Quentin

Prepare for a first then. ;-)

My problem with the law is simple; this is NOT an area where I want states to be allowed to create and enforce their own laws. If you are for more stringent enforcement of existing immigration laws, I think you should be against individual states being given too much rope in this area of jurisprudence.

Why?

The value of federal preemption (via the supremacy clause, the dormant commerce clause, etc.), cuts both ways. By the same token that federal preemption guards against a state passing a law that might be too restrictive, it prevents a state from passing a law that might be too permissive with respect to immigration enforcement.

Let's suppose this new law survives a preemption challenge from the federal government (which is pretty unlikely, but possible) -- what if a few years down the road another state (let's say New Mexico for example) decides that it wants to simply open the length of its southern border, citing the Arizona law as precedent that states have the requisite authority to create and enforce their own immigration policy?

Now, it's quite possible that this wouldn't work and the NM law would be voided even if the AZ law had survived the earlier preemption challenge, because the AZ law comports with federal law where the hypothetical NM law would contradict federal law. You can rest assured of one thing, though; both the state and the feds, in each case, will spend a lot of money (money that they don't really have) to argue it all out in court.

The impending legal wrangling is not a desirable outcome, IMO, and our legislature had to know it was inevitable once the bill was signed into law. I really wish the legislature had not decided to set itself up for a court battle like this; there were other ways to go about putting pressure on the federal government to enforce existing immigration law, ways that would not have resulted in such public turmoil, and that would not have spawned a (likely doomed) legal battle for the state, which is already struggling financially.

Then there's the process of the legal challenge itself. Given that the court is likely to hold that the feds are raising a substantial issue, and have a significant chance of prevailing at trial, the court is very likely going to issue a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the law, pending full adjudication. That TRO will likely remain in place throughout the appeals process, regardless of which side wins the opening round, which means we get to spend some indeterminate amount of time with a law on the books that is getting people all riled up, despite the fact that it isn't even enforceable yet.

I don't think the law is "racist;" clearly some of its supporters certainly are, and just as clearly some of its opponents are racist, judging by statements that have come from both the 'for' and 'against' camps. It's just that I have serious issues with ANY law that has such enormous potential for unintended consequences, results in wasteful spending on easily avoided litigation and gets people all worked up without leading to any actionable solution to the problem it is purportedly trying to solve.

So that's it... no accusations of racism, nobody who disagrees with me is being called an idiot, just a simple (and I like to think both rational and valid) set of concerns.

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Q. Boyer