IREHR: Supreme Court’s Arizona SB 1070 Ruling Flares Tea Party Nativism
The legislative log jam in Congress has been brutal. Since the administration of President George W. Bush, the anti-immigrant establishment has stymied every attempt to enact comprehensive immigration reform. During the same period, nativists have conducted a drive in the states to re-write legislation and make Latino immigrant’s life exceedingly difficult. In the words of the state legislation’s principal author, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, its goal was “attrition through enforcement.” Translated it meant that if you made life miserable for immigrants they would “self-deport.”
The decision overturned sections of SB 1070 that criminalized one’s presence in Arizona without documentation, criminalized working or looking for work without legal status, and permitted police to arrest people without a warrant if there’s suspicion that they’ve committed a deportable crime. The court’s majority found that these parts of the statute invaded the federal government's exclusive prerogative to set immigration policy.
The Anti-Immigrant Establishment Responds to the Decision
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and NumbersUSA tried to put the best spin possible on the court’s repudiation of much of a law they had supported.
SB 1070 and Tea Party Nativism
As IREHR noted in the Special Report, Beyond FAIR, the Tea Party movement has become one of the dominant factors in anti-immigrant politics. Five of the six national Tea Party factions previously supported S.B. 1070.
http://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/tea-party-nationalism/tea-party-news-and-analysis/item/419-supreme-court%E2%80%99s-arizona-sb-1070-ruling-flares-tea-party-nativism
Hasn't been a good couple of weeks for teabaggers. First the SB 1070 decision went against them, then ACA constitutionality was upheld.
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