The Supreme Court today upheld the "papers please" part of Arizona's illegal immigrant law in a 5-3 decision that allows police officers to ask about immigration status during stops.
The "papers please" part of the law, which never went into effect because of court challenges, can be immediately enforced in Arizona. Other parts of the law, including a provision that made it a state crime for illegal immigrants to seek work, will remain blocked, as the justices affirmed the federal government's supremacy over immigration policy.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's swing vote, wrote the opinion, and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Conservative Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas partially dissented, saying the entire law or most of the law should have been upheld.
In the opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote that the federal government's "power to determine immigration policy is well settled." But he also sympathized with Arizona's burden in dealing with illegal immigrants.
"Arizona bears many of the consequences of unlawful immigration," he wrote. "Hundreds of thousands of deportable aliens are apprehended in Arizona each year."However, the justices found that Arizona cannot mete out their own state punishments for federal immigration crimes.
"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," Kennedy writes in the opinion's conclusion.Police immigration checks are allowed, however, only because state police would simply flag federal authorities, when the identify illegal immigrants.
Since the passage of Arizona's "papers, please" law, likely voters in Arizona have shifted their support to Democratic candidates in a "very substantive way," according to analysis by Public Policy Polling. That shift is largely due to energized (and probably angry) Latino voters, say Tom Jensen, PPP's director:
