Thread: A Huge Border Win For Arizona

A Huge Border Win For Arizona

Investor's Business Daily
May 28, 2011
NATIONAL EDITION

Illegal Immigration: In a huge victory for states' rights, the Supreme Court has upheld the state law requiring businesses to verify immigration status of employees and revoking their business licenses if they knowingly hire illegal aliens.

Yes, we can effectively control our borders, and states do have the right to protect their citizens and their own borders.

That was the meaning of a 5-3 decision last Thursday by the U.S. Supreme Court validating Arizona's 2007 law requiring businesses to use E-Verify, a voluntary federal program to determine if workers are eligible to work here.

The Obama administration has argued that immigration and border enforcement is a federal responsibility and that efforts such as Arizona's are a usurpation of federal powers and even a contradiction of federal law.

It has been a responsibility the feds have largely shirked.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that while federal law makes the E-Verify checks voluntary, it does not bar individual states from making them mandatory and that doing so enforces federal law rather than contradicting it.

Roberts found "no basis in law, fact or logic" for the administration's position that Arizona should be prevented from requiring use of E-Verify in the name of federal "preemption of state activity."

The states are quite free to enforce federal law even if the feds are very unwilling to do so.

Because this statute, signed into law by former Arizona governor and current Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, didn't impose criminal penalties and dealt only with business licenses, it didn't impinge on federal authority.

"Arizona's procedures simply implement the sanctions that Congress expressly allowed the states to pursue through licensing laws," the chief justice wrote.

The decision has interesting implications for SB1070, the Arizona law that gave police expanded powers to check the immigration status of individuals they encounter during their police work if they have probable cause to believe the person is here illegally.

SB1070 has been challenged by the Obama administration in court, and both a federal district and a federal appeals court have blocked some key parts from taking effect, agreeing that it infringes on federal authority.

Defenders argue that it, like the upheld E-Verify statute, also mimics existing federal law.

"The Supreme Court today said that as long as the state relies upon federal definitions of immigration status and relies upon federal determination of any particular alien's status, then the state is not in conflict with federal law," says Kris W. Kobach, a lawyer who helped write both laws and who last year was elected Kansas' secretary of state.

"That is exactly what SB1070 does."

Ariz. Gov. Jan Brewer has announced her state's intention to take the challenges to SB1070 to the U.S. Supreme Court.

She is very confident that "Arizona will prevail in its fight to protect its citizens."

The feds would be very hard-pressed to explain why they want to prohibit what they have specifically authorized various jurisdictions and trained their officers to do, namely enforce current federal immigration law.

Critics of Arizona's enlisting local police to enforce current federal immigration law fail to note the existence of the federal 287(g) program, which trains local police to do just that.

The Department of Homeland Security has memoranda of agreement with some 70 state and local law enforcement agencies to participate in 287(g) partnerships to enforce current federal laws.

Nine of these jurisdictions are in Arizona, and all were inked while Napolitano was Arizona governor.

Now that Arizona's mandatory E-Verify with business sanctions has been upheld, we expect and sincerely hope that many more states will immediately follow suit.

We're a nation of immigrants -- legal immigrants -- but we are also a nation of laws.

The White House should be enforcing the existing immigration laws and not waging a legal war against Arizona and U.S. citizens for doing what the feds have utterly failed to do.

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I really dont understand why articles of impeachment are not at least written and waved at this president!

Because Bush deserved them to and sedition charges for that amnesty deal with McCain and Kennedy.

Remember he was in Europe and he sarcastically said I'll see you at the bill signing. Traitor.

We need to get rid of all these people in Congress who have voted themselves an enormous salary, general pension that they do not pay for, and first class health care coverage. What do they want to do? Flood our country with third world poor and illiterate that we have to take care of, give away to friends and enemies all our tax money as well as our SS and Medicare money we have been paying into all our working lives, and now they have to change the "entitlements" because they are sustainable.

Entitlements are not SS and Medicare that we had no choice in paying. Entitlements first should be ripped from every Congressman, now serving or retired, because they did not pay for it. They should have to then invest in SS to the amount they would have paid had it been taken out of their checks as well as Medicare - and that's what they get - SS and Medicare. With no cost of living increase because food and energy are not considered, and I guess they don't factor in healthcare costs either. They allowed this to occur and they need to pay the price.

And that goes for former Presidents as well. If they want Secret Service protection, then pay for it and live off SS and Medicare.

Congratulation Arizona...Your State has been granted a very powerful tool! I hope all other States will follow. Without employment, illegal aliens will self deport.