Just A Bump In The Road

Last week, Judge Susan Bolton, the judge hearing the Arizona Immigration Law case, said this:

“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.

“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?”

Yet in a ruling today she noted this:

[T]he United States has demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on its claim that the mandatory immigration verification upon arrest requirement contained in Section 2(B) of S.B. 1070 is preempted by federal law. This requirement, as stated above, is likely to burden legally-present aliens, in contravention of the Supreme Court’s directive in Hines that aliens not be subject to “the possibility of inquisitorial practices and police surveillance.” 312 U.S. at 74. Further, the number of requests that will emanate from Arizona as a result of determining the status of every arrestee is likely to impermissibly burden federal resources and redirect federal agencies away from the priorities they have established.

That last part (highlighted) is a crock. Everyone knows that the Feds are NOT doing their job. How is doing the job going to overload them?

The judge, a Clinton appointee, is using judicial fiat to reinvent the law. Moreover, she invokes a 1941 SCOTUS ruling – Hines -which is an entirely unrelated decision regarding immigration. I wonder what (or who) caused her to reverse what she was saying just last week?

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer promised to appeal the decision in the Ninth Circuit court (which will probably agree and rule for the injunction) and to the Supreme Court if necessary. Governor Brewer said “It’s just a “bump in the road.” and “This is far from over.”