Supreme Court hears arguments over Ariz. immigration law

WASHINGTON – U.S. Supreme Court justices spent more than an hour Wednesday delving into Arizona's new immigration law, raising questions about the state's ability to implement federal immigration policy, how much power Arizona has to police its own borders, and how U.S. citizens and legal immigrants could be affected by the law.

By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY

Opponents of Arizona's immigration law rally outside of the United States Supreme Court during arguments Wednesday.

By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY

Opponents of Arizona's immigration law rally outside of the United States Supreme Court during arguments Wednesday.

The justices took sharp aim at a portion of the law that requires police officers to determine the immigration status of suspects they've stopped, detained or arrested if a "reasonable suspicion" exists that the person is in the country illegally.

U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued that forcing all of Arizona's local officers to request so many immigration checks would overwhelm federal officials, and interfere with the federal government's approach of focusing its efforts on the most dangerous illegal immigrants.

Chief Justice John Roberts questioned why the federal government would not want a state to assist in identifying illegal immigrants.

"It seems to me that the federal government just doesn't want to know who is here illegally or not," Roberts said.

The Supreme Court will decide on four provisions of Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law, known as SB 1070, that have been blocked by federal courts. They are:

Section 2(B): Requires state and local police to perform roadside immigration checks of people they've stopped or detained if a "reasonable suspicion" exists they are in the country illegally.

Section 3: Makes it a state crime for illegal immigrants not to possess their federal registration cards.

Section 5(C): Makes it a state crime for illegal immigrants to work, apply for work or solicit work in any way, including making a "gesture or nod" indicating they are looking for work.

Section 6: Allows state and local police to arrest illegal immigrants without a warrant when probable cause exists that they committed "any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States."

Source: USA TODAY research

The questioning grew so intense that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the liberal justices on the court, told Verrilli to move on to another section. "You can see it's not selling very well," she said.

Kris Kobach, Kansas' secretary of State who has helped Arizona and other states write laws cracking down on illegal immigration, attended Wednesday's hearing and said he was surprised at how forcefully the majority of the justices seemed to attack the U.S. government's position.

"Arizona had a good day today," he said.

Karen Tumlin, managing attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, which has sued Arizona and other states over their immigration laws, came out of Wednesday's hearing and said it's "foolhardy" to try to predict the way the Supreme Court justices will rule based on their questions.

"The justices had a lot of questions about … what's going to be the everyday life of people living under this law," she said. "We're hopeful."

Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which passed in 2010, has become a flashpoint for the debate over how to enforce immigration in the U.S. and served as a blueprint for five other states that later adopted similar laws.

Four key provisions were blocked by a federal judge before the law took effect, leading to Wednesday's hearing before the Supreme Court. The cramped courtroom was filled for the oral arguments that lasted more than an hour. Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and the law's architect, former Arizona state Senate president Russell Pearce, sat near civil rights attorneys who have battled the state over the law for the past two years.

Justice Antonin Scalia repeatedly asked why Arizona should be barred from policing its own state. After Verrilli argued that the Constitution grants the federal government exclusive powers to enforce immigration in the country, Scalia fired back.

By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY

Supporters of Arizona SB 1070 rally outside the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday.

"If, in fact, somebody who does not belong in this country is in Arizona, Arizona has no power?" Scalia asked. "What does sovereignty mean if it does not include the ability to defend your borders?"

Meanwhile, Justices Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy asked Arizona's attorneys whether the new law would unnecessarily prolong traffic stops and arrests of legal residents and U.S. citizens.

Dozens of protesters for and against the law rallied at the base of the court steps as police kept watch over the growing crowd.

Opponents of the law chanted "Hey ho, 1070 has got to go!" Members of church groups held a large sign that read "Standing on the side of love."

A smaller group of people supporting the law from the American Council of Immigration Reform held signs proclaiming "Thank you Arizona" and "SB1070 supports federal immigration law, President Obama doesn't."

Sponsors said the law was necessary because the federal government has failed to control the influx of illegal immigrants into the country, forcing states such as Arizona to grapple with the security concerns and high costs of educating and caring for illegal immigrants. They said the law simply empowered police and state officials to help enforce federal immigration laws.

Opponents said it unfairly criminalizes otherwise law-abiding people, opens the door for racial profiling of Hispanics legally in the country and forces state law enforcement to interfere with the intricacies of federal immigration policy.

Jim Shee, 73, of Phoenix, was among a group of Arizonans opposed to the law that held a press conference Wednesday in front of the court building before arguments began.

Shee, a U.S. citizen and a plaintiff against SB 1070, said he was stopped twice by law enforcement officers in Arizona in April 2010 while driving. He said he was asked for his papers and told he was stopped for looking suspicious.

"Unless SB 1070 is struck down, I fear I will continue to face racial profiling and discrimination by the state of Arizona simply because of my race and the way I look," he said.

Cochise County (Ariz.) Sheriff Larry Dever is a strong supporter of the law, and came out of the courtroom upbeat. He said the law provides critical tools for his deputies to combat illegal immigration in his county, and was pleased by what he heard on Wednesday.

"It's hard to read the justices, but I think we outshone the opposition by quite a bit," he said.

The court is expected to rule by June on the four provisions of the law:

•Section 2(B): Requires state and local police to perform roadside immigration checks of people they've stopped or detained if a "reasonable suspicion" exists they are in the country illegally.

•Section 3: Makes it a state crime for illegal immigrants not to possess their federal registration cards.

•Section 5(C): Makes it a state crime for illegal immigrants to work, apply for work or solicit work in any way, including making a "gesture or nod" indicating they are looking for work.

•Section 6: Allows state and local police to arrest illegal immigrants without a warrant when probable cause exists that they committed "any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States."

The ruling could have far-reaching effects on the future of state efforts to combat illegal immigration, the daily lives of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants and, to some degree, the outcome of November's presidential election.

Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana and Utah passed laws in 2011 that mirrored Arizona's law. The enforcement provisions of those laws have been put on hold by federal judges, so the Supreme Court's decision will affect the fate of all those laws.

The expected June court ruling will raise the immigration debate just as the presidential debate kicks into the home stretch. With President Obama's re-election campaign and the Republican Party both launching their Hispanic outreach programs last week to reach an expected 12 million Hispanic voters, the ruling could energize voters on one, or both, sides of the debate.

Obama has called the Arizona law "misguided" and his Department of Justice sued the state. Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and likely GOP presidential nominee, has embraced some of Arizona's efforts to combat illegal immigration and adopted the Arizona-inspired idea of making life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they choose to "self-deport."

The law's stated goal for the roughly 400,000 illegal immigrants living in Arizona is "attrition through enforcement" and aims to "discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens."

Immediately after the law's passage, an untold number of illegal immigrants fled the state. Protests sprang up from Phoenix to Chicago and the state was boycotted by a variety of entities.

Despite the vocal criticism, the law was viewed favorably by the people most closely affected by it: Arizonans. Sixty-four percent of residents supported the law, according to a Rasmussen poll conducted shortly after the bill was signed into law.

National polls also showed that a majority of Americans — 55% — supported Arizona's efforts, according to a Quinnipiac University poll taken shortly after the law was passed.

Arizona officials, including Brewer, have long insisted that SB 1070 is not an attack on Hispanics. The bill's authors have pointed out that the law prohibits officers from engaging in racial profiling, and Brewer said she went to great lengths to ensure that the law did not violate any civil rights.

"I was born in the Southwest. I grew up in the Southwest, and anybody that has lived here knows what diversity is. It's not like all of a sudden we wake up one day and we're bigots," Brewer said. "We go to school with a diverse population, in our churches, they marry into our families. But if you want to shut down debate, what do you do? You throw out the race card."

Contributing: Erin Kelly in Washington; Carolyn Pesce in McLean, Va.

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