Is the Arizona immigration law constitutional?

98% of it is fine (the text can be found here: http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf ).

The potentially problematic portion is the part that requires police, when they have reasonable suspicion someone is an illegal alien, to make reasonable efforts to determine that person's immigration status. The question to ask is whether police will be able to use this law to detain people while checking their unverified immigration status. Police can generally only detain someone for committing a crime. Under the new law, however, it is now criminal trespassing to be anywhere in the state of Arizona if you are an illegal alien.

Thus, the standard 4th Amendment search and seizure rules apply to this issue, just like any other criminal law question. Police must meet some threshold standard of suspicion before they can arrest someone they think has committed a crime. My bet is that while the opponents won't be able to overturn the law per se, the 4th Amendment will impose quite strong limits on how far it can be taken.

Police clearly can't just go up to anyone on the street and ask to see papers. Nor would I think anyone would be so stupid as to argue that it's sufficiently reasonable for 4th Amendment purposes to base suspicion of illegal alien status merely on something like hispanic looks or lack of fluency in English. In border states, however, there are often situations where there can be a lot of evidence pointing to a person or group not being in the country legally. For example, if local police learn from their federal counterparts that an employer hasn't been collecting work documents from employees and has also been paying them far below federal minimum wage, AND they are hispanic and don't speak English, I could see the Supreme Court allowing this type of situation to pass the 4th Amendment tests.

If you are familiar with the cases where the Supreme Court constructs the right to privacy doctrine, you will know that in some of those discussions a right to "liberty" is also read into the Constitution. I think the best opponents of the law can hope for, besides a relatively limited application, is for it to be overturned on one of those two grounds. I don't see it happening, though.

Federal preemption doctrine would be likely to fail as an avenue of challenge. First of all, field preemption tends to come into play only when courts find that the intent of federal law is or is likely to be frustrated by the state law. In this case, the state and federal laws don't work at cross-purposes. Second, on the more recent close cases on preemption, all the Supreme Court justices who voted for the state laws are still on the court, and 3 of those who voted to strike down the laws have been replaced. If you think Alito and Roberts are likely to vote with Thomas and Scalia and Sotomayor is likely to vote with Ginsburg and Stephens, that is 7 justices who would be likely to vote against preemption. To put it another way, all 3 new justices would have to decide to vote against the positions already taken by their close ideological peers.

Not at all. The law was on the books but wasn't being upheld.
So this just gave it some "teeth"
People just WANT to make it out to be bad. They want violence !!

IT's about "ILLEGALS" NOT the legal people !! The legals should want our constitution upheld

It's a landmine. Even illegals have some rights. My question is the same for any new law. How are they going to pay for it? Where are the resources coming from? Is this pulling law enforcement people away from other more important duties?

That's what matters.

Yes it is.The illegals and their lawyers who claim it is not dont understand that if you are here illegally you are not afforded the same constitutional rights as legal citizens.

Obviously yes.

its absolutely constitutional. the illegals are not getting benefits without doing the work to become a citizen, but also many get paid under the table and dont pay taxes, bring drug cartels over and it causes kidnapping and violence and the crime goes up. yes, america is for everyone, and diverse, but also you need to do things the proper way like everyone else too. we need to take care of our country and our people. thats one of the founding beliefs of americans. america has become so pc that we cant even protect our own country? good thing ONE governor is standing up for something ,its about time. the illegal immigrants problem has been a problem for a while now. people are being such cowards. stop the pc crap and protect our country

"oh but we dont want to hurt the feelings of minorities" give me a break. its not about race, its about safety

i sure as heck know mexicans are some of THE HARDEST working and family oriented people, no doubt.

but yes, enforcing the immigration law will be hard....but its a step. im glad someone had the guts to do something.

Yes! illegal immigration is NOT a race but a crime!!!!! America is a country of laws and those who choose to enter this country illegally, do not deserve to be here in the first place!!

Actually, the more i think about it, this law will definitely be ruled unconstitutional. Not only is it too broad, and maybe an infringement on federal authority, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY it could be enforced b/c suspicion of being an illegal alien would be based on race- which is protected.

Sure is.

Yes and no. The idea is constitutional, but the wording may be considered overly broad. i'd say its 50-50. If I was a Supreme Court justice I MIGHT throw it out.

My theory on immigration is that it should be like a Vegas disco dance nightclub. Everybody has to wait in line same as they got in line. Except the bonita chicas of course. They go to the front of the line. A few generations of this policy and many more Americans will become prettier.


Good luck. And God bless.