To The Center

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned much of Arizona’s restrictive immigration law, but upheld the “show me your papers” provision.

A partial victory on the verdict is being seen by Reuters in the case for President Barack Obama. Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigrants had been challenged in court by the Obama Administration, which was concerned about racial profiling of hispanics in Arizona.

“I am pleased that the Supreme Court has struck down key provisions of Arizona’s immigration law. What this decision makes unmistakably clear is that Congress must act on comprehensive immigration reform. A patchwork of state laws is not a solution to our broken immigration system – it’s part of the problem,” read a statement from the president at White House.

From an amicus brief online at Scotusblog, Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), filed an amicus brief backing the Arizona law on behalf of 57 members of Congress and more than 65,000 Americans. Sekulow stated that the Court’s decision today was just another chapter in “…the ongoing story of how the federal, state, and local governments wrestle with the hot button issue of illegal immigration.”

Justice Kennedy announced the opinion for the Court. He said that, in upholding police checks, their mandatory nature does not interfere with the federal immigration scheme. The Obama administration’s argument, that federal law preempted this part of the Arizona law, was seen as unpersuasive.

Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting from the bench, said he wanted to have upheld the entire Arizona law. Referring to Obama’s June 15 executive order, which stopped the deportation of certain young people in the United States illegally, Scalia said it “boggles the mind.”