Supreme Court deals near-fatal blow to Arizona SB 1070; states’ immigration efforts now in question

immigration is now in question. “We’ve lost the ability for states to take problems that they themselves are facing and do something about it,” said Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), who represents one of several states that implemented their own Arizona-style laws.

Lee told Fox News that the Supreme Court decision means states “have to be careful not to run afoul” of the court’s ruling. “It means it’ll be more difficult for states to set their own penalties on conduct that’s already against the law federally,” he said. “The state governments have lost something today.”

Legal analysts say that in light of the Supreme Court’s decision, immigration laws in other states — Utah, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and South Carolina – now face an uncertain fate.

Critics of the Arizona law, and similar laws in other states, took heart from the Court’s decision. “Today’s decision makes clear that the federal government — and only the federal government — has the power and authority to set the nation’s immigration policies,” said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council. “Despite its strongly worded rejection of Arizona’s effort to set its own immigration policies, the Court adopted a wait-and-see approach to the controversial racial profiling section of the law. There is already ample evidence of discrimination and abuse in Arizona, and many communities in the state will bear the brunt of the Court’s unwillingness to face that reality. It’s time for Congress to heed the dire warnings contained in this opinion and recommit to fixing our broken immigration system.”

Ian Millhiser, a senior constitutional policy analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, writes that the four major points to take away from the Supreme Court’s decision are:

• Arizona cannot formulate its own immigration policy. For many decades the core of U.S. immigration law has been an understanding that the United States has one immigration policy set by the national government, not fifty different immigration policies set by fifty different states. The Supreme Court’s decision leaves this basic framework in place.
• Arizona cannot create new crimes targeting immigrants. SB 1070 criminalizes “willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document”; it makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants to work or seek work; and it authorizes police to arrest anyone the officer has “probably cause to believe” can be deported. All of these provisions were struck down by the Court.
• Arizona cannot detain people just because they might be undocumented. Although the Court’s decision does not strike down the “show me your papers” provision, it significantly lessens the harm caused by this provision. The Court said: “Detaining individuals solely to verify their immigration status would raise constitutional concerns. And it would disrupt the federal framework to put state officers in the position of holding aliens in custody for possible unlawful presence without federal direction and supervision.”
• The administration’s DREAM initiative is legal. The Court’s decision strongly suggests that the Obama administration’s directive allowing undocumented college students and veterans to remain in the country is lawful.