Last week there were two disturbing reports about Medicaid, a program of health insurance for the poor that is mostly managed by the states and jointly paid for by the federal and state governments. The Congressional Budget Office predicted that states with a large number of poor people would not expand their Medicaid programs as required by the health care reform law now that the Supreme Court had made expansion optional. And a Harvard study unrelated to the court decision made it clear that a failure to expand Medicaid would likely doom thousands of low-income people to death or poor health. Revising earlier estimates to take account of the decision, the budget office said that making expanded assistance optional could leave three million more people uninsured in 2022, saving the federal government $84 billion through 2022 because it would not have to subsidize their coverage. The analysts made no effort to predict which states would or would not expand Medicaid. Instead, they looked at various factors that might influence the states’ decisions and predicted that some would not respond to even the extremely generous matching money that the reform law provided. They forecast that some states that already had trouble paying for their existing Medicaid programs would put off expanding Medicaid until their economies improved, or would expand the program partially, not to the extent originally required. Other states may shun the program entirely, as some Republican governors have vowed to do. By 2022, the budget office projects, only two-thirds of those who would become newly eligible for Medicaid if all states expanded to the levels sought by the reform law will actually gain eligibility. One-third will not, either because their states refuse to expand Medicaid at all or expand it only partially. Leaving low-income people uninsured will almost certainly damage their health. A study by three researchers affiliated with the Harvard School of Public Health, published by The New England Journal of Medicine, compared three states (New York, Arizona and Maine) that had already expanded coverage of childless or disabled adults with four neighboring states (Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada and New Hampshire) that had not. Deaths among people ages 20 to 64 dropped in the three expansion states by about 1,500 a year, adjusted for population growth, whereas death rates in the comparison states went up. Expansion also brought a 21 percent reduction in cost-related delays in getting care. Some critics, mostly conservative Republicans, contend that Medicaid does not improve the health of beneficiaries and may even harm them. The new study should lay that canard to rest. State officials who want to save money by not expanding Medicaid will be harming their most vulnerable residents, and will most likely shift the cost of any emergency care they need to safety net institutions, taxpayers and charities.
Showing posts with label Supreme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Supreme. Show all posts
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Sunday, May 6, 2012
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
By Jack Gruber, USA TODAYSupporters 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."
By Jack Gruber, USA TODAYOpponents of Arizona's immigration law rally outside of the United States Supreme Court during arguments Wednesday.
By Jack Gruber, USA TODAYOpponents 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 researchThe 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 TODAYSupporters 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.
For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Supreme Court weighs fate of Arizona's immigration law
WASHINGTON – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said she didn't know what she was starting when she signed her name to the state's landmark immigration bill just over two years ago.
2010 photo by Ralph Freso, AP
By John Moore, Getty ImagesSupporters of Arizona's immigration law SB1070 rallied at the state capitol building on July 31, 2010.The Supreme Court's ruling, expected in June, 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."This is the most important immigration case in a generation," said Warren Stewart, senior pastor at the First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix.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 researchJust a month after the court entered into the legal thicket that is health care in America, the justices will be taking up one of the nation's most vexing, political and cultural issues. Once again, the courthouse steps are expected to be crammed with people supporting both sides of the debate. The two gladiators of the health care debate will face off in a packed courtoom: U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli will argue for the federal government, and former solicitor general Paul Clement will defend Arizona. This time, the court will be missing Justice Elena Kagan, who recused herself presumably because of her work as solicitor general under President Obama. That sets up the potential for a 4-4 tie, which would give the U.S. a victory since the injunction originally imposed by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix, and upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, would stand.The case is the culmination of growing frustration in states over the inability of Washington to agree on a way to handle the country's illegal immigrants — a consensus not reached since the Reagan administration. That has resulted in a complex web of state laws that have gone in wildly different directions.
By Tom Tingle, The Arizona Republic, via APArizona Gov. Jan Brewer said she didn’t know what she was starting when she signed her name onto the state’s landmark immigration bill just over two years ago.Since Arizona passed SB 1070, Alabama adopted the toughest-in-the-nation mantle with its immigration law that required K-12 school officials to check the immigration status of all new students. On the other end of the spectrum, Rhode Island joined 12 other states that allow illegal immigrants to receive in-state college tuition. And somewhere in between, Utah adopted a law that adopts Arizona-style enforcement, but also provides for a permit for some illegal immigrants to legally work in the state.
A June court ruling will raise the immigration debate just as the presidential debate kicks into the home stretch. And with 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's immigration record as president has been mixed. His administration has set records each year for the number of people it deports — nearly 400,000 last year. But it has focused deportation efforts on illegal immigrants who are convicted criminals, resulting in the highest percentage of deportees having criminal records last year (about 55%) in a decade.Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and likely Republican nominee, has called Arizona's efforts to combat illegal immigration by cracking down on businesses who hire them — but not the whole law — "a model" for the nation. He has also embraced the Arizona-inspired idea of making life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they choose to "self-deport."A victory in Arizona v. United States would solidify either candidate's argument, but could inspire severe backlash, or support, from the ever-growing Hispanic electorate."It will be a seismic shift in the Latino community," said Angela Kelley of the Center for American Progress, which opposes the Arizona law. "It will be known to every Latino in this country."Bob Dane of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports Arizona's law, said a victory for the U.S. would be a tragic endorsement of Obama's "we won't and you can't" immigration policy and fire up supporters of the state efforts."That will weigh heavily on voters' minds," Dane said.Years in the makingArizona's 2010 immigration law may have caught many by surprise, but the state had been heading in that direction for years.In 2004, Arizona voters passed Proposition 200, which barred illegal immigrants from receiving public benefits. The state passed an anti-human-smuggling act in 2005 to allow prosecutors to charge border-crossers with state crimes. And in 2007, Arizona passed a law aimed at denying work for illegal immigrants. All three laws were challenged by civil rights groups, but all were upheld by federal courts.Then came Senate Bill 1070.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." The law expanded the requirements for local and state police to check the immigration status of people, and created new state crimes punishing illegal immigrants.Immediately after the law's passage, an untold number of illegal immigrants fled the state. Protests sprang up from Phoenix to Chicago. The state was boycotted by a wide variety of entities, including the National Council of La Raza, the cities of Los Angeles, St. Paul and Boston, musicians including Rage Against the Machine and Kanye West, and even the Highland Park (Ill.) High School women's basketball team, which pulled out of a tournament in Scottsdale.Activists unsuccessfully tried to get Major League Baseball to move the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix. The outcry grew so loud that some called for a boycott of AriZona Iced Tea, prompting the company to issue a statement reminding customers that they were still based in New York.The Center for American Progress, which opposes Arizona's immigration efforts, estimated that the tourism-dependent state would lose an estimated $388 million over three years as as result of the boycotts and negative publicity the law generated.The Department of Justice joined a group of civil rights organizations in lawsuits seeking to halt the law from going into effect. At that time, in April 2010, President Obama called the law "misguided" and said the provisions "threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans."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 supported Arizona's efforts — 55% of Americans approved Arizona's law shortly after it was passed, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.On July 28, 2010, the day before the law was set to go into effect, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton blocked the main portions of the law from going into effect, starting the appeals process that led it to the Supreme Court.Portions of law enforcedStill, Carlos Garcia, a 29-year-old native of Mexico who lives in Phoenix, said the remaining portions of the law, combined with those passed before it, have created a culture of fear in the state for both legal and illegal immigrants. Garcia is a U.S. citizen, but he says most of his relatives are illegal immigrants. In the two years since SB 1070 went into effect, four of his relatives have been arrested — two have been deported, two remain in the country. "There's this perception that everything is OK because 1070 is enjoined," Garcia said. "But people continue to be racially profiled, continue to be detained, continue to be deported."Phoenix police Sgt. Trent Crump said his agency is definitely enforcing the remaining portions of the law.For example, Phoenix police used to prevent its officers from investigating the immigration status of crime victims and witnesses. Crump said the department was forced to remove that restriction because another portion of SB 1070 allows citizens to sue government agencies, including police departments, if they are enforcing federal immigration laws "to less than the full extent permitted by federal law."The penalty is up to $5,000 a day."1070 doesn't allow a lot of interpretation," Crump said. Russell McClurg, a barber in Apache Junction, Ariz., said the law is needed because the federal government had ignored the financial and security burdens thrust upon the state by an open border with Mexico."The only ones who seem to be sticking up for Arizonans are the Arizonans," said McClurg, 72. "You'd think the federal government would be more help, but they seem more interested in fighting us."The clearest image of that battle came when Obama visited Arizona in January and met Brewer on the tarmac, where photographs showed the Republican governor pointing her finger at the president. Brewer later downplayed the scene, but her office has strongly defended the state's economic recovery since the immigration law was passed.As of February, the state had added 42,6000 new, non-farm jobs over the previous year, and state revenues have increased 8.7% so far in 2012. The Arizona Office of Tourism found the state generated $17.7 billion in direct travel spending in 2010 — a 7.9% increase over the previous year. Brewer said there may have been a negative effect in the immediate aftermath of the law, but that the state has rebounded and the "Arizona comeback" is here."Businesses are coming. People are recruiting," Brewer said. "We should get a lot of kudos for what we've accomplished."Arguments before high courtWhen the case goes before the Supreme Court, the justices will not be ruling on the entire law, but four provisions that were blocked.That includes portions requiring police to check the immigration status of people during traffic stops and creating state crimes for illegal immigrants failing to carry proof of immigration or trying to solicit work.In court filings, Arizona argues that the federal government has failed to adequately secure the border from illegal crossers, and that Arizona is bearing the brunt of that failure. The state says a third of the immigrants illegally crossing into the U.S. did so through Arizona and the "accompanying influx of illegal drugs, dangerous criminals and highly vulnerable persons, have resulted in massive problems for Arizona's citizens and government."Arizona argues that it's not going beyond federal immigration laws, but only assisting the feds carry out their laws. Arizona attorneys point out that it's a federal misdemeanor for illegal immigrants to not possess their federal registration cards, and that creating a state law for the same crime is merely an attempt to help federal officials implement that law.The Department of Justice counters that the federal government has gone to great lengths to crack down on illegal immigration. President Obama, continuing the policies of his predecessors, has continued funding enforcement along the Southwest border, resulting in more than 4,000 Border Patrol agents, 350 Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents and 40 Department of Homeland Security aircraft in Arizona alone.And while some of the new Arizona laws may mirror federal laws, Justice attorneys argue that state and local police officers are not properly trained to implement them. Requiring them to understand complex federal immigration policies is unwise, they argue, and errors could lead to foreign relations problems."As the Framers understood, it is the National Government that has ultimate responsibility to regulate the treatment of aliens while on American soil, because it is the Nation as a whole — not any single State — that must respond to the international consequences of such treatment," the government's brief reads.Predicting how the court rules could come down to a question of precedent versus politics, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California-Irvine School of Law.Chemerinsky said the U.S. should prevail if the justices stick to court precedent. He points to a 1941 case, Hines v. Davidowitz, where the court struck down a Pennsylvania immigration law that bears similarities to Arizona's, including the requirement that immigrants carry federal registration papers. The court ruled that immigration enforcement requires important foreign policy considerations, meaning states could not "conflict" or "complement" federal immigration efforts."If I just predicted based on law, SB 1070 should be deemed preempted and it should be a lopsided decision," Chemerinsky said. "But the politics are so intense and the Court is conservative."Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas who has helped Arizona and other states craft their anti-illegal immigrant laws, disagrees with that assessment. He points out that Arizona is three-for-three in defending its recent laws in courts, and said that of all the laws, SB 1070 stands on the strongest Constitutional grounds.He points to a 1976 Supreme Court ruling in De Canas v. Bica, in which the justices upheld a California law that created criminal sanctions against state employers who hired illegal immigrants. That precedent was backed up just last year, when the court ruled 5-3 in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting that Arizona could restrict business licenses for companies that knowingly hired illegal immigrants."What the court laid out was a roadmap," Kobach said of the De Canas v. Bica ruling. "If there's no conflict with any federal statue … then the state action is perfectly fine."A debate over civil rights?While the justices are expected to rule strictly on the four provisions in the law, many are viewing the case as a barometer of civil rights in America today."Despite the fact that this is, on legal terms, about the structure of government and specifically federal supremacy and the relationship between states and the federal government … this is clearly a civil rights case," said Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is one of the groups that sued Arizona.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 specifically prohibits officers from engaging in racial profiling.Brewer said she went to great lengths to ensure that SB 1070 did not violate any civil rights and expressly forbade racial profiling. She said the reaction by some, where she and Arizona legislators have been branded as racists, has led to many sleepless nights."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."Kobach considers the Supreme Court case his "final exam." Kobach, as a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and in his current role as a Kansas state official, has helped states write and implement anti-illegal immigration laws around the country.Kobach helped Arizona legislators craft the three previous immigration bills that have survived judicial scrutiny. And now he sees the ruling on SB 1070 as the final piece.If the court rules in Arizona's favor, then it will "vindicate the work I've been doing for many years."If not?"Then I'll have to go back to the drawing board," he said.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
2010 photo by Ralph Freso, APEdward Pina protests Arizona's SB1070 immigration-enforcement law in Phoenix.
2010 photo by Ralph Freso, APEdward Pina protests Arizona's SB1070 immigration-enforcement law in Phoenix.
"I knew that it was going to be momentous, but to this extent, I had no realization," Brewer said.On Wednesday, she will be sitting in the gallery of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices consider the fate of Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which was considered the toughest state immigration enforcement law to date and served as the blueprint for five other states that followed suit the next year.Supporters of the law say it was necessary because the federal government has failed to control the influx of illegal immigrants into the country, forcing states like Arizona to grapple with the security concerns and high costs of educating and caring for illegal immigrants.Opponents say 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. By John Moore, Getty ImagesSupporters of Arizona's immigration law SB1070 rallied at the state capitol building on July 31, 2010.The Supreme Court's ruling, expected in June, 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."This is the most important immigration case in a generation," said Warren Stewart, senior pastor at the First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix.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 researchJust a month after the court entered into the legal thicket that is health care in America, the justices will be taking up one of the nation's most vexing, political and cultural issues. Once again, the courthouse steps are expected to be crammed with people supporting both sides of the debate. The two gladiators of the health care debate will face off in a packed courtoom: U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli will argue for the federal government, and former solicitor general Paul Clement will defend Arizona. This time, the court will be missing Justice Elena Kagan, who recused herself presumably because of her work as solicitor general under President Obama. That sets up the potential for a 4-4 tie, which would give the U.S. a victory since the injunction originally imposed by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix, and upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, would stand.The case is the culmination of growing frustration in states over the inability of Washington to agree on a way to handle the country's illegal immigrants — a consensus not reached since the Reagan administration. That has resulted in a complex web of state laws that have gone in wildly different directions. By Tom Tingle, The Arizona Republic, via APArizona Gov. Jan Brewer said she didn’t know what she was starting when she signed her name onto the state’s landmark immigration bill just over two years ago.Since Arizona passed SB 1070, Alabama adopted the toughest-in-the-nation mantle with its immigration law that required K-12 school officials to check the immigration status of all new students. On the other end of the spectrum, Rhode Island joined 12 other states that allow illegal immigrants to receive in-state college tuition. And somewhere in between, Utah adopted a law that adopts Arizona-style enforcement, but also provides for a permit for some illegal immigrants to legally work in the state.A June court ruling will raise the immigration debate just as the presidential debate kicks into the home stretch. And with 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's immigration record as president has been mixed. His administration has set records each year for the number of people it deports — nearly 400,000 last year. But it has focused deportation efforts on illegal immigrants who are convicted criminals, resulting in the highest percentage of deportees having criminal records last year (about 55%) in a decade.Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and likely Republican nominee, has called Arizona's efforts to combat illegal immigration by cracking down on businesses who hire them — but not the whole law — "a model" for the nation. He has also embraced the Arizona-inspired idea of making life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they choose to "self-deport."A victory in Arizona v. United States would solidify either candidate's argument, but could inspire severe backlash, or support, from the ever-growing Hispanic electorate."It will be a seismic shift in the Latino community," said Angela Kelley of the Center for American Progress, which opposes the Arizona law. "It will be known to every Latino in this country."Bob Dane of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports Arizona's law, said a victory for the U.S. would be a tragic endorsement of Obama's "we won't and you can't" immigration policy and fire up supporters of the state efforts."That will weigh heavily on voters' minds," Dane said.Years in the makingArizona's 2010 immigration law may have caught many by surprise, but the state had been heading in that direction for years.In 2004, Arizona voters passed Proposition 200, which barred illegal immigrants from receiving public benefits. The state passed an anti-human-smuggling act in 2005 to allow prosecutors to charge border-crossers with state crimes. And in 2007, Arizona passed a law aimed at denying work for illegal immigrants. All three laws were challenged by civil rights groups, but all were upheld by federal courts.Then came Senate Bill 1070.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." The law expanded the requirements for local and state police to check the immigration status of people, and created new state crimes punishing illegal immigrants.Immediately after the law's passage, an untold number of illegal immigrants fled the state. Protests sprang up from Phoenix to Chicago. The state was boycotted by a wide variety of entities, including the National Council of La Raza, the cities of Los Angeles, St. Paul and Boston, musicians including Rage Against the Machine and Kanye West, and even the Highland Park (Ill.) High School women's basketball team, which pulled out of a tournament in Scottsdale.Activists unsuccessfully tried to get Major League Baseball to move the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix. The outcry grew so loud that some called for a boycott of AriZona Iced Tea, prompting the company to issue a statement reminding customers that they were still based in New York.The Center for American Progress, which opposes Arizona's immigration efforts, estimated that the tourism-dependent state would lose an estimated $388 million over three years as as result of the boycotts and negative publicity the law generated.The Department of Justice joined a group of civil rights organizations in lawsuits seeking to halt the law from going into effect. At that time, in April 2010, President Obama called the law "misguided" and said the provisions "threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans."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 supported Arizona's efforts — 55% of Americans approved Arizona's law shortly after it was passed, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.On July 28, 2010, the day before the law was set to go into effect, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton blocked the main portions of the law from going into effect, starting the appeals process that led it to the Supreme Court.Portions of law enforcedStill, Carlos Garcia, a 29-year-old native of Mexico who lives in Phoenix, said the remaining portions of the law, combined with those passed before it, have created a culture of fear in the state for both legal and illegal immigrants. Garcia is a U.S. citizen, but he says most of his relatives are illegal immigrants. In the two years since SB 1070 went into effect, four of his relatives have been arrested — two have been deported, two remain in the country. "There's this perception that everything is OK because 1070 is enjoined," Garcia said. "But people continue to be racially profiled, continue to be detained, continue to be deported."Phoenix police Sgt. Trent Crump said his agency is definitely enforcing the remaining portions of the law.For example, Phoenix police used to prevent its officers from investigating the immigration status of crime victims and witnesses. Crump said the department was forced to remove that restriction because another portion of SB 1070 allows citizens to sue government agencies, including police departments, if they are enforcing federal immigration laws "to less than the full extent permitted by federal law."The penalty is up to $5,000 a day."1070 doesn't allow a lot of interpretation," Crump said. Russell McClurg, a barber in Apache Junction, Ariz., said the law is needed because the federal government had ignored the financial and security burdens thrust upon the state by an open border with Mexico."The only ones who seem to be sticking up for Arizonans are the Arizonans," said McClurg, 72. "You'd think the federal government would be more help, but they seem more interested in fighting us."The clearest image of that battle came when Obama visited Arizona in January and met Brewer on the tarmac, where photographs showed the Republican governor pointing her finger at the president. Brewer later downplayed the scene, but her office has strongly defended the state's economic recovery since the immigration law was passed.As of February, the state had added 42,6000 new, non-farm jobs over the previous year, and state revenues have increased 8.7% so far in 2012. The Arizona Office of Tourism found the state generated $17.7 billion in direct travel spending in 2010 — a 7.9% increase over the previous year. Brewer said there may have been a negative effect in the immediate aftermath of the law, but that the state has rebounded and the "Arizona comeback" is here."Businesses are coming. People are recruiting," Brewer said. "We should get a lot of kudos for what we've accomplished."Arguments before high courtWhen the case goes before the Supreme Court, the justices will not be ruling on the entire law, but four provisions that were blocked.That includes portions requiring police to check the immigration status of people during traffic stops and creating state crimes for illegal immigrants failing to carry proof of immigration or trying to solicit work.In court filings, Arizona argues that the federal government has failed to adequately secure the border from illegal crossers, and that Arizona is bearing the brunt of that failure. The state says a third of the immigrants illegally crossing into the U.S. did so through Arizona and the "accompanying influx of illegal drugs, dangerous criminals and highly vulnerable persons, have resulted in massive problems for Arizona's citizens and government."Arizona argues that it's not going beyond federal immigration laws, but only assisting the feds carry out their laws. Arizona attorneys point out that it's a federal misdemeanor for illegal immigrants to not possess their federal registration cards, and that creating a state law for the same crime is merely an attempt to help federal officials implement that law.The Department of Justice counters that the federal government has gone to great lengths to crack down on illegal immigration. President Obama, continuing the policies of his predecessors, has continued funding enforcement along the Southwest border, resulting in more than 4,000 Border Patrol agents, 350 Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents and 40 Department of Homeland Security aircraft in Arizona alone.And while some of the new Arizona laws may mirror federal laws, Justice attorneys argue that state and local police officers are not properly trained to implement them. Requiring them to understand complex federal immigration policies is unwise, they argue, and errors could lead to foreign relations problems."As the Framers understood, it is the National Government that has ultimate responsibility to regulate the treatment of aliens while on American soil, because it is the Nation as a whole — not any single State — that must respond to the international consequences of such treatment," the government's brief reads.Predicting how the court rules could come down to a question of precedent versus politics, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California-Irvine School of Law.Chemerinsky said the U.S. should prevail if the justices stick to court precedent. He points to a 1941 case, Hines v. Davidowitz, where the court struck down a Pennsylvania immigration law that bears similarities to Arizona's, including the requirement that immigrants carry federal registration papers. The court ruled that immigration enforcement requires important foreign policy considerations, meaning states could not "conflict" or "complement" federal immigration efforts."If I just predicted based on law, SB 1070 should be deemed preempted and it should be a lopsided decision," Chemerinsky said. "But the politics are so intense and the Court is conservative."Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas who has helped Arizona and other states craft their anti-illegal immigrant laws, disagrees with that assessment. He points out that Arizona is three-for-three in defending its recent laws in courts, and said that of all the laws, SB 1070 stands on the strongest Constitutional grounds.He points to a 1976 Supreme Court ruling in De Canas v. Bica, in which the justices upheld a California law that created criminal sanctions against state employers who hired illegal immigrants. That precedent was backed up just last year, when the court ruled 5-3 in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting that Arizona could restrict business licenses for companies that knowingly hired illegal immigrants."What the court laid out was a roadmap," Kobach said of the De Canas v. Bica ruling. "If there's no conflict with any federal statue … then the state action is perfectly fine."A debate over civil rights?While the justices are expected to rule strictly on the four provisions in the law, many are viewing the case as a barometer of civil rights in America today."Despite the fact that this is, on legal terms, about the structure of government and specifically federal supremacy and the relationship between states and the federal government … this is clearly a civil rights case," said Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is one of the groups that sued Arizona.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 specifically prohibits officers from engaging in racial profiling.Brewer said she went to great lengths to ensure that SB 1070 did not violate any civil rights and expressly forbade racial profiling. She said the reaction by some, where she and Arizona legislators have been branded as racists, has led to many sleepless nights."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."Kobach considers the Supreme Court case his "final exam." Kobach, as a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and in his current role as a Kansas state official, has helped states write and implement anti-illegal immigration laws around the country.Kobach helped Arizona legislators craft the three previous immigration bills that have survived judicial scrutiny. And now he sees the ruling on SB 1070 as the final piece.If the court rules in Arizona's favor, then it will "vindicate the work I've been doing for many years."If not?"Then I'll have to go back to the drawing board," he said.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
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