Miami Immigration Lawyers Blog

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday delivered a split decision on Arizona's tough 2010 immigration law, upholding its most controversial provision but blocking the implementation of others.

The court unanimously sustained the law's centerpiece, the one critics have called its "show me your papers" provision. It requires state law enforcement officials to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest if there is reason to suspect that the individual might be an illegal immigrant.

The justices parted ways on three other provisions. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for five members of the court, said the federal government's broad powers in setting immigration policy meant that other parts of the state law could not be enforced.

"The national government has significant power to regulate immigration," Justice Kennedy wrote. "With power comes responsibility, and the sound exercise of national power over immigration depends on the nation's meeting its responsibility to base its laws on a political will informed by searching, thoughtful, rational civic discourse."

"Arizona may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration while that process continues, but the state may not pursue policies that undermine federal law," Justice Kennedy added.

The decision was a partial victory for the Obama administration, which had sued to block several parts of the law.

In a statement released later on Monday, President Obama said that he was "pleased" with the Court's decision to strike down some aspects of the law, but he voiced his concern about the remaining provision.

"I agree with the Court that individuals cannot be detained solely to verify their immigration status. No American should ever live under a cloud of suspicion just because of what they look like," Mr. Obama said. "Going forward, we must ensure that Arizona law enforcement officials do not enforce this law in a manner that undermines the civil rights of Americans."

Monday's ruling was a partial rebuke for state officials who had argued that they were entitled to supplement federal efforts to address illegal immigration.

The administration's legal arguments were based on asserted conflicts between the state law and federal immigration laws and policies. The question for the justices, then, was whether federal immigration law trumped - pre-empted, in the legal jargon - the state efforts.

Last year, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, blocked four provisions of the law on those grounds.

The administration did not challenge the law based on equal protection principles. At the Supreme Court argument in the case in April, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., representing the federal government, acknowledged that his case was not based on racial or ethnic profiling.

Monday's decision in Arizona v. United States, No. 11-182, did not foreclose further lawsuits based on that argument. "This opinion," Justice Kennedy wrote, "does not foreclose other pre-emption and constitutional challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect."

In sustaining one provision and blocking others, the decision amounted to a road map for permissible state efforts in this area. Several other states have enacted tough measures to stem illegal immigration, including ones patterned after the Arizona law, among them Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah.

Lower courts have stayed the implementation of parts of those laws, and they will now revisit those decisions to bring them in line with the principles announced on Monday.

Three justice dissented. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas said they would have sustained all three of the blocked provisions. Justice Samuel Alito Jr. would have sustained two of them.

The three provisions blocked by the majority were: making it a crime under state law for immigrants to fail to register under a federal law, making it a crime for illegal immigrants to work or to try find work, and allowing the police to arrest people without warrants if they have probable cause to believe that they have done things that would make them deportable under federal law.

Justice Alito said the first of those three provisions conflicted with federal law.

Justice Scalia read a lengthy dissent from the bench that addressed recent developments.

"After this case was argued and while it was under consideration," he said, "the secretary of Homeland Security announced a program exempting from immigration enforcement some 1.4 million illegal immigrants." This was a reference to the decision by the Obama administration this month to let younger immigrants -- the administration estimates the number as approximately 800,000 -- who came to the United States as children avoid deportation and receive working papers as long as they meet certain conditions.

"The president has said that the new program is 'the right thing to do' in light of Congress's failure to pass the administration's proposed revision of the immigration laws," Justice Scalia went on. "Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of federal immigration law that the president declines to enforce boggles the mind."

Justice Elena Kagan disqualified herself from the case, Arizona v. United States, No. 11-182, presumably because she had worked on it as President Obama's solicitor general.

About Revilla Law Firm, P.A.
Antonio Revilla is a Former U.S. Immigration Prosecutor and Miami Immigration Lawyer. Mr. Revilla founded his immigration law practice, Revilla Law Firm, when he saw a dire need for aggressive immigration representation and deportation defense in order to keep families united.

If you wish to receive more information about any immigration issue, you can contact Revilla Law Firm at 305-858-2323 to speak with Antonio Revilla.

Washington (CNN) -- In an election-year policy change, the Obama administration said Friday it will stop deporting young illegal immigrants who entered the United States as children if they meet certain requirements.

The shift on the politically volatile issue of immigration policy prompted immediate praise from Latino leaders who have criticized Congress and the White House for inaction, while Republicans reacted with outrage that the move amounts to amnesty -- a negative buzz word among conservatives.

Those who might benefit from the change expressed joy and relief. Pedro Ramirez, a student who has campaigned for such a move, said he was "definitely speechless," then added: "It's great news."

President Barack Obama will make a White House statement about the policy change Friday afternoon. Under the new policy, people younger than 30 who came to the United States before the age of 16, pose no criminal or security threat, and were successful students or served in the military can get a two-year deferral from deportation, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

Read the Napolitano memo (PDF)

It also will allow those meeting the requirements to apply for work permits, Napolitano said, adding that participants must be in the United States now and be able to prove they have been living in the country continuously for at least five years.

The change is part of a department effort to target resources at illegal immigrants who pose a greater threat, such as criminals and those trying to enter the country now, Napolitano said.

It "is not immunity, it is not amnesty," she told reporters, adding the shift is "well within the framework of existing laws" and "is simply the right thing to do." The move addresses a major concern of the Hispanic community and mimics some of the provisions of a Democratic proposal called the DREAM Act that has failed to win enough Republican support to gain congressional approval.

Obama has been criticized by Hispanic-American leaders for an overall increase in deportations of illegal aliens in recent years. Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 396,906 illegal immigrants, the largest number in the agency's history.

Friday's policy change is expected to potentially affect 800,000 people, an administration official told CNN on background. Napolitano emphasized the move does not provide a pathway to citizenship or permanent residency, and she called for Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which would put into law similar steps for children of illegal immigrants to continue living and working in the country.

Republicans who have blocked Democratic efforts on immigration reform immediately condemned the move. In a Twitter post, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the decision "avoids dealing with Congress and the American people instead of fixing a broken immigration system once and for all." "This is a classic Barack Obama move of choosing politics over leadership," Graham's tweet said.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, called the change a "decision to grant amnesty to potentially millions of illegal immigrants." "Many illegal immigrants will falsely claim they came here as children and the federal government has no way to check whether their claims are true," Smith said in a statement. "And once these illegal immigrants are granted deferred action, they can then apply for a work permit, which the administration routinely grants 90% of the time."

However, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who sponsored the DREAM Act, welcomed the announcement that he said "will give these young immigrants their chance to come out of the shadows and be part of the only country they've ever called home."

Immigration shift sparks reaction from both sides. "These young people did not make the decision to come to this country, and it is not the American way to punish children for their parents' actions," Durbin said in a written statement.

Ramirez, the student activist, said the chance to live and work in the United States "gives us a chance to show the American people that we're not here to use your tax dollars, we're not here to take your jobs, we're here to contribute."

Hispanics make up the fastest growing immigrant population in the country, and the Latino vote is considered a crucial bloc for the November presidential election. A spokeswoman for a major Latino group, the National Council of La Raza, hailed the administration's move.

"In light of the congressional inaction on immigration reform, this is the right step for the administration to take at this time," said NCLR spokeswoman Laura Vazquez. Immigration lawyers also called the change a major step in the right direction. However, one immigration expert warned that the new policy does not guarantee the result sought by participants.

"I worry that the announcement will be implemented more stingily than the administration would like," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell Law School.

For Jose Luis Zelaya, who came to the United States illegally from Honduras at age 14 to find his mother, also an illegal immigrant, the new policy means that "maybe I will be able to work without being afraid that someone may deport me." "There is no fear anymore," he said.

For more information, contact Antonio G. Revilla at (305) 858-2323.

About Revilla Law Firm, P.A.
Antonio Revilla is a Former U.S. Immigration Prosecutor and Miami Immigration Lawyer. Mr. Revilla founded his immigration law practice, Revilla Law Firm, when he saw a dire need for aggressive immigration representation and deportation defense in order to keep families united.

If you wish to receive more information about any immigration issue, you can contact Revilla Law Firm at 305-858-2323 to speak with Antonio Revilla.