate this Act on the grounds that it is preempted by federal law and therefore violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. That is, when the federal government undertakes to regulate a particular activity, such as immigration, the states cannot pass laws or otherwise act contrary to the federal scheme.
The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution is important because it allows the federal government to create a uniform scheme for particular activities, such as immigration. If each state had the right to pass its own immigration laws, the argument goes, New York might treat foreign nationals one way, while Washington D.C., and Arizona might treat foreign nationals absolutely differently. Imagine yourself a foreign tourist who just happily visited The Big Apple, but who gets stopped and jailed in Arizona for being a passenger in a vehicle without his or her passport (which, let’s say was left in the hotel room).
Additionally, as claimed by the Department of Justice, this law has political effects as it will interfere with foreign policy and national security interests by disrupting the United States’ relationship with Mexico and other countries.
The United States Supreme Court will hear the case (Arizona v. United States) on Wednesday, April 25 to determine the constitutionality of Arizona SB 1070. If the decision of the Supreme Court if goes in favor of Arizona SB 1070 it will not only get relief from the injunction form enforcing the law, but may also establish states’ roles as primary enforcers of immigration law.
