The Supreme Court rules on Arizona's immigration law: Leave it to ...

Jun 25th 2012, 20:18 by E.M. | WASHINGTON, DC

TO HEAR the two sides of the immigration debate react to today?s Supreme Court ruling, you would think that proponents of much tougher enforcement had won an only slightly tempered victory. Indeed, Kris Kobach, Kansas?s secretary of state, who helped draft the Arizona law being vetted by the court, and Jan Brewer, Arizona?s governor, who signed it, both used the word victory in response to the decision. Meanwhile, Barack Obama, whose administration had challenged the law in the first place, fretted about the ruling?s possible adverse consequences, although welcoming some parts of it.

This being a matter of disingenuous election-year posturing, the truth is precisely the opposite. The win was about as sweeping as the administration could have hoped. Mr Kobach?s acolytes will have to go back to the drawing board. The states, it turns out, cannot step in to enforce immigration laws in areas where they consider the federal government lacking.

The Supreme Court agreed with the administration?s contention that federal law trumps state law on immigration, and that Arizona was in effect trying to set its own immigration policy, in opposition to the federal one. Arizona claimed only to be trying to help the feds enforce laws already on the books (by making it a state crime to be in violation of federal immigration laws, among other things), but the court demurred. For a state to punish someone for violating federal immigration law would constitute an unwarranted intrusion into the federal government?s discretion in such matters, it concluded.

The only controversial part of the law the court let stand was the requirement that law-enforcement officers check the immigration status of those they had stopped for some other reason, provided they had grounds to believe they might be present illegally. The hitch, for the doughty policemen of Arizona, is that once they have determined, with the federal government?s help, that someone is present illegally, there is nothing more they can do. The feds might ask that the suspect be detained, or they might not. Arizona can only draw attention to an illegal immigrant?s presence; it cannot act on that information.

What is more, the justices suggested that even this part of the law might need to be thrown out, if it led to harassment of minorities or frequent and unwarranted detentions of law-abiding citizens. But the law should be considered innocent on that score until proven guilty, the justices argued, rather than condemned on the basis of mere suspicions. Further lawsuits on such grounds seem inevitable, as soon as the law goes into effect.

All in all, this is a bonanza for the largely Democratic, easy-on-the-undocumented side of the debate. Not only has the Supreme Court handed them a big victory on the substance of the dispute; it has also left it something to rail against. Activists can continue to denounce racist laws, safe in the knowledge that their practical implications are negligible. Naturally, they can?t acknowledge this state of affairs?hence the president?s reticence. And Mr Kobach and Mrs Brewer, as politicians, can hardly be expected to admit defeat if there is any chance the electorate might not notice it.?

(Photo credit: AFP)

james neal