It’s already against federal law for aliens not to carry a “green card” with them at all times.
Does anyone else appreciate the irony of the President complaining about Arizona requiring aliens to carry ID, when federal law, which he himself is bound to execute, already has such a law on its books? Or does the President only execute the laws he likes? Maybe I don’t want the answer to that.
Sure.
To be clearer, the article doesn’t offer any specifics, and although I can imagine ways in which the claim is true, I cannot imagine any ways in which “interfering with police investigations” makes the law constitutionally infirm.
The Arizona legislature could pass a law forbidding all payments to informants or rewards for information that leads to arrest of a wanted person. That, too, would interfere with investigations, but no one would imagine that the courts could strike the law down on that basis.
So the lawsuit must have alleged something more than simply, “It interferes with police investigations,” since that claim, even if true, provides no basis to overturn the law.
Strictly speaking, only permanant resident aliens have a green card. Other aliens must carry other documentation that shows their status.
It’s unclear to me that Obama’s objection was to that, specifically. It makes a funny soundbite to phrase it that way, but I suspect Obama’s objection paralleled many in this thread: not that aliens must carry ID, but that enforcement of the law will lead to civil rights abuses such as harrassment of legal aliens and U.S. citizens by law enforcement.
What would constitute that “reasonable suspicion”?
Might want to read Pages… hell, 1-10.
I hadn’t realized in my post on the first page of this thread that the law attempts to criminalize federal immigration violations under state law. In some ways, that makes it more defensible, because it provides a way around the Fourth Amendment problem of searches without suspicion of a crime. But it gets them in deeper water with preemption. See De Canas v. Bica, 424 U.S. 351 (1976) ; 8 U.S.C. 1357(g).
The general argument for why it isn’t preempted.* The better argument that it is. [PDF warning].
Donuts to smaller donuts says the law is struck down based on the reasoning in that PDF doc, especially 8 U.S.C. 1357(g).
Was that directed at me?
If so, this is my point.
I want to know the specific, articulable facts.
I’d just like to know what “objectively reasonable” means.
Perfect. One of the oldest principles of statutory consruction, dating back to Cicero (the old Roman, not the Chicago suburb named for him), is that when a law includes both a broad principle (“X is prohibited”) and specific exceptions to that broad prinicple (“except in circumstances A, B, and C”), it demonstrates that the legislative intent was to have the general principle applicable in all circumstances except the named exceptions – that, far from failing to consider circumstances such as the instant case that might presumptively be valid exceptions to the general principle, they did indeed address possible exceptions and identified the specific ones in which the general principle was not to prevail, meaning that they intended it to prevail in all other circumstances. Since the law places the duty for enforcement in the Federal agents and specifies specific particular instances where state agents may act to enforce it, the conclusion is that the law pre-empts all other possible state enforcement actions.
Should I post an example again, or ask you to read the thread, wherein the exact question has been answered at least twice?
OK, let’s make it interesting – $100 says that the law survives a pre-emption challenge. It may get scuttled at the district court, but the final judgement (circuit or scotus) will be that it’s not pre-empted.
Bet would be a push if Congress passes a new law that might more definitively pre-empt it.
What do you say?
I would say I cannot ethically take that bet. But I’m happy to simply bet personal honor as the more accurate legal analyst. I’ll even give you 3:1 odds. 
So let’s say I’m walking around in AZ with my family.
I am of Mexican descent and I have the height and dark features to show for it. Mrs. Murdoch is a hispanic-looking (but not Hispanic) immigrant who speaks with an obvious accent. My son speaks fluent Spanish.
Could we be stopped? What if my kid is seen talking to a Mexican in Spanish? Is that reasonable cause? Is my wife’s accent reasonable cause? Is our appearance reasonable cause? What if we don’t have birth certificates or passports with us?
You anticipate being professionally involved?
I’ll accept your counteroffer. A win for me will give me the right to point out that I’m three times the legal analyst you are. That might be worth more than the $100, come to think of it.
Anybody else want to profit over my pitiful understanding of the law, and their certainty of its inevitable demise?
Don’t want to read the thread, huh?
OK, one more time:
None of the things you’ve mentioned would give rise to reasonable suspicion. So you could not be “stopped.”
You could be approached, as can any citizen at any time for any reason in any state, by a police officer. That police officer could say, “Excuse me, sir, but I was just wondering – are you by chance a U.S. citizen, or a legal resident?”
You are free to disregard his inquiry and go about your business.
As has been said repeatedly, try that in the real world and see what happens.
I think it would be inappropriate for me to have a stake in the outcome beyond a light-hearted and anonymous honor bet on the yet-to-be-filed case. Fwiw, I don’t think it is “inevitable” that it get struck down, just substantially more likely than not. Nor do I think you have a pitiful understanding of the law, but that you just happen to be wrong on the odds in this case.
In your opinion, he could not legally be stopped. Whether he would be stopped in reality is another matter entirely, in my experience and in the experience of many other people I know in real life.
I was a public defender. Do you think I’m blind to the fact that police have been known to exceed their lawful authority from time to time?
I’m right: he could not be legally stopped. And of course you’re right: it’s possible he would be stopped anyway, in defiance of the law.
But you’re arguing that the law will be broken to prove that it’s unconstitutional. That’s not quite the way it works. A law may be unconstitutional on its face – that is, as it’s written, it’s violative of the Constitution. Or it may be unconstitutional as applied in a particular case. For this latter case, you need to be able to point to the person. You cannot say, “I’m just ever so sure it will be applied this way, judge!”
So if it happens that people are improperly seized under this law, there won’t be any dearth of defenders, right? I mean, given the attention this thing has, defense organizations will be lining up to take the cases. So is it very likely that a person improperly seized under this law won’t have his day in court, and be able to show just how the law was abused?
Although it is not going to be aimed directly at individual cops, the reality is that this law will put a big target on the groups enforcing the laws. As it was mentioned by Rachel Maddow
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/04/27/4210613-racist-roots-of-arizonas-immigration-law
It is outfits like FAIR that will be going after the government’s teat and contributions from racist organizations just by their effort of forcing the authorities into enforcing the new law. The point here is that if the law stands, it is not just authorities the ones that will guide this, it will be individuals and organizations with an ax to grind that are gaining more power.
So this law grants an incentive to people that discriminate to force authorities to enforce the law the way it is “supposed” to be, according to them.