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Subscribe to RSSAs demonstrators stood outside the Supreme Court protesting the 2010 Arizona law known as SB 1070, the justices at the high court appeared sympathetic to the provision that allows police in Arizona to check the immigration status of anyone suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
Editor's note: In an earlier version of this story, msnbc.com erroneously described a portion of the bill under review. The section in question requires that police try to determine the immigration status of people whom they arrest or stop if there's reasonable suspicion that person is in the country illegally.
Updated 1:35 p.m. ET: The U.S. Supreme Court indicated Wednesday it appears ready to uphold one of the most controversial parts of Arizona's immigration law: a requirement that police officers check the immigration status of people they think are in the country illegally.
Wading into a highly divisive issue in the middle of a presidential campaign year, conservative and liberal justices who heard oral arguments on Wednesday morning seemed to find no strong objection to that section of the law.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who casts the deciding vote in many cases, referred to the "social and economic disruption'' that states endure as a result of a flood of illegal immigrants and suggested that states such as Arizona have authority to act.
"You can see it's not selling very well," Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the more liberal-leaning judges, told Obama administration Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, referring to his arguments that the law would lead to harassment of citizens.
Arizona appeared to have a tougher time defending two other provisions of the law that are now blocked: making it a state crime to have no federal immigration papers and making it a state crime for an illegal immigrant to look for work. Neither is currently a federal crime.
The court session ran 20 minutes beyond the scheduled hour, with Verrilli arguing the case for the Obama administration and Washington attorney Paul Clement, who served as President George W. Bush’s solicitor general from 2005 to 2008, representing Arizona and its Republican governor, Jan Brewer.
Chief Justice John Roberts dismissed the administration's arguments that the Arizona law conflicted with the federal system, saying Arizona’s measure is "an effort to help you enforce federal law.''
The four conservative justices, Roberts, Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, all asked tough questions of Verrilli. Fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas did not ask any questions, but based on past votes is expected to support the Arizona law.
Leonida Martinez, left, from Phoenix, Ariz., and others, take part in a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, as the court weighs Arizona's immigration law.
Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case because she had previously worked on it while serving as the solicitor general for Obama.
Verrilli tried to persuade the justices that they should view the law in its entirety and said it was inconsistent with federal immigration policy. He said the records check would allow the state to "engage effectively in mass incarceration" of undocumented immigrants.
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But Roberts said the state merely wants to notify federal authorities it has someone in custody who may be in the U.S. illegally. "It seems to me that the federal government just doesn't want to know who's here illegally and who's not," Roberts said.
NBC's Steve Handelsman reports.
The Obama administration argues that only the federal government, not states, has the right to set immigration policy. It says Arizona cannot impose immigration laws that conflict with federal laws.
Arizona says it enacted SB 1070 because the federal government has failed to stop an influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico. It says its law doesn’t conflict with federal statute, and in fact does specifically what the federal law is supposed to do.
The legislation was signed into law by Brewer in April 2010 but key parts of the law were put on hold by lower courts pending action by the Supreme Court on the challenge from the Obama administration. Arizona’s law has inspired similar laws in other states.
Brewer was on hand for the final argument of the Supreme Court's term.
Can an illegal immigrant become a lawyer?
Outside the Supreme Court, supporters and opponents of the law held their own court, giving speeches, holding banners and singing songs. At one point, supporters of the law started singing, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” The Wall Street Journal reported. Opponents joined in, and both groups sang the end of the national anthem together, the Journal reported.
The Supreme Court is expected to render a decision before the end of June.
It’s the second high-profile case involving the Obama administration to be argued this year before the Supreme Court. Last month, the court heard oral arguments on a constitutional challenge to Obama’s sweeping health care law.
One of the main architects of the Arizona law, former Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, has described the unabated flow of illegal aliens into the country as one of the “greatest threats to our nation.”
“We have a national crisis, and yet we continue to ignore it," Pearce, who was removed from office last year in a recall election, testified on Tuesday at a U.S. Senate hearing.
NBC's Pete Williams and The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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One method of halting illegal immigration is to vote OUT every single public official who is weak on enforcing the laws we currently have on the books. If we voted out those people, the laws would be enforced, and all the illegals would have to go back to their own countries.
My daughter and her husband have been working for almost a year to get his LEGAL spousal visa so he can come to America, work LEGALLY, and eventually become a US LEGAL citizen... a productive, tax-paying, LEGAL resident of the US. It will take maybe another half year, hopefully no more than that, and my daughter has a job that will allow her to be his sponsor so he won't be on the GOVERNMENT DOLE!!!
Do I like illegals? No. They grab something that isn't theirs: jobs, welfare, food stamps, health care, etc, that belong to LEGAL US citizens. Do I want the illegals to be shipped home? You bet! Like yesterday!
If the federal government can't enforce our laws then the state governments must enforce them.
The border states are going broke with all these illegals, their kids, their families and those that are productive and work don't pay into the system and send their U.S. earnings back to their home countries. It is time to get rid of these illegals and protect our borders with enforcement and controls like we used to.
All of these illegal immigrants that are in our country are awfully brave to march for immigrants rights. They are forgetting they are illegal and are braeaking our laws. We have to know who is in our country. If we broke their laws we would be in jail or dead. The majority of our drugs come from Mexico. I think they should all be sent back to Mexico and each state should put up boarders that cannot be crossed to keep them out. They don't speak one word of English and that should be a must before they enter our country. There are too many illegal immigrants in our country stealing SS# and taking over people's identities. I have nothing against them but our citizens come first...
Hey, that gives me a good idea. Let's piss off the illegals and have them march. Then lets round them up and deport them.
@Capitol......we would not have anyone to seek public office,all of the Republican would be in Jail.
Get them illegals out of here!
Until the people/Corp's that hire them go to jail I do not see this changing anything.
I have alot of hispanic friends, and even some that are born of legal mexican families. I have no resentments or prejudices against Mexican/Latino heritages. What I DO have is a disrespect and distrust of OUR government. You know, the one that is supposed to do AT LEAST as much as the military family that they sacrifice in the name of "democracy". They pass laws they have no intention of enforcing, and then critiize and punish states that write laws enforcing the same laws that our wonderful government wrote? So let me see if I have a basic handle on how this works..... We are SUPPOSED to accept and continue to allow what is basically a "passive takeover" of our country, pay for their meals, pay their medical expenses, learn their language so THEY DON'T HAVE TO LEARN OURS, and pretty much allow them to come into our country illegally, and not do ANYTHING to stop it? So that oath all of our soldiers take is actually a joke? To protect our country against ALL threats, both foreign and domestic. How do you protect your country against the very Government that has already foresaken it, and let illegal immigrants to own it instead? Oh yeah.... the same way we won our Independance a few hundred years ago? So we have to have yet another Civil War to win back the United States.... from The Federal Government OF the United States? Joy..... And just think..... WE are the FOOLS that put them in office.... Personally..... I say that if they have no LEGAL Papers..... they should go back to Mexico... they come back again, we have ALOT of roads that need to be rebuilt..... how does a dollar a day sound for pay, and you pay your own medical bills, your own food, and maybe you will think that it isn't so bad back in your own country! Good Luck with that America..... if you think anything like that will EVER happen, you are only fooling yourselves..... Our Government is getting paid by the Cartels to turn the other way! That is why drugs can't be stopped, and talks of legalizing weed is getting under way yet again! Like we didn't have enough problems with the young adults already? Wait for it though, because gang violence is about to go into unchartered territory!
Stop consuming drugs. So Latin America can live in peace. Some americans just talk and talk without really knowing the situations. America is the #1 drugs consumers. some AMericans are just destroying contries! YOu
I agree with you on the drugs. However, we have a big problem in that the people of Mexico cannot protect themselves. They'd have a better chance of living in peace if they were allowed to own guns. I don't expect their leaders to OK that anytime soon though.
Here is the truth and full story you people aren't getting on the whole scenario! Please read and share!
In 1996 in Logansport, Indiana, A hog slaughter plant or meat plant opened for business! It was IBP. (Iowa Beef Products) Formerly, Willson's Foods, In which those plants sat Idle for some time.
IBP Put up billboard signs in Mexico by the border, advertising to come work at IBP in Logansport,Indiana. Pictures wer in the news papers of them and should be able to be viewed in the 1996 archives of the Pharose Tribune news paper. IBP Used company buses to bus in Illegals clear from mexico and the company bought up Most of the rental properties and rented all the hotels and apartments in town to house them! Their would be 50 plus illegals trying to get physicals in the doctors offices at a time as requested by IBP. People were complaining heavily as they did not want a repeat of the plant hireing practice in Iowa, the town of Dubuque if memory serves correctly! We had a big front page add from the mayor and other spokespersons stating that this would not happen! Well, it did! Very boldly and in our faces you might say! Now folks, in order for border crossing agents to look the other way and not intervene and just let all these buses with illegal people cross over, had to go all the way up to the president, Bill Clinton at the time! Now, would i point the finger at Dems because Bill Clinton happened to be in office? No! Not at all! You see, everybody kept quiet about this! Your Rep. and Dem. House and Senate people write along with all the federal organizations that could have made any niose about this!! You see the irony here? The Feds allowed for and participated in this illegal influx your seeing now! The rest of you people didnt even catch on till years later when it got so big as others besides the ones they bussed over were sneaking in by the groves and eventually finding residency in your neck of the woods! Must have been 2002 or later before nationwide concern started to arise as everybody was starting to see the increase in their own back yards!!! Now, having said this, we in this community have done very well with the integration and allot of these mexican folks have become like family!! They go to our churches and alot of us work together and babysit for one another! Now there is a big mess! We have allot of these peoples kids that were born here! Yes! They are legal Americans!! Folks, you ask the question on here for the survey, is the government doing enough!!! You wonder why they aren't doing anything? Now you know! They created this mess in the first place while you friggin slept and didn't pay any attention to what was going on around you till it was in your back yards! So, now, the right thing to do, is make them all legal and pay the same taxes and pay SSI, since our own government brought them in here to start with! People, people! Wake the hell up! Your own state politions know this whole story you just heard!!! You are the only ones in the dark! Now, splitting up these families is bad!! We had a good economy when Clinton was in and this all took place while we were not paying attention! It was making national news also! The time to stop it was then! Now, you can stop others from crossing, but the ones already here have little ones who are legal Americans now! Are you going to go help drag them back across the border? What are you gonna do with their lagal babies and toddlers? They rightfully should go with the parents if they have to go!! But what would you have be done here now that we slept and didn't pay any attention while our government and businesses snuck them in under your noses!!! Think on it real good!!!! Just sayin!!
Penalize those who hired them retroactively (very harshly I might add) , shouldn't be that hard to find the info.
Ted Kennedy in the Senate giving a speech on Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Mr. President, this has been a long journey to try and bring our broken immigration system and our broken borders to the place where this Senate can take action. Today's action is going to be absolutely key to whether we will be able to continue and finalize this legislation at the end of the week. So today's vote is a critical vote, key vote, perhaps the most important vote we have had here on this issue over the period of the last 3 years.
Our Judiciary Committee has been working on this legislation. Senator Specter has been a key part of this whole effort. It has been a bipartisan effort. Our quest has been a bipartisan effort here on the floor of the Senate.
Those of us who are committed to this issue believe we have an important responsibility to try to achieve something. We believe the reason for us being here, whether it is from Massachusetts or Pennsylvania or from other States, is to deal with the public's business, the Nation's business. This is the Nation's business. I think outside of the issue of the war in Iraq, this is front and center for our country.
People in my State are concerned and affected by it, and they are in other parts of the country as well. We have 900,000 nonnative-born individuals in my State of Massachusetts. Of those 900,000, 200,000 are undocumented. We have more than 3,000--in the city of Boston--more than 3,000 small businesses directly responsible for 34,000 jobs, more than half a billion dollars in pay and sales taxes in my State by those who are born in other countries. They represent probably less than 10 percent of the State's population, and 17 percent of the job market. The workers in our State, 17 percent are nonnative born, a demonstration that those individuals who have come here to the United States want to work. They want to work. They also are men and women of faith.
They are men and women who care about their families, by the fact that more than $48 billion is returned every single year to the countries in Central and South America.
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Since when is 48,000,000,000 leaving the United States a "good thing"??
Bill- try spellchecker next posts.
Stop consuming drugs, so you can let Latin America live in peace and better....Those who consums drugs are truthly Illegal and CRiminal...
"Stop consuming drugs" ............. you first.
I lived in El Paso. Its not just drugs. People come over here to steal things like vehicles, kidnap people for ransom and stage car accidents/file lawsuits. Their country is a @!$%# hole. They need to clean up their act and we need to keep them out.
Until you live in Arizona or a border state, you will not fully understand. I live 30 miles from mexico and it is really scary to have a group of 30 people walk through your backyard (I live in city limits in a normal neighborhood) Or have some one less then 5 miles from you get raped by a group of illegals. All the dogs and cattle killed do not get national coverage as well. We have also been hiking, near a military base, and have come across bundles of drugs and people armed with AR's. My whole point is if I have to show ID when I get pulled over, why do illegals not have to? That has been the problem. They can drive around with no licence and the local police are not even allowed to arrest them due to the federal laws. If this does not pass, next time I get pulled over I am not showing ID. Why should I have to?
Having La Raza argue the administrations position before the Supreme Court probably wasn't a great plan but this is Obama after all.
the hispanic KKK
All illegal immigrants should be deported. They are awfully brave to march for immigrant rights when they are breaking our laws. They steal SS#--peoples identities. Most of our drugs are coming from Mexico to be sold to our children. Every state should put up boarders that they cannot cross. They are having baby after baby and they are legal. I don't think they should be. They don't speak one word of English and that should be a plus before coming here to live. We have to learn Spanish just to communicate with them, or have interpreters.
They move into small areas and move everyone out and put up stores that are written in Spanish, turn it into Mexico. I have nothing against the people but they know they are breaking our laws by coming here illegally.
We have to know who is in our country. With all the terrorist we cannot trust anyone...
whaa whaa whaa, the police can ask you for ID anytime they want to, no matter if you are doing anything or not, Why should an immigrant be exempt from having to show proper ID when going through a license check? I have to show my drivers license , registration and prooof of insurance, if i forget my wallet they detain me until they can determine if i am who i say i am. If i were to go to another country I would have to carry my passport or visa to prove to the athourities I am supposed to be in that country. Until an immigrant becomes a legal american citizen, they should have to carry Identification. Look at it this way, carying ID gives law enforcement a way to identify your remains if something happens to the person while in another country...If i were to go to england and got killed, how would the english athourities know who to contact? with no ID they would have no clue as to even what country I came from, they cant look at me and determine if im english, scottish, irish, german, american, or eastern european...so how do they notify my next of kin to claim my remains?
same goes if an illegal immigrant of asain decent was killed in the US, how would they determine if they were chineese, korean, vietnameese..etc. Same for an illegal of hispanic decent, are they mexican, honduran, equadorian... how then to the authaurites notify next of kin. they dont they just go to the morgue as john doe, cremated and ashes sent to god knows where.
Shinchan-your post might be ok if only you would use the spell checker. It is the symbol with ABC and check mark under it. It is the last one on the right.
Please stop with the BS about not wanting illegal workers , all of YOU use their services all the time in some way , don't see YOU stopping either.
The Constitution does not give the federal govt the authority to regulate immigration. It only allows them to set a uniform standard for naturalization. Naturalization is not immigration. Read 'em and weep.
Attn: honest citizens of S. Dakota: please turn in the criminal scumbag coward who shot a defensless endangered whooping crane and collect thousands in reward money.
http://operationmigration.org/Field_Journal.html
Truthfinder3- We NEED you badly here in WI. The dumb bimbo who with our soon to be ex-Gov Walker appointed to head our DNR approved the hunting of cranes just this month. Walker promised to add some 250,000 jobs in our state and in today's newspaper we are leading the country with one of the highest unemployment rate and loss of jobs! In secret last min. he signed into WI law a bill that allows for wage discrimination between men and women. He looks Hispanic but I doubt the Koch Bros would be in bed with him if he was. Second thought............. Koch's bought anything and everyone for their private agenda=the GOP. They would rather pay for our elected officials, congress and even the president before they thought about immigration. Oh, I just got it! They probably are the ones who pay to bus the illegals in the country. It makes sense now. Then the corporations do not have to build plants in China or third world country to get cheap labor, they employ the illegals! With the republicans in office they will reduce the top 1% and corporate taxes, eliminate any form of assistance to the elderly, disabled, poor, sick and out of work Americans that 8 yrs of GW Bush policies that put us in THE RECESSION. That is why they contributed so much money in the 2010 elections. They bought a congress, US Supreme Court Justices, Governors and any other elected official to block a "Black" President Obama from succeeding in his first term. I can not believe no else saw this before!
Former Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce described the unabated flow of illegal aliens into the country as one of the “greatest threats to our nation. We have a national crisis, and yet we continue to ignore it." Senator Pierce has stated the problem clearly and succinctly. I heartily agree with him. The United States is under siege, and Obama is not willing to defend us. His position is determined not by the best interests of the United States but by a craven pandering for Hispanic votes. Shame Mr. President! This is the determining issue for my vote in November. Your selling out law abiding United States citizens by supporting law breakers counteracts all the good that you claim to have done. Your lust for power has driven you to ignore your sworn promise to uphold the laws of the United States. How can you expect to be trusted and supported.
Where was it that I remember people having to show their papers to travel or go out of their house? Oh, I remember, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia! Is that what we want? All of us came from immigrant backgrounds! Some legal, some not. How about we make it easier to travel here for work across the border and people might just go home to their families at night and pay taxes in both countries! Why criminalize people for wanting a better life? And, are we seriously considering letting the police LEGALLY PROFILE? What kind of country are we coming to? Freedom and happiness are going right out the window! God Bless what America should be but refuses to be A LAND FOR ALL!
Because when they crossed the Border ILLEGALLY they broke the law. How is asking for an ID when you are stopped for Loitering,Traffic Violation or Littering Profiling?? Aren't Hispanics and Latinos of the Caucasian persuasion? How can a Caucasian racially profile another Caucasian?
Oh geesh, here we go with the Nazi and Communist argument again......................
Arizona, unlike northern states, has a hell of a lot of tanned people and a mix of ethnicities. It would be very hard for them to "profile." This is not Minnesota, lol, when I was there I realised I was the darkest person around. I started counting us "darkies" I counted 5 people of middle eastern decent and 2!!! black people. Everytime I saw a darker person I got happy. Also our neighborhoods are not segragated like back east. We are very mixed in this state.
...Hey, get a grip, you whacky liberal! ...Do you leave the door to your house unlocked at night and let everyone come in, regardless of who they are and do as they please? ...I doubt it!
America is like a house, owned by Americans. Right now the house is overcrowded and full of people who came, uninvited. Sure, we our ancestors were all immigrants at one time. But that was hundreds of years ago. ...Get a grip! ...Unless you really do leave your doors open, day and night for strangers to come in and take what they please, any time they please; Then you will eventually get what you truly deserve.
So, you are all insinuating that the immigrants that are here are thieves, liars and basically criminals of every element? Where did you get those statistics? How many illegal immigrants do you know? How many hard working immigrants are here illegally but paying taxes? Probably more than you! And, yes, I do leave my door unlocked quite a bit and I live in Florida! To assume someone is a criminal because of the color of their skin is wrong! Period! If someone is stopped for a traffic ticket that's different, then we all have to show ID's. We should not have to carry papers with us to take a walk, ride a bike or shop! Profiling and Immigration are two very different things. So is tolerance and bigotry! I suggest you take a look be very careful about how you might prove you are a citizen. Do you have all of your papers with you all of the time? Be prepared to go to jail if not.
illegal immigration = bank robbery, If some one robs a Bank, they go to jail because its against the LAW, if someone helps them out they also can be sent to JAIL all of which is what the LAW requires and we as citizens require. Yet in this great county we sit on our lazy behinds and not only allow illegal immigration but we also promote it, ( free food, Medical, housing, tuition............). It boils down to BREAK the LAW go to JAIL. If you do not like that then go back to your home country.
I for one am tired of the bleeding hearts in this country, wake up its not racism to demand that you come to our country LEGALLY. I do not care where your from, why you came here, do it legally and do not ask me to support you in any way, Get a JOB and Learn the English language.
If the Feds will not enforce there own laws then more power to ANY state to enact laws to do so them selves.