The Full Court Press

from Personal Liberty Digest:

The Full Court Press


August 3, 2010 by Ben Crystal



Federal Judge Susan Bolton, acting last week on behalf of the Democrat party and President Barack Obama, went after Arizona’s most recent efforts to stem the tide of illegal immigrants like a starving wolverine running down Bambi. Bolton issued a preliminary injunction in United States v The State of Arizona, gutting the key components of a bill designed to remedy the Federal government’s abdication on immigration reform. Her ruling was hailed by liberals as a step forward for drug runners, gang recruitment and lazy gardeners.



Actually, the Democrats released no such statement. Nor did they make any comments regarding their continuing effort to grant amnesty to a vast reservoir of untapped voting muscle.



Bolton, who was appointed to the Federal bench by President Bill Clinton, based part of her ruling on the issues implementation of SB 1070 would create for the Federal government. Essentially, she stated that Arizona couldn’t do on its own what the Feds were refusing to do for them. Section 2(b) of SB 1070 says:



“For any lawful stop, detention or arrest made by [an Arizona] law enforcement official… in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance… where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable effort shall be made… to determine the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation. Any person who is arrested shall have the person’s immigration status determined before the person is released…”



Bolton concluded section 2(b) of SB 1070 would place an undue burden on the Federal government, given that the Feds would be required to respond in a timely manner to immigration status inquiries coming in from the Arizona law enforcement community. Given Arizona’s geographic proximity to our Third World neighbors downstairs, those inquiries figure to be fairly abundant in number.



To rephrase Bolton’s logic for those who are victims of teachers’ unions: Arizona is a Southern border state. A lot of illegals cross into Arizona. Under SB 1070, Arizona cops are going to be asking the Feds to check the immigrant status of a lot of illegals. Obama and the Democrats don’t like that idea—it might mean actual work (not mention potentially angering La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense & Education Fund [MALDEF], among others.)



While navigating her Byzantine maze of logical reasoning, Bolton evidently forgot something: 8 U.S.C. §1373—which legally requires the Feds to respond to precisely the sort of requests Obama and his liberal cronies don’t want to acknowledge. Thusly, Judge Bolton’s ruling not only voids key sections of SB 1070, but also overturns pre-existing Federal immigration law and directly abrogates the 1st Circuit’s decision in Estrada v Rhode Island, which set forth standards by which law enforcement officers could check suspects’ immigration status.



But the goodly judge wasn’t through taking the shears to the sheepdog. Bolton also managed, through the invention of a fictitious Chilean dog-walker (yes, you read that correctly), to dredge up the leftist bugaboo of racial profiling.



When a cop stops a black man in a Scottsdale golf community because he “looked out of place”—that’s profiling—that’s already against the law. When a cop asks Tino in Tucson to provide legitimate ID, especially when Tino is struggling with “eye” and “dee”, that’s not profiling, that’s police work. As for the racial component in play—it’s not as if greater metropolitan Tucson has been overrun with mass numbers of willowy blondes who speak English with winter Olympics accents:



“Klaus Schnitzengruber? And you’re from Flagstaff?”

“Er…Ja. Vlagshtaff. Ich bin ein Vlagshtaffer.”



Hence, the inclusion of “reasonable suspicion” in SB 1070. Should Herr Schnitzengruber get popped for a busted taillight in Tucson; it’s auf wiedersehen for Klaus.



The transparency of Bolton’s impetus in issuing her injunction isn’t just offensive—it’s illegal. Spurred by a profligate administration and a liberal machine bent on presumably adding millions of voters to its ranks, Bolton has shredded the Constitution, stomped on pre-emptive Federal court decisions (not just Estrada, but also United States v Salerno, which states that Bolton’s “Chilean dog-walker” construct is judicially irrelevant), and wiped the mat with 8 U.S.C. §1373 (the Feds have to respond to immigration status inquiries) AND 8 U.S.C. § 1304 (immigrants must carry ID at all times).



Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has pledged to carry this fight all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. Given the spurious nature of Bolton’s ruling—and, by extension, Obama’s efforts to undermine the fight to secure our nation’s borders—Brewer should be able to handle the weight.