Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Arizona Immigration Law; Is the DOJ Suing for Political Reasons?

This past week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the Arizona immigration law. The Department of Justice sued Arizona over the 2010 law, arguing that Governor Jan Brewer violated the Constitution’s supremacy clause by requiring local police to enforce federal immigration statutes.

Today on The Journal Editorial Report, Joseph Rago weighed in saying, “Arizona very carefully crafted this state law to fit in to the federal law. So really all they’re doing is saying look if the police happen to pick up somebody maybe they need to verify their legal status, that’s part of federal immigration law.”

Regarding the issue of racial profiling, Jason Riley said the government isn’t alleging that's an issue

in the law as it stands. Host Paul Gigot asked, if the DOJ loses in court then why would they have pushed forward with this case? Riley responded, “I think they did it for political reasons, Paul. This is about the Hispanic vote, showing that they care. The Justice Department did not need to bring this case. Other groups, civil rights groups and so forth were already suing. They could’ve let those cases run their course.”

Daniel Henninger said, “I think that the Obama White House and the Democrats have reached the point where it doesn’t matter to them all that much whether the Supreme Court rules against them eight to nothing on this. They still take away the issue of Republicans and Mitt Romney being anti-Hispanic. I don’t the voting block is going to be paying really close attention to the federalism issues at the center of this case.”