WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court scaled back Arizona’s first-of-its kind crackdown on illegal aliens, striking down three provisions in a decision that asserts the federal government’s exclusive role to set immigration policy.
The ruling leaves intact the law’s centerpiece requirement that Arizona police check the immigration status of people they suspect are in the country illegally. Even so, the 5-3 decision took some of the force from that provision by invalidating parts of the law that would have given the state’s police more power to arrest people for immigration violations.
The ruling gives President Barack Obama’s administration most of what it sought when it sued to block the Arizona law. Supporters of the law said that the federal government isn’t doing enough to crack down on an estimated 11.5 million people in the country illegally.
“Arizona may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration while that process continues, but the state may not pursue policies that undermine federal law,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.
The Arizona provision that will go into effect, known informally as the “show me your papers” requirement, instructs police officers to check immigration status when they arrest or stop someone and have “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the U.S. illegally.
Kennedy suggested that provision would be invalid if it caused police to hold people longer than they otherwise would. “Detaining individuals solely to verify their immigration status would raise constitutional concerns,” he wrote.
He said it was too soon to determine whether that would be the consequence. “There is a basic uncertainty about what the law means and how it will be enforced,” Kennedy wrote.
He said the ruling “does not foreclose other pre-emption and constitutional challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect.”
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Kennedy in the majority.
The justices invalidated criminal restrictions that would have barred those in the U.S. illegally from seeking work or being in Arizona without proper documentation. A third invalidated provision said police could arrest people they suspected were eligible to be deported.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito each issued a partial dissent. Scalia and Thomas said they would have upheld the entire law, while Alito voted to back most of it.
“If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign state,” Scalia wrote. He took the unusual step of reading a summary of his dissent from the bench.
Justice Elena Kagan didn’t take part in the case because she played a role in the litigation as Obama’s top Supreme Court lawyer before her 2010 appointment to the court.
Obama said earlier this month his administration would halt deportation of some illegal aliens who were brought to the U.S. as children and make them eligible for work permits.
Scalia took a shot at the president’s description of the new program as “the right thing to do.”
“Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so,” Scalia wrote. “But to say, as the court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of the Immigration Act that the president declines to enforce boggles the mind.”
REACTIONS TO RULING
The Obama administration sued to challenge S.B. 1070,as the Arizona law is known, saying it encroached on the exclusive federal right to set immigration policy.
Obama, in a statement, said Monday’s decision highlights the need for congressional action on a comprehensive update of immigration laws, not a “patchwork” of state rules.
“I will work with anyone in Congress who’s willing to make progress on comprehensive immigration reform that addresses our economic needs and security needs, and upholds our tradition as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants,” Obama said. In the meantime, he said, “We must ensure that Arizona law enforcement officials do not enforce this law in a manner that undermines the civil rights of Americans.”
Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney said in a statement that the ruling “underscores the need for a president who will lead on this critical issue and work in a bipartisan fashion to pursue a national immigration strategy.”
Later, in a speech to donors in Scottsdale, Ariz., he said, “Given the failure of the immigration policy of this country, I would have preferred to see the Supreme Court give more latitude to the states.”
Kansas attorney Kris Kobach, who helped draft the Arizona law and has advised officials in other states wanting to crack down on illegal immigration, called the ruling “a big victory for Arizona” while acknowledging that “it’s not a complete victory.”
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer called the ruling a victory for her state while saying the law was likely to face additional legal challenges.
“Arizona is prepared to move forward to enforce this law that we have fought so hard to defend,” Brewer said at a news conference Monday. She said “racial profiling will not be tolerated” in implementing the measure.
The Supreme Court didn’t consider claims that the law will lead to racial profiling by police officers. That issue is part of a separate lawsuit being waged by civil rights advocates against the Arizona measure.
Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center, said at a Washington news conference that her group and others will ask a court to block enforcement of the provision on checking immigration status. If that fails, she said, her group will challenge individual instances of racial discrimination that may occur.
The Mexican government said Monday that it’s disappointed that the Supreme Court upheld part of the law.
The Mexican government has openly opposed the law since it was passed in 2010, filing a “friend of the court” brief in the Supreme Court case. The statement said enforcing the part of the law upheld by the court would lead to violations of the civil rights of Mexicans living in or visiting Arizona.
Republicans, meanwhile, used the ruling to renew calls for tighter enforcement. Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl, Arizona Republicans, said the ruling “appears to validate a key component” of the law.
“The Arizona law was born out of the state’s frustration with the burdens that illegal immigration and continued drug smuggling impose on its schools, hospitals, criminal justice system and fragile desert environment,” McCain and Kyl said in a statement.
OTHER STATE LAWS
Arizona’s law was the first of its kind when enacted in 2010. Since then, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Utah and Indiana have passed their own measures aimed at illegal immigration.
All are facing court fights, and parts of those laws have been temporarily blocked. Federal judges in many cases had been waiting to issue a final ruling until the Supreme Court made its decision in the Arizona case.
The ruling “sends a yellow light to Arizona and other states that they have to be careful in enacting immigration law provisions,” Stephen Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell Law School, said in a telephone interview.
The case turned on the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, which says states may cooperate in enforcing federal law. The administration contended Arizona went beyond cooperation and was trying to implement its own immigration policy of “maximum enforcement.”
The administration said the state measure would undermine the federal government’s effort to give highest priority to illegal aliens who threaten public safety.
Arizona argued it has the right to act because the U.S. government hasn’t done enough and said it doesn’t have to defer to federal priorities. The state says its 370-mile border with Mexico is the crossing point for half the nation’s illegal aliens.
Monday’s ruling is “a clear rebuke to Arizona and its attempt to create its own immigration law,” said Omar Jadwat, an immigration attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, in a telephone interview. The ruling means that “states really have very little room to operate in this area.”
Supporters of immigration crackdowns, however, say the ruling also gives states a critical role in enforcing federal law by allowing local authorities to check the immigration status of those suspected of being in the country illegally.
“I’m encouraged at least by that glimmer of hope in the decision that we’ll have the opportunity to interact more closely with the federal government on undocumented residents when we encounter them,” said South Carolina state Sen. Larry Martin, a Republican who sponsored his state’s legislation. “Beyond that, I think our hands are tied by the federal law.”
Both supporters and detractors of state immigration crackdowns have described an Alabama law as the toughest in the nation. It adopted much of the Arizona law and incorporated other provisions, including a requirement that public schools verify the citizenship status of new students.
Also, Alabama is the only state where courts allowed a provision to go into effect that requires officers to make a “reasonable attempt” during any traffic stop or other police encounter to determine the immigration status of a person if there is suspicion of someone being an illegal alien.
The high court ruling clears the way for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether those provisions can stand. The 11th Circuit is also considering Georgia’s law, which contains provisions allowing police to check people’s immigration status.
For Georgia to avoid having that law overturned based on arguments that such checks amount to racial profiling, officers would have to investigate the immigration status of every person they detain, said Charles Kuck, an Atlanta immigration attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He said it was a mistake for supporters of the law to interpret the high court’s ruling as a victory.
“This is a massive defeat for those who believe states can regulate immigration,” Kuck said. “I think it’s funny that anybody could read that decision and come to any other conclusion.”
During the past four decades, 12 million migrants came to the U.S. from Mexico, most illegally, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. Net Mexican migration to the U.S. has now stopped and may have reversed, the report said.
Arizona had 360,000 illegal aliens in 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The parts of Arizona’s law that were challenged have never taken effect. A divided federal appeals court blocked them.
The Supreme Court case was Arizona v. United States, 11-182.
Information for this article was contributed by Greg Stohr, Amanda J. Crawford, Kathleen Hunter, James Rowley and Kayla Bruun of Bloomberg News; by Adam Liptak, John H. Cushman and Robert Pear of The New York Times; and by Jay Reeves, Meg Kinnard, Charles Wilson, Ken Miller, Dorie Turner, Grant Schulte, Brian Skoloff, Paul Foy, Jacques Billeaud, Charles Babington, Jack Gillum and staff members of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/26/2012