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7/10/2010

United States v. Arizona — How 'Bout United States v. Rhode Island?

In looking for a picture to put with this story I came across this local story from Rhode Island paper in August 2008, "Immigrations summit: Officers meet to discuss the laws". Which includes he following passage

This controversial and nationally unresolved issue hit home in Rhode Island in April, when Governor Carcieri issued an executive order meant to crack down on illegal immigrants. Part of the order included directives to the state police and Department of Corrections to form agreements with ICE to identify and detain illegal immigrants. Another directive urged local law enforcement to determine the immigration status of people being investigated, taken into custody or arrested for a crime.

This is precisely what Arizona did not by executive order but by enacting a law. The hyperbole over the Arizona law is breathtaking in its cynicism and hypocrisy. (The picture though is from another Rhode Island story)

Via-The Corner

[Andy McCarthy]

Well whaddya know? It turns out that Rhode Island has long been carrying out the procedures at issue in the Arizona immigration statute: As a matter of routine, RI state police check immigration status at traffic stops whenever there is reasonable suspicion to do so, and they report all illegals to the feds for deportation. Besides the usual profiling blather, critics have trotted out the now familiar saw that such procedures hamstring police because they make immigrants afraid to cooperate. But it turns out that it’s the Rhode Island police who insist on enforcing the law. As Cornell law prof William Jacobson details at Legal Insurrection, Colonel Brendan P. Doherty, the state police commander, “refuses to hide from the issue,” explaining, ”I would feel that I’m derelict in my duties to look the other way.”

If, as President Obama and Attorney General Holder claim, there is a federal preemption issue, why hasn’t the administration sued Rhode Island already? After all, Rhode Island is actually enforcing these procedures, while the Arizona law hasn’t even gone into effect yet.

Could it be because — as we’ve discussed here before — the Supreme Court in Muehler v. Mena has already held that police do not need any reason (not probable cause, not reasonable suspicion) to ask a person about his immigration status?

Could it be that just this past February, in Estrada v. Rhode Island, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the Rhode Island procedures, reasoning that, in Muehler v. Mena, the Supreme Court “held that a police officer does not need independent reasonable suspicion to question an individual about her immigration status…”?

So, we have a Justice Department that drops a case it already won against New Black Panthers who are on tape intimidating voters in blatant violation of federal law, but that sues a sovereign state for enacting a statute in support of immigration enforcement practices that have already been upheld by two of the nation’s highest courts. Perfect.

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