WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply questioned the Obama administration’s view of the limited roles states may play in enforcing immigration laws and seemed receptive to a central part of Arizona’s controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants. WASHINGTON —
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply questioned the Obama administration’s view of the limited roles states may play in enforcing immigration laws and seemed receptive to a central part of Arizona’s controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants.
Justices on both sides of the court’s ideological divide expressed skepticism that Arizona’s requirement that police check the immigration status of people they arrest or detain is an impermissible intrusion on Congress’s power to set immigration policy or the executive branch’s ability to implement it.
“You can see it’s not selling very well,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told the federal government’s lawyer. Arizona’s attempt to alert federal authorities that a person may be in the country illegally does not force “you to change your enforcement priorities,” said Sotomayor, one of the court’s liberals and its first Hispanic member.
But the justices did question other aspects of the Arizona law, particularly provisions that make it a crime for an illegal immigrant to seek work and allow noncitizens to be arrested for not carrying documentation.
That raised the prospect of a split decision. And even if key parts of the law are upheld, future legal battles are inevitable as Arizona and other states attempt to implement tough legislation civil rights groups say could violate constitutional rights.
Chanting protesters outside the court said Arizona’s S.B. 1070 has created a climate of fear among the state’s mostly Latino immigrant population and it will lead to racial and ethnic profiling. Gov. Jan Brewer, R, who has been closely identified with the law, emerged from the oral argument saying she was “very, very” encouraged and protesters were playing “the race card.”
