Federal Judge Rejects Parts of Arizona Immigration Law

Just hours before the Arizona law designed to fight illegal immigration took effect, Judge Susan R. Bolton granted an injunction to the federal government covering significant parts of that law. Her decision is the latest move in a long-standing argument in the US about illegal immigration. The concern at this journal is not that nothing will be done, nor that what will be done will be done stupidly or badly. Instead, the concern is that American immigration law will be written by the courts and not by Congress. Call it the Roe v. Wade solution.

When it comes to people in the country contrary to the laws of the US, this journal has made its rather pragmatic position plain. A path to legality is necessary, a proper guest worker program is needed, and protections for citizens' safety and job security are vital. Naturally, none of this exists in the Arizona law, and none in the last 20+ years of federal inactivity.

For the Feds, nothing on immigration has happened since the Reagan administration, when a few million illegal aliens received amnesty. That amnesty was to be a one-time-only arrangement. Of course, it acted as a precedent instead. More and more people over-stayed visas or came across the Sonoran Desert to work. Porous barely begins to describe America's border, and no president, from Ronald to Barack has attacked the problem effectively.

As for Arizona, one must admit that the law as written is draconian. Legal aliens, such as Green Card holders, would have to carry their documents with them at all times in case of a police stop. A forgotten wallet and a burned out tail-light while taking the kids to school could easily put Mrs. Gupta, Gonzales or Goncharov in jail for a few hours while this all gets cleared up. Moreover, border security is a federal duty, and the Tea Party supporters of states' rights always seem to forget that the central government does have that exclusive power.

So now, it is in the courts, where things may end badly for all. It is not hard to envision this passing through the Ninth Circuit (a rather progressive bunch of judges) to the Supreme Court with a right-leaning majority. Were that to happen, some kind of messy compromise could wind up being the law of the land, not unlike America's abortion law. Roe v. Wade remains an election issue almost 40 years after the decision. An immigration law crafted in a similar fashion would keep the issue alive for the rest of this still young century.

To see just why it would be preferable to have a law pass through Congress rather than the Roberts Court, one only has to look at the UK's experience on abortion. In practical terms, its law is not very different from America's, yet it is not ever an election issue. Britain has just as many religious conservatives as America (not quite as nutty, but still very pro-life), but if they want to change the law, they must go through Parliament as David Steel's bill legalizing and regulating it did decades ago.

Unless Congressional leaders find some steel for their spines and quickly, a few judges will wind up writing the immigration laws. And as experience shows, it will be a law lacking the respect of a great many, and it will not put the matter to bed.

© Copyright 2010 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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