The hearing of suit the Federal government has filed against Arizona began today with opening argument.
Here are some of the back and forth from the Feds and Jan Brewer lawyer with Judge Bolton.
Omar Jadwat, representing the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said Congress never made it a crime for those in this country illegally to seek casual employment.
But Bolton told Jadwat he is making a presumption about what Congress intended.
“Or did they just not deal with it?” she asked.“We know Congress knows how to preempt expressly,”
But Bolton did not spare John Bouma, the attorney for Gov. Jan Brewer, from her inquisitions.
She pointed out that police “arrest” people all the time for minor crimes, issue them a citation and let them go about their business. Bolton said this provision of SB 1070 would appear to require police to hold people for some extra period of time -- one attorney said it can take an average of 88 minutes to get a response from Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- beyond what is necessary to cite and release.
Bouma said lawmakers meant to apply that only to people who actually are taken into custody and “booked” into jail.
“That’s what they should have said then,” Bolton responded. She said it could result in detaining tens of thousands of people “who otherwise could be cited and released.”
The questioning is significant because the judge is weighing each of the provisions in the law to determine if there is sufficient legal reason to bar any or all of them from taking effect as scheduled on July 29.
As part of that determination, the judge needs to make at least a preliminary decision on whether the provisions of the law are constitutional. If she believes some sections are not legal -- and if she determines there the harms to some if the law is allowed to proceed are sufficient -- then she will place the law on “hold” until there can be a full hearing on its legality.
Bolton’s questioning made it clear, though, that she will not invalidate the entire law.
As I predicted. The Feds don't have a case to strike down the entire law, so they are using this as a stall tactic so they can get immigration reform passed and signed.
What do you think? Will the Fed be successful in achieving their goal of placing the law on hold, so Congress can ram through immigration reform to get millions a legal path to....Vote in Nov?
