Not surprising: Justice Dept. to sue, seek injuction on Ariz. immigration law

[AppleSeeds]

.

 

[Palladin]

Good. One more thing for the normal people in the US to use against Barry come election time

 

[Pete85]

The lawsuit, which three sources said could be filed as early as Tuesday, will invoke for its main argument the legal doctrine of "preemption," which is based on the Constitution's supremacy clause and says that federal law trumps state statutes. Justice Department officials believe that enforcing immigration laws is a federal responsibility, the sources said.

I don't understand how this would apply. Arizona's law is to enforce federal law, so how can the Justice Department file a suit based on that? If they believe that enforcing immigration laws is a federal responsibility, then each and every worker at the Justice Department should be prosecuted for derelection of duty.

 

[theGringo]

The government might have a hard time explaining why it instituted BIET (Basic Immigration Enforcement Training) to train locals in federal immigration law enforcement:

A rising immigrant population in the U.S. has led to a dramatic increase in local, state, and tribal law enforcement encounters with both legal and illegal immigrants during routine police duties. As immigration continues to affect interior communities, there is an increasing demand for law enforcement officers to have a working knowledge of immigration law and policy.

BIET is a highly interactive, self-paced multimedia training program that addresses the immigration knowledge requirements of local, state, and tribal law enforcement officers. BIET addresses a wide range of topics including:
•False identification
•Identifying valid identification documents
•Consular notification
•Diplomatic immunity
•Nonimmigrant visas
•Immigrant and nonimmigrant status
•Law Enforcement Support Center resources

BIET was developed by Cameron University and Advanced Systems Technology, Inc. with funding received from the U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office. The pilot program was available for free to the first 500 officers from law enforcement departments.

More here: http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/...fight-against-az-immigration-enforcement-law/

 

[ShadeWPI]

I don't understand how this would apply. Arizona's law is to enforce federal law, so how can the Justice Department file a suit based on that? If they believe that enforcing immigration laws is a federal responsibility, then each and every worker at the Justice Department should be prosecuted for derelection of duty.

Actually, AZ's law isn't even enforcing federal law, it's merely requiring law enforcement to investigate possible violations of federal laws when reasonable suspicon exists that a federal law has been violated.

Imagin that, a law requiring the law enforcement to investigate suspected violations of the law and to pass the results of that investigation on to the appropriate authorities.

 

[JackDaniels]

While obama is looking over the constitution, maybe he can point out where it gives him the power to take over the health care industry. Or did they give him his copy after he signed that bill?

 

[JimB]

at the risk of sticking my neck out, i'm guessing (unless there's some fix in place) ya know

dirty pool, that the Feds should lose. We all know that this is political ploy by the "O"

administration to gain back the Latino support. Sorry but they are not that stupid.

 

[theGringo]

at the risk of sticking my neck out, i'm guessing (unless there's some fix in place) ya know

dirty pool, that the Feds should lose. We all know that this is political ploy by the "O"

administration to gain back the Latino support. Sorry but they are not that stupid.

That thought crossed my mind as well. The administration is pursuing this matter in a way that seems destined to fail, seeing how they don't (yet) have sufficient control of the courts. But at least they can go back to hispanic voters, legal and otherwise, and say, "Hey we tried. Give us one more term and we'll own the courts."

 

[groundscrapers]

It will be funny when the feds loose haha.

 

[gene]

Are we there yet!

 

[Yazz]

at the risk of sticking my neck out, i'm guessing (unless there's some fix in place) ya know

dirty pool, that the Feds should lose. We all know that this is political ploy by the "O"

administration to gain back the Latino support. Sorry but they are not that stupid.

Well 70% of the people in Arizona support the bill. I figure in the state of Arizona more than 30% must be of Mexican descent .

 

[theGringo]

Well 70% of the people in Arizona support the bill. I figure in the state of Arizona more than 30% must be of Mexican descent .

Bingo.

About 30 percent of Arizona's population of 6.6 million are Hispanic, one third of whom are foreign born, including 460,000 illegal immigrants.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100706/pl_afp/usimmigrationpoliticsarizona_20100706202001

 

[mikem317]

Well 70% of the people in Arizona support the bill. I figure in the state of Arizona more than 30% must be of Mexican descent .

Actually, I found that legalized immigrants are pretty anti-illegal immigration. So it's more like 30% are probably illegal aliens from Mexico.

At any rate, three-cheers for Arizona.

 

[JackDaniels]

Actually, I found that legalized immigrants are pretty anti-illegal immigration. So it's more like 30% are probably illegal aliens from Mexico.

At any rate, three-cheers for Arizona.

Yeah, but you know the way the liberals pound it into people, this illusion of it being a racial issue, it doesn't surprise me that some of those hispanic folks fall for the bullshit and draw that line in the sand between them and the big bad white republicans who supposedly want to rid the world of anyone with brown skin. Thing is, if the democrats are generalizing in a way that suggests that the law targets all people who are hispanic, they are also teetering on the edge of suggesting that all hispanics are criminals. Because, the law targets criminals. Not hispanics. So, the connection between the two simply does not exist but in the minds of those who really reach for it. I imagine that if Mexicans were white, we wouldn't hear boo about this.

And, furthermore, I'd say it is pretty prejudice to suggest that the AZ police are going to be using racial profiling and targeting all hispanics for unjust treatment. That is a scary argument to make, because then you start to pin one racial group against the next for no other reason than to give traction to your very flawed argument, and its also quite silly, because I'd be willing to bet that there are many many hispanic police officers in AZ who are not interested in racial profiling, but are indeed interested in bringing criminals to justice.

 

[RKG]

I don't understand how this would apply. Arizona's law is to enforce federal law, so how can the Justice Department file a suit based on that? If they believe that enforcing immigration laws is a federal responsibility, then each and every worker at the Justice Department should be prosecuted for derelection of duty.

Based on news reports, the legal theory on which the action is based is the Supremacy Clause. (Art. VI, second clause.) Supremacy Clause jurisprudence generally recognizes two types of issues. "Conflict supremacy" is where a state law is in conflict with a federal law, in which case the federal law prevails. "Pre-emption supremacy" is where the state and federal law are not in conflict, but the relevant section of the Constitution is interpreted as vesting exclusive jurisdiction over the subject matter in question in the federal government, displacing state laws even though they are consistent with federal law.

Interestingly enough, an argument to the effect that penalizing entry into or presence within the United States in violation of federal immigration statutes is subject to "pre-emption supremacy" comes down to an assertion that the executive of the federal government (i.e., the President) has the "right" (or at least the power) not to enforce the federal laws, which the states cannot trump by doing it themselves. Isn't that exactly what Sen. Kyl claimed Obama said to him?

This isn't my field, and I'd have to do some research to come to a firm opinion, but off the top of my head it is far from clear that illegal presence within the United States will be subject to a "pre-emption supremacy" analysis. If I'm right, Messrs. Obama and Holder will lose their action.

 

[Titan]

I would think that the Justice Dept would be absolutely humiliated by filing a suit that made no mention whatsoever of racial bias or racial profiling when that was at the core of every public statement they made on the issue.

The government is going to get its clocked cleaned in court. If immigration is the sole purview of the federal government, then let them sue all of the 'sanctuary cities' who passed legislation to completely ignore federal law.

CERTAINLY it can't be illegal to inquire about immigration status in the normal investigation of a 'suspect' and then assist the federal government by turning violators over to I.C.E. I'd be stunned if any court decided that assisting the government with law enforcement is unconstitutional. It shouldn't take long to find hundreds of existing examples in which local laws ALREADY reinforce federal law enforcement.

 

[OnTheRoad]

Based on news reports, the legal theory on which the action is based is the Supremacy Clause. (Art. VI, second clause.) Supremacy Clause jurisprudence generally recognizes two types of issues. "Conflict supremacy" is where a state law is in conflict with a federal law, in which case the federal law prevails. "Pre-emption supremacy" is where the state and federal law are not in conflict, but the relevant section of the Constitution is interpreted as vesting exclusive jurisdiction over the subject matter in question in the federal government, displacing state laws even though they are consistent with federal law.

Just musing the recent Supreme Courts decisions, the expiration of the federal AWB and Massachusetts' clinging to the more severe restrictions...

 

[NIGHT_OWL]

So is Zero going to file lawsuits against "sanctuary cities"? Don't they conflict with the Feds law on immigration? Oh wait, its only laws that prevent new voters for the progressives that Zero doesn't like!

 

[M1911]

Holder's blatant dishonesty is simply breathtaking.

 

[ShadeWPI]

If the courts followed their "normal" pattern, they would dismiss the case based on a lack of agrieved party.
That would require the federal government to charge someone who was investigated by the AZ police, and then support them in their appeal of those charges since it was an unconstitutional law that lead to them being reported to the federal government for procecution.
OR
A law enforcement official would need to fail to investigate the legal status of a person whom they had reasonable suspicon to believe was in the country illegal and be charged with a violation of this law so they could be defended by the federal government.

Without an agrieved party, they shouldn't be able to file the law suit in the first place. Or are they claiming the the Federal Execuative Branch is agrieved by recieving help from local police?

 

[Finalygotabeltfed]

Arizona should call out their state militia and just ignore the federal government just like the feds have ignored them........its that simple.

 

[theGringo]

Behold, Pot. I am Kettle

Administration arrogance and hypocrisy shines through again and again.

President Obama is suing Arizona for having its cops identify and round up illegal aliens -- even though he's also deputizing them to do the same thing.

That's right: Under a little-known federal program called ICE 287(g), the administration has continued to enlist at least eight Arizona state law-enforcement agencies to carry out the procedures at issue in the new Arizona law, which goes into effect July 29.

The program dates to a 1995 law signed by President Bill Clinton, which allows US immigration officials to train local law-enforcement officers and authorize them to ID and detain illegals. After 9/11, the Homeland Security Department entered into official partnership agreements with various police departments, allowing them to search federal databases for illegals.

AP
Napolitano: As governor, OK'd police work on illegals.

The program spread across the country, including to Arizona. It now involves 71 state and local police agencies. Indeed, Homeland Security has even conscripted Arizona state troopers to help it enforce federal immigration rules. Obama's Homeland Security chief, Janet Napolitano, OK'd that agreement and another deal with a second state law-enforcement agency when she was Arizona's governor.

All told, the feds have deputized 1,100-plus cops in 26 states to round up illegals -- including officers in the liberal bastions of New Jersey, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Maryland and Massachusetts.

And the program has continued virtually unabated in the Obama years -- despite calls by the ACLU and Hispanic groups to shut it down. The ACLU complains the program promotes an "anti-immigrant agenda" and encourages "racial profiling and civil-rights abuses" -- the very same complaints Obama's been making about the Arizona law.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinio...t_switch_9avLj7QlaBxEbIWapnRF1H#ixzz0tIQpnhu5

 

[theGringo]

DOJ Malfeasance in Minnesota

Audio: How the DoJ allowed voter fraud in Minnesota

Minnesota Majority has experienced the DOJ’s refusal to investigate these kind of cases first-hand. On November 17th of 2008 (immediately following the 2008 General Election and while the Coleman-Franken recount battle was getting underway), Minnesota Majority president Jeff Davis sent a certified letter to then Voting Section chief of the Civil Rights Division at the DOJ, Christopher Coates, requesting an investigation into apparent failures to comply with HAVA by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. No response was forthcoming.

Since the DOJ in Washington DC failed to follow up on Davis’ complaint, Minnesota Majority contacted the local FBI office and lodged the same complaint. Special Agent Brian Kinney responded and visited the Minnesota Majority office to examine Minnesota Majority’s findings. At that time, he said, “based on what I see here there is more than enough evidence to initiate an internal complaint.” He gave his assurances that he would bring the matter to the attention of his supervisors. There was no further follow-up.

By October of 2009, Minnesota Majority had compiled evidence of further violations of HAVA in Minnesota, including a finding that ineligible felons were not being detected and flagged for challenge or removal from the voter rolls. This resulted in hundreds of fraudulent votes by ineligible felons being counted in Minnesota’s 2008 election. Davis sent another certified letter to Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates. Like the first complaint from nearly a year prior, the second letter went unanswered.

Minnesota Majority’s experience supports J. Christopher Adams’ claims that the DOJ’s policy is not to pursue violations of HAVA’s anti-fraud provisions. The dismissal of the voter intimidation charges against members of the New Black Panther Party who brandished nightsticks outside a Philadelphia polling place during the 2008 General Election was the last straw for Adams, who resigned in protest. He claimed that his superiors also ordered himself and other attorneys not to comply with subpoenas issued by the US Civil Rights commission, placing them in what Adams called, “legal limbo.”
Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates, who worked with Adams on the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case was demoted and transferred to a post in South Carolina earlier this year.

The Civil Rights Commission has subpoenaed Coates to testify on the matter but his DOJ employers are currently blocking his testimony.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/10/audio-how-the-doj-allowed-voter-fraud-in-minnesota/

 

[Lucas McCain]

More tax dollars down the drain for stupid shit. I predict that the DOJ will pull some slimey crap and AZ will lose. Then I predict that AZ will attempt to secede from the union. That should start sumptin.

 

[theGringo]

More tax dollars down the drain for stupid shit. I predict that the DOJ will pull some slimey crap and AZ will lose. Then I predict that AZ will attempt to secede from the union. That should start sumptin.

My wife's cousin has a big place in the mountains in Tucson. Very conservative guy. Retired Air Force Lt. Col/A-10 pilot. Maybe he can put us up when the revolution starts. I'll bring all my shoes, and my guns, so I'll have them.*

*Semi-obscure pop culture reference

 

[theGringo]

Interesting article here:

Do the States Have the Power of Nullification?
Randy Barnett • July 9, 2010 9:26 am

In a recently published book, Nullification, author Tom Woods maintains that states have a power to nullify laws that exceed the powers of Congress to enact. This claim has a long history, some of it distinguished–as in the case of Wisconsin’s resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850–some of it not. But is the claim warranted? Last week, I was on Freedom Watch, Judge Andrew Napolitano’s new show on Fox Business Channel to discuss the matter. Judge Napolitano blurbed Woods’s book and the segment was devoted largely to him making his case. I got to make 2 statements to the contrary. (Interestingly, Monica Crowley, a conservative commentator billed by the intro as a nullification supporter, only maintained that states absolutely could challenge some unconstitutional laws in court–something no one denies. She either did not understand the nullification position or was diplomatically ducking the question.)

While there are some interesting structural arguments to be made on behalf of a power of nullification, of course it is not recognized by the text. And my doubts that it was thought by the founders to be a power reserved to the states is fueled by James Madison’s famed Report of 1800 in which he defended the Virginia Resolution objecting to the constitutionality of the Aliens and Sedition Act. I include a lengthy excerpt from Madison’s report in my casebook, including this telling passage near the end. (So readers have the full context, I include the paragraphs in full while putting in bold the more crucial language):

more here: http://volokh.com/2010/07/09/do-the-states-have-the-power-of-nullification/

 

[theGringo]

At DoJ, it's all about Democrat votes

I'm beginning to see a pattern to all this ...

Deliberate Nonfeasance at the DOJ

If this article is even half true, it should be a major scandal and pretty much proof positive that the Obama Justice Department is totally politicized.

The so-called Motor Voter Law of 1993 (a time when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency) requires states to provide voter registration materials at many state offices, such as state departments of motor vehicles and welfare offices. Also, it requires the states to purge their voter rolls of the dead, felons, people who have moved, and others not eligible to vote.

According to J. Christopher Adams, who recently resigned from the DOJ and has been testifying in front of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission — which the department had forbidden him to do when he was an employee, despite a subpoena — the Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes told the Voting Rights Section at a meeting that, “We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it.”

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/gordon/325696

 

[swampy]

Using that logic then if the fed's suit is successful, an Arizona cop discovers he just stopped Whitey Bulger for speeding. The precedent set by this law would give him good argument for not notifying the feds or even holding Whitey for them.

Actually, AZ's law isn't even enforcing federal law, it's merely requiring law enforcement to investigate possible violations of federal laws when reasonable suspicon exists that a federal law has been violated.

Imagin that, a law requiring the law enforcement to investigate suspected violations of the law and to pass the results of that investigation on to the appropriate authorities.

 

[theGringo]

Using that logic then if the fed's suit is successful, an Arizona cop discovers he just stopped Whitey Bulger for speeding. The precedent set by this law would give him good argument for not notifying the feds or even holding Whitey for them.

I just received a vision! Whitey Bulger is alive, and living as an illegal Mexican in Arizona! And he thought they'd never find him there.

 

[theGringo]

UPDATE: Judge scoffs at DOJ

Team Obama - the best and the brightes of their generation ...

“Why can’t Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered or remained in the United States?” U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton asked in a pointed exchange with Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler. Her comment came during a rare federal court hearing in the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Arizona and Gov. Jan Brewer (R).

Bolton, a Democratic appointee, also questioned a core part of the Justice Department’s argument that she should declare the law unconstitutional: that it is “preempted” by federal law because immigration enforcement is an exclusive federal prerogative.

“How is there a preemption issue?” the judge asked. “I understand there may be other issues, but you’re arguing preemption. Where is the preemption if everybody who is arrested for some crime has their immigration status checked?”

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/23/judge-scoffs-at-pre-emption-argument-in-az-lawsuit/

full story here:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/22/AR2010072201548.html?hpid=topnews