The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal of a blocked provision of Arizona’s 2010 immigration enforcement law, dealing another blow to Gov. Jan Brewer in her effort to defend the law.
The court declined to review the ruling that barred police from arresting people who harbor those living in the United States illegally. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked police from enforcing the prohibition, concluding last year that it was vague and trumped by federal law, which already forbids harboring people in the country unlawfully.
The harboring ban is among a handful of provisions in the law known as Senate Bill 1070 that the courts have struck down.
“It’s another indicator that Arizona is fighting a losing battle legally and politically,” Karen Tumlin, an attorney representing civil rights groups challenging the law, said of Monday’s denial.
Brewer spokesman Andrew Wilder said the governor is disappointed that the Supreme Court didn’t take up her appeal, calling it another blow to the state’s power to ensure the public’s safety.
“Arizona’s ability to combat the criminal elements of illegal immigration in our own state is further eroded,” Wilder said.
While the Supreme Court has upheld one of the law’s most controversial provisions, the courts have either struck down or blocked enforcement of other sections, such as a requirement that immigrants carry registration papers and a prohibition on people who are in the country illegally from seeking work in public places.
The court affirmed the requirement that officers, while enforcing other laws, question the immigration status of those suspected of being in the country illegally, a provision that largely overshadowed the harboring ban.
The ban was in effect for a two-year period ending in September 2012. Two weeks before shelving it, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton said no arrests had been made under that section of the law.
Two challenges to the 2010 immigration law remain alive in federal court. No trial date has been set in either case.
Wednesday marks the four-year anniversary since Brewer signed the measure into law.
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4 thoughts on “Another blow against Arizona’s immigration law”
In 1986, Congress granted amnesty to 3.1 million illegal aliens.
In 1990, Congress increased legal immigration by 40%, and granted amnesty to the illegal relatives of aliens who benefited from the previous amnesty.
10-20 million illegal aliens presently roam the U.S. The number of illegal aliens doubled in the 1990’s.
Each year more than 1.3 million legal and illegal aliens settle permanently in the U.S.
For every 100 illegal aliens who find jobs in the U.S., 65 American workers are displaced.
Each year, more than 72,000 aliens are arrested for drug offenses in the U.S.
In some areas of the country, up to 12 % of felonies, 25% of burglaries and 34% of thefts are committed by illegal aliens.
In Los Angeles alone, 95% of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total approximately 1,200-1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to 2/3 of all fugitive felony warrants (approximately 17,000) are for illegal aliens.
In Lake County, Illinois 1/2 of the murderers and 21.5% of all criminals now in jail are illegal aliens, costing the county an annualized rate of $4,056, 945.
Approximately 400,000 illegal aliens who have committed crimes and have been given a deportation order are at large in the U.S. and their whereabouts unknown.
Education for the children of illegal aliens constitutes the single largest cost to taxpayers, at an annual price tag of nearly $52 billion. Nearly all of those costs are absorbed by state and local governments.
Most illegal aliens do not pay income taxes. Among those who do, much of the revenues collected are refunded to the illegal aliens when they file tax returns. Many are also claiming tax credits resulting in payments from the U.S. Treasury.
A 2013 audit found the IRS/Treasury sent $46 million in one year to to 23,994 illegal workers at a single address in Atlanta. They also found:
11,284 refunds worth a combined $2,164,976 to a second Atlanta address; 3,608 worth $2,691,448 to a third; and 2,386 worth $1,232,943 to a fourth, as well as:
Oxnard, California; 2,507 refunds worth $10,395,874.
Raleigh, North Carolina; 2,408 refunds worth $7,284,212.
Phoenix, Arizona; 2,047 refunds worth $5,558,608.
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida; 1,972 refunds worth $2,256,302.
San Jose, California; 1,942 refunds worth $5,091,027.
Arvin, California; 1,846 refunds worth $3,298,877.
The IRS’s practice of assigning Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers to illegal aliens to try to squeeze money out of them is having the opposite effect. In total, the audit found 154 addresses across the U.S. that were assigned 1,000 or more ITINs.
The problem of “enforcement” along the southern border is a losing battle. No matter how many walls and fences are erected, people are still going to continue doing their darnedest to go where the work is.
Besides, walls work both ways: While they may keep people out (for a time) they also keep people in.
The vast majority of people who are in the US “illegally” are simply trying to earn a living and provide for their families….just like the rest of us. Yet, without legal status, these people are not being taxed for the services they receive…including the hundreds of billions of your and my tax dollars now being spent in a futile attempt to keep them all out (or round them up and send them home).
The US economy sorely needs growth. I can think of absolutely no better way to grow the US economy than to both increase the pool of people who want to work in it, but also to increase the number of consumers of the fruits of that work.
Rather than building more walls to keep these people out…which clearly isn’t working…. it seems to me that those resources would be FAR better spent by cutting all the bureaucratic red tape that it now takes to grant legal status of such persons, most of whom have absolutely no criminal record.other than tying to cross a border “illegally” to provide for their families.
To put it another way, rather than putting these people behind bars (or deporting them), I say put them to work, give them the privilege of paying taxes for the government services they receive…..and then let them raise their families in peace.
As if Ford, Converse, Levi’s, Chrysler, and slews of other manufacturers aren’t operating plants in Mexico. This whole idea that Mexico is an impoverished nation with no work is hogwash. And let’s not forget there are legal immigration channels they could follow but they choose not to do so. If they face bad consequences for their actions that is on them, not on us.
Scores of people break the law due to poverty. It doesn’t make it right. Instead of coming here to try to get something for nothing and fighting our system for a legal status they could have applied for and gotten before entry, how about staying home and fighting your own system to get a fair shake?
Wonder if state and local law enforcement could arrest people for harboring under the federal law and request transfers to federal facilities. Sort of force and embarrass the federal government to uphold the their law since they aren’t doing so on their own.
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