10:14 AM, Jun. 19, 2011 So, Arizona no longer stands alone. Alabama and Georgia have passed anti-illegal immigration laws at least as tough as Arizona's highly controversial and heavily litigated SB 1070.

Those whose principal immigration objective is to secure legal status for those currently in the country illegally find this simultaneously deplorable and hopeful.

They don't want states in the immigration enforcement game. On the other hand, they think multiple state actions puts pressure on Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform, including legal status.

After all, goes the refrain, we can't have 50 different state immigration systems.

That argument doesn't stand up very well against the reality of what Arizona, Alabama and Georgia have done.

These state actions don't portend 50 different state immigration systems. Only the federal government decides who is legally entitled to live and work in the United States. Nothing in what Arizona, Alabama and Georgia have passed intrudes on this exclusive authority of the federal government in any way. In fact, the laws in each state require state officials to rely solely on the judgment of the federal government about legal status in any state action or proceeding.

Instead, states are adopting sometimes similar and sometimes different approaches to dealing with the presence of illegal residents. For example, some states have prohibited illegal immigrants from receiving the benefit of in-state tuition in higher education. Some have explicitly permitted it. Such differences in the use of state resources hardly threaten the prerogative of the federal government to decide who legally gets in and gets to stay.

Arizona, Alabama and Georgia want to use state policy, to the maximum extent possible, to reduce the presence of illegal immigrants in their states.

Alabama and Georgia weren't dumb enough to follow Arizona's example of declaring, in the preamble to SB 1070, that the state was adopting its own immigration policy of "attrition through enforcement." Instead, the Alabama and Georgia laws are full of solemn pledges of just trying to help out their friendly federal government get the job done of going after those in the country illegally. But the true intent is the same, to apply enforcement pressure that the federal government is not providing.
Such state action to enforce federal policy regarding legal residency can hardly be argued to threaten that policy. The U.S. Supreme Court saw it that way, recently ruling that states can adopt their own licensing sanctions against employers who knowingly hire illegal workers.

Some state enforcement provisions may not threaten federal policy regarding legal residency but may be nevertheless preempted by federal law. Alabama followed Arizona's lead in attempting to make illegal presence a state crime, adjudicated in state courts and punished in state penal institutions. So far, every federal judge who has looked at it has found Arizona's attempt preempted by federal law.

But within federal preemption parameters, there is ample room for state decisions about dealing with illegal immigration.

Those who believe that illegal immigrants should be granted legal status should make that case to Congress. I happen to agree with them.

But, in the interim, the argument that state actions regarding state resources to respond to the presence of illegal immigrants and to enforce federal law as it currently exists amounts to having 50 different immigration systems just doesn't wash.
http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20110 ... nforcement