Immigration Newsletter July 2012
U.S. Supreme Court’s Ruling in SB 1070 – Within the past few weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court issued 2 monumental decisions. The first decision was the constitutionality of the Arizona’s SB 1070, and the second decision was the constitutionality of President Barrack Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act.
Because of its proximity to Mexico, Arizona was the first state to enact state legislation to deal with the issues of undocumented immigrants or foreign nationals. The legislation included provisions that deal with the heavy fines and loss of business licenses for employers in Arizona that hired undocumented foreign nationals; for fines and possible imprisonment for foreign nationals that are caught working without proper authorization from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) or those foreign nationals who did not carry immigration documents when stopped by law enforcement; it authorizes Arizona law enforcement officers to ask for immigration documents after lawful stops; authorizes detention of foreign nationals that law enforcement officers reasonable believe are subject to removal proceedings. In effect, SB 1070 is testing the boundary of the state power when it comes to the enforcement of immigration. After the passage of SB 1070 in April 2010, a fury of other states followed the similar legislation that Arizona had passed. These states were Utah, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Alabama, and a few other states, including Texas. They tried to pass such legislation but were not successful.
In a 5-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down most of the provisions of the Arizona SB 1070. There was no mistake that the Court believes that immigration enforcement is a federal jurisdiction and it pre-empted the states from such power. The Court did uphold a provision that allows the Arizona law enforcement to ask for immigration documents after a lawful arrest. However, the Court upheld this provision with a caveat that this provision could be later challenged in federal court under the civil right law if the arrest led to racial profiling. This is a first ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court made with the fury of states that had passed their own immigration legislation. There are current challenges and lawsuits with regard to other states that have passed similar legislation. Eventually, some of these challenges or lawsuits will reach the U.S. Supreme Court. For example, Alabama’s HR 56 encompasses legislation that requires school officials to inquire about the immigration status of the students and their parents. Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court will be asked to address the state power when it comes to legislations pertaining to immigration.