Actually, you are wrong. In fact, Obama has stated that he cannot stop kicking gays out of the military because Congress passed the law requiring them to be booted and he is obligated to enforce that law until Congress repeals it. The president cannot selectively enforce laws that he likes.
I'm sorry, but you are wrong.
Law enforcement (including the President) may choose to abide by every dot and tiddle of the law (especially where not doing so would draw objections from other branches of government), but prosecutors (i.e. who are included in the executive power) choose not to bring charges that
could be filed all the time, just like police occasionally let criminals go.
In fact it is well established that law enforcement has no legal duty to protect individuals from crime at all.
There are limits on "enforcement discretion" (some would say, more pejoratively "selective enforcement") that arise under the equal protection clause, but nothing that applies here.
Look at this site:
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/facu...logger-the-president-and-immigration-law.html Where they say, with respect to immigration:
This may seem to cabin executive discretion since immigration judges are executive branch officials. Rodrígeuz and Cox contend this change only shifts which executive branch officials exercise discretion and unconstrains this discretion from any statutory requirements. The validity of this contention depends on how independent immigration judges are from executive control. The paper does not explore this other than by noting that immigration judges are separated from the rest of the immigration apparatus in the government hierarchy. Regardless, the emasculation of immigration judges likely does little to expand executive discretion compared to the President’s general enforcement discretion.
"General enforcement discretion?"
How about this:
http://migration.ucdavis.edu/cf/more.php?id=87_0_2_0
[T]he position of INS district director has traditionally carried considerable power and wide enforcement discretion.
At this point, if there is no enforcement discretion, I think you need to post a source demonstrating that, because, the very basis of "triage" is the exercise of some discretion.
In fact, the Arizona bill itself states:
NO OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE MAY ADOPT A POLICY THAT LIMITS OR RESTRICTS THE ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS TO LESS THAN THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY FEDERAL LAW.
It seems like the State of Arizona believes that a law that is on the books can be limited in its enforcement by way of policy...and they extend the possibility of subordinate officials doing it, whereas the Executive is a co-equal branch of the federal government. I would agree that if Congress passed a law like this commanding the President in a similar way (and it were duly passed into law), then Presidential discretion would vanish.
It's still illegal, Pandi, and the only reason it is not "enforced" is because the federal government triages cases like doctors: they chose those that are the highest priority. If the federal government had time, money and energy it would and could most certainly prosecute those using marijuana.
I recall reading that shortening a poster's name is a violation of the rules of conduct, Soupi.

So stop it, or ban yourself for a short time. Either one's fine. :bugeye:
Anyway, see above, there is discretion.
Pandi, AZ is not conducting international relations by enforcing laws that are already on the books. By prosecuting murderers from Mexico, is AZ interfering with international relations too?
No, because the law against murder does not target non-citizens. It is applied equally to everyone, regardless of citizenship. It doesn't matter that they are not directly dealing with the Mexican government or are otherwise in the international arena. Neither was California when it told Chy Lung that she needed to post a bond (and they had a really good reason for targeting foreigners there...because you cannot easily get jurisdiction over foreigners who often flee the State after committing crimes).
As I noted the court said that if the government of China objected, it was the nation as a whole that was on the hook for it. Even if, on balance, it is a good law, the solution is that Congress either should pass that law, or delegate authority to pass such laws to the States (which is permissible). In the absence of delegation, states cannot target foreigners as the sole object of a law save in limited cases, the big rule being that they cannot adversely impact federal policy.
Like it or not, federal policy is lax enforcement of the immigration law. The fix is not State enforcement, but to tell Washington to enforce it, or be prepared to be voted out in the future.
After I read it, I had no personal problem with the Arizona law, save that it steps on the federal exclusivity in matters of immigration policy (which is a rather abstract objection).
A law is a law, regardless of what it does to the federal government. There are MANY things that the states do to obstruct the federal government and there isn't a damned thing the fed can do to stop them other than say, "Shame on you."
What? Well...please show me evidence of
that. Note that I am going to point both to the cases I already cited, where State laws were struck down, and to the Supremacy clause.
In fact, please also look up the "Dormant Commerce Clause", and then take a look at this article if you can find a copy:
In the Shadow of Article I: Applying a Dormant Commerce Clause Analysis to State Laws Regulating Aliens, by Erin Delaney.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1027421
In point of fact, to save you time, as a statement of the law, you are demonstrably wrong. Generally, state laws fall before conflicting federal laws. In certain areas, though, state laws fall even where there is no federal law. In both Chy Lung v. Freeman and Zschernig v. Miller, state laws affecting aliens were struck down simply because they might in theory create a conflict, even though they were not inconsistent with federal law. (See why you are wrong about your "but they are country specific" objection, below...as Chy Lung was not at all.) Even in De Canas v. Bica, where they upheld a California law (forbidding the hiring of illegal aliens), the court
assumed that the law did not conflict with federal policy. Here, that's the very intent behind the law.
All the federal government can do is attempt to strong arm AZ by withholding funds. Though, it should be noted, that AZ was the only state to refuse federal highway matching funds just to thumb its nose at Washington. So, I doubt any threat from DC will move AZ to stop enforcing laws that are in place throughout the entire nation.
I agree that AZ will likely not respond to that threat.
I do have one question though, how does AZ enforcing laws--that the US Congress passed--interfere with international relations? One would think that if it did, the Congress would simply change the laws.
I may be misunderstanding the question a bit, but the answer is "it might not interfere with international relations." In
Chy Lung, no government was objecting to the California law. The Supreme Court struck the law because Congress has an exclusive power to set immigration and visa policy, including special restriction on their rights and imposing obligations on them (like the bond the State of California wanted in
Chy Lung or the restriction on inheritance rights that Oregon wanted in
Zschernig).
In fact in
Zschernig the Executive Branch was clear that they did not think it would create a problem, and the court struck the law anyway.
The point in both cases, whs that State laws might MIGHT create a conflict, and so all such laws were invalid. Other cases like DeCanas established exceptions, as noted below, but that was the holding in these two (and ion other similar areas odealing with federal exclusivity over foreign relations).
This statement is my own synthesis of the various cases I have read. Some laws are allowed, others are struck. The laws that are allowed seem to fall within the categories listed. The second category is based also in part on my reading of
De Canas, where in Part II the court discusses the State's role under their police power to regulate child labor, wages, worker health, and other employment matters. I extend that to say that States have authority to pass laws related to aliens wherever their traditional powers extent, but as DeCanas itself noted, "Power to regulate immigration is unquestionably exclusively a federal power."
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=424&invol=351
A similar point is also echoed in Chy Lung when the court says, in dicta, that if it were a "vital necessity" that the State regulate foreigner entry into the State, then the State, might have more leeway, but that such a law "cannot be carried beyond the scope of that necessity."
http://supreme.justia.com/us/92/275/case.html
Have you read the PDF on the law? I have. The law simply requires police to verify legal residency of those who they stop. There is nothing illegal about that. Moreover, it requires employers to make extra effort in verifying legal residency, also totally legal and--in fact--a requirement in other states as well.
I have as well.
I agree that there is nothing wrong with the employer part, as that is
DeCanas all over again.
As for "simply" requiring the police to "verify", it does more than that. It gives them the ability to arrest people without a warrant based on probably clause, which likely includes any circumstance where they cannot affirmatively verify the immigration status of the person involved. It further sets up a qui tam action by anyone (not even limited to Arizona citizens) if immigraton laws are not enforced to the fullest extent, which would seem to include any occasion where an illegal isn't arrested after failing the verification process.
It also makes it a crime (trespassing) for any illegal to be on any public or private land, even a felony if convicted more than once. That means imprisonment, and as with all felonies, the sentence would be for up to a year or more. Moreover, the law is clear that the person is not eligible for a suspended sentence or a commutation or release on any basis, so they will have to serve the while stint, in State prison.
I don't have a policy problem with any of that....but I don't think it satisfies the case law either so long as that is Arizona's policy only, and not Congress's or the Executive's. More to the point, it is definitely not just "police can verify" and that's it.
Nice snide remark. You must therefore be correct.
If you read up on that case--which I just did--the law was struck down for one reason only: it created stipulations based on the actions of the "alien's" home government. This law does no such thing. It merely requires police to verify citizenship of those they apprehend. Very different cases.
In the end, we disagree on the reading of that one. There is more case law out there that you are ignoring, and your reading of this one is, imo, stilted out of a desire to distinguish it. Sure, *this* law was limited to certain foreign governments, but that was not so in other cases where state laws were pre-empted.
Do you read the cases you quote and why they were struck down?
Snide remark two, wow, I must be losing badly. Either that, or you snideness is evidence that you don't really hew closely to "logic" when debating. Probably the latter since snideness adds no logically valid evidence to the debate.
That very case was truck down because it specifically targeted "undesirables" based on class and country of origin, and restrict the movements of specific people based on the values of California. Arizona, again Pandimoni, has done no such thing. It has--again--merely decided to enforce laws which the federal government has already passed.
Again, I think you are misreading the case because you don't want it to affect your preferred outcome.
I would also note that I don't know if this argument will win in federal court or not. Of course, federal courts could well look to the similarities between the Arizona law and federal law and decide this is fine, if that is what the judge wants to do. My *original* point was to say that the "pre-emption" argument is the stronger basis for challenging the law in court, and not the discrimination charge. The law might not be applied using racial profiling, and so it is hard to see how there is any facial challenge that can be made on the basis of racial profiling being somehow built in to the legislation
That said, I think the more obvious reading of the case law is to note that the federal government has exclusive power to regulate immigration, and that federal regulation includes the actual enforcement policy being followed, and Arizona has taken it on itself to apply a different policy, and States have no "police power" (used in the sense that term is used in constitutional law) that extends to the regulation of immigration. For those reasons, the case law as I read it looks to be hostile to State attempts at forcing the government immigration policy to change. (Other than though normal political channels, of course.)
The federal government would have a tough case arguing that AZ is creating a diplomatic incident by enforcing laws which the federal government created.
The federal government does not have to prove that it would happen. The Executive in
Zschernig was on the side of the State.
Again, because the law specifically targeted the Chinese because--well--they are Chinese. The AZ law requires police to verify a person's legal right to be in the USA regardless of where they are from.
There is some confusion here, that may be clarified if you re-read the case, as the law was not limited to China (the plaintiff challenging the law happened to be Chinese though). It was limited to people who were more likely to somehow cause trouble/expense for the State (foreigners from any nation who are idiots, cripples, paupers, criminals, debauched women, etc.), but not to "Chinese" people.
You provided cases that I don't think are honestly applicable who's connections to this law are specious at best.
And I believe you have provided nothing in support of your position save snide remarks and condescension. You have yet to even address the fact that immigration is the exclusive province of the federal government, and why it should nonetheless be a State law crime, as surely it is if every illegal alien is trespassing when on any "public or private" land.
Again, it will be a hard case for the federal government to prove when it is the federal government that created the law. In each of the cases you provided, the laws were struck down because the state created a special law to govern people based on their origin or home government's political status.
Again, that is a misreading,. The California statute, in particular, applied to all foreigners who fell into the "undesirable" categories, not just the Chinese. Chy Lung was Chinese, but the California law said "from any foreign port or place (who is not a citizen of the United States)...."
In the case of AZ, no such condition exists, merely the police are required to take the extra step to verify if the person they are questioning is--in fact--not in the act of breaking federal immigration laws. If enforcing federal immigration laws creates an international incident then the law itself should be removed.
And if the police fail to arrest because a de facto policy of non-enforcement of federal immigration laws is established, then the local government can be sued, plus it makes being an illegal in any location within the State a State crime, and sometimes a felony. In fact, you mentioned that the federal government can "triage" criminal investigations, but Arizona police can't--or, at least, "triage" is not mentioned as a defense to the lawsuit that is authorized against any:
official, or agency of [Arizona] or any county, sity, town or other political subdivision of [Arizona] that adopts or implements a policy that limits or restricts enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent that is permitted by Federal law.
In fact, unless every illegal immigrant is arrested first, any "triage" that did not prioritize illegal immigration as the greatest threat facing Arizona would be a "policy" that would restrict enforcement to less than the full extent that is "permitted" by federal law. (Since federal law "permits" 100% enforcement.) Read literally, any county that refuses to
demand that police officers work overtime to search for illegals, is enacting a "policy" that restricts enforcement to less than the full extent "permitted" by federal law. (At the very least, no police department could refuse to authorize overtime, for those officers who wanted to work to search for illegals.)
The only thing that saves that particular provision is that no court in its right mind would enforce it as written.
Obviously we disagree on this, and we can wait to see what the courts say. My view is that I have led the horse to water, but sadly I cannot make him think.