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July 16, 2010
Arizona SB 1070 otherwise known as the Arizona Immigration Law is scheduled to take effect on July 29 unless the U.S. Justice Department wins the initial round of the legal battle in an Arizona federal district court.Filed by the federal Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and State, the lawsuit seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions to prevent the Arizona SB 1070 from going into effect and ultimately ruling it to be invalid. According to the lawsuit, Arizona’s law will “impose significant and counterproductive burdens” on federal agencies charged with enforcing federal immigration law, and that it will divert “resources and attention from dangerous aliens” who are the federal government’s top enforcement priority. The suit also states Arizona’s law interferes with U.S. foreign affairs and ignores humanitarian concerns that are taken into account by federal laws and policies.
Immigration experts are of the opinion that although Arizona SB 1070 could be upheld by the local court for obvious political reasons, the U.S. Department of Justice will eventually win. A randomly selected federal district court judge, being a resident of the state, will be under extreme pressure to yield to the clamor of his state to defend its law from federal intervention. But the federal government is expected to take this issue up to the Supreme Court for final ruling. It is in the Supreme Court where the federal government expects to get their argument validated that Arizona’s law violates the U.S. Supremacy Clause and Commerce Clause. The suit also states federal law is preemptive of the Arizona law.
Article VI, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause states that the Constitution, federal statutes and U.S. treaties are the supreme laws of the land and that federal law must prevail over any conflicting or inconsistent state law.
Because of their broad implications on the country’s international policies, trade and commerce, immigration laws are justifiably a function of the U.S. Congress. The truth is by signing SB 1070 into law, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has overstepped her bounds and opened a door leading to no less than future immigration chaos. If unchecked, Arizona is establishing a precedent that will encourage other states to adopt their own immigration laws and thus have many other states crafting their own immigration laws based on their own perceived needs and without reference to their consequences on the country’s national interests and policies.
The border problems and drug trafficking in her state notwithstanding, Gov. Brewer has shown little thought about the lasting consequences of her action. Seeing the rising tide of anti-immigrant spirit gripping the uninformed, misinformed and misguided citizenry, conservative politicians ride the tide to score political points with their base. Imploring short term “solutions” to the problem of swarming illegal aliens to gain traction with the conservative voters and donors is sheer politics.
Ironically, even the flip-flopping John McCain, not too long ago the champion of immigration reform and the so-called “pathways to citizenship” which will give illegal aliens a chance to become legal, is now denouncing them altogether and wants them arrested and deported to their respective countries.
Despite arguments of the Arizona law supporters that this state law was needed because the federal government failed in its responsibility to stem illegal immigration, the reality is that as one expert put it, this country “can’t have 50 different states and hundreds of cities and towns each passing their own immigration laws.”
Honestly, these same politicians supporting SB 1070 now know in themselves that though it is good politics for them to hop into this bandwagon of anti immigrant sentiment, it is only a fad that will soon fade away. It will die soon after it reaches the Supreme Court.