So I guess all that hysteria about the Arizona immigration law was much ado about nothing. After months of telling us that the Nazis had seized Arizona, when the Obama administration finally got around to suing, its only objection was that the law was "pre-empted" by federal immigration law.
And it was the latter part of that paragraph which is the subject of confusion by European readers. British people are used to having counties which can be overridden by the central “enforcers” in Westminster. And I use the word after much thought because their system and ours are different and they are because of our Constitution.
These are the United States of America and not the subservient counties of England. Obama’s regime and his lackeys cannot just walk over this, or any other, state’s guaranteed rights. But some of them think they can which is why is we find ourselves where we are.
With the vast majority of Americans supporting Arizona's inoffensive little law, the fact that Obama is suing at all suggests that he consulted exclusively with the craziest people in America before filing this complaint. (Which is to say, Eric Holder's Justice Department.)
But apparently even they could find nothing discriminatory about Arizona's law.
It's reassuring to know that, contrary to earlier indications, government lawyers can at least read English. Instead, the administration argues, federal laws on immigration pre-empt Arizona's law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
State laws are pre-empted by federal law in two circumstances: When there is a conflict -- such as "sanctuary cities" for illegals or California's medical marijuana law -- or when Congress has so thoroughly regulated a field that there is no room for even congruent state laws.
If Obama thinks there's a conflict, I believe he's made a damning admission.
There's a conflict only if the official policy of the federal government is to ignore its own immigration laws.
But the point is: According to the Supreme Court's most recent pre-emption ruling, Arizona's law is not pre-empted because Congress did not expressly prohibit state regulation of illegal aliens.
In fact, the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the pre-emption argument against state laws on immigrants -- including laws somewhat at odds with federal law, which the Arizona law is not.
In the seminal case, De Canas v. Bica (1976), the court held 8-0 that a California law prohibiting employers from hiring illegal immigrants was not pre-empted by federal law.
The court -– per Justice William Brennan -- said that the federal government's supremacy over immigration is strictly limited to: (1) a "determination of who should or should not be admitted into the country," and (2) "the conditions under which a legal entrant may remain."
So a state can't start issuing or revoking visas, but that's about all it can't do.
Manifestly, a state law about illegal immigrants has nothing to do with immigrants who enter legally or the condition of their staying here. Illegal aliens have neither been "admitted into the country" nor are they "legal entrants."
Indeed, as Brennan noted in the De Canas case, there's even "a line of cases that upheld certain discriminatory state treatment of aliens lawfully within the United States." (You might want to jot some of this down, Mr. Holder.)
So there's no "field pre-emption" of state laws dealing with aliens, nor is there an explicit statement from Congress pre-empting state regulation of aliens.
On top of that, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld state laws on immigrants in the face of pre-emption challenges. Arizona's law is no more pre-empted than the rest of them.
Unless, of course, Obama is right and it's a violation of federal law to enforce federal immigration laws, which is the essence of the Department of Justice's lawsuit.
I think he’s wrong. The ACLU thinks he’s right.
Fifty will get you a hundred. Are you on?
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