Judge Blocks 'Show Me Your Papers' Arizona Law

Anyone who labored under the delusion that it would be otherwise, and that Arizona SB 1070 would become law today as scheduled, is a fool. The law is now caught up in the courts and facing stiff legal challenges after a preliminary injunction issued by a federal district judge. In the judge’s reasoned opinion, “preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely pre-empted by federal law to be enforced.”

“There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens,” she wrote. “By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.”

In other words, immigration law is a federal jurisdiction, and no state can suddenly decide to go rogue and pass its own laws running afoul of the Constitution. The judge blocked the most controversial parts of the law that required police to check a person’s immigration status and persons, immigrants or not, illegal or not, to carry their “papers” at all times.

And for those who wrongly believe illegal aliens pay no taxes, they pay their taxes across the board: In sales taxes, in property taxes deducted from their rent payments, and by filing income taxes with taxpayer ID numbers. A recent NYT study estimates that illegals are carrying the rest of us in Social Security taxes, which they will never be able to benefit from, to the tune of $7 billion.