 |
| Source:Reason Magazine- welcome to liberal democracy at the U.S. Supreme Court. |
"As long as there is not a direct conflict, which the federal government did not do a very good job of pointing to today, the Arizona law gets to stand under the Preemption Doctrine," says Reason's Damon Root, who was at the Supreme Court during Wednesday's oral arguments surrounding Arizona's controversial immigration law. "The federal government is saying that 'we have the power to stomp out all of the state experiments in immigration law enforcement.'"
Much like the Health Care arguments before the Court in March, Root does not see this as a good day for the Obama administration, in part due to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli's poor performance. "At one point," Root explains "Justice Sotomayor interrupted [Verrilli] and said "look I am terribly confused by what you are saying."
From Reason Magazine
I don't disagree with anything that Damon Root said here. And no, I'm not a Libertarian, but Reason Magazine is.
The constitutional problems that the Arizona immigration law have are related to civil rights, not Federal supremacy or the roles between the Federal Government and the states.
The question is does Arizona or any other state or any jurisdiction, including the Federal Government, have the right to stop people and in this case assumed that someone is in the United States illegally, simply because of their racial or ethnic background and then have that person detained, simply because you think they look illegal, simply because of their racial or ethnic features. I think the answer to that question is obviously no. But I'm not a lawyer and I certainly don't have a vote on the U.S. Supreme Court.
