[Stargazer]

I am not surprised that they ruled this way. Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito had concurring and dissenting opinions.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...11-182b5e1.pdf

No surprise, that I found Justice Scalia's opinion to be more palable and true to what I consider the spirit of the Constitution and state sovereignty.

Justice Scalia Opinion excerpt:

Today's opinion, approving virtually all of the Ninth Circuit's injunction against enforcement of the four challenged provision of Arizona's law, deprives States of what most would consider the defining characteristic of sovereignty: the power to exclude from the sovereign's territory people who have no right to be there. Neither the Constitution itself nor even any law passed by Congress supports this result. I dissent

Justice Scalia opinion excerpt:

Federalist No 42, supra, at 271, see Art.... In other words, the naturalization power was given to Congress not to abrogate States' power to exclude those why did not want, but to vindicate it.

Justice Scalia opinion excerpt:

The Government complains that state officials might not heed "federal priorities." Indeed they might not, particularly if those priorities include willful blindness or deliberate inattention to the presense of removable aliens in Arizona. The States's whole complaint -- the reason this law was passed and this case has arisen -- is that the citizens of Arizona believe federal priorities are too lax. The State has the sovereign power to protect its borders more rigorously if it wishes, absent any valid federal prohibition. The Executive's policy choice of lax federal enforcement does not constitute such a prohibition.....

... Must Arizona's ability to protect its borders yield to the reality that Congress has provided inadequate funding for federal enforcement or even worse, to the Executive's unwise targeting of that funding?

Also thought Justice Scalia's reference to the President's deferral policy was appropo, before offering the following....

... So the issue is a stark on. Are sovereign States at the mercy of the Federal Executive's refusal to enforce the Nation's immigration laws? A good way of answering that question is to ask: Would the States conceivably have entered int the Union if the Constitution itself contained the Court's holding? Today's ruling surely fails that test

I just finished reading Madison's notes of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Further, if you read the concerns that were being addressed to the citizens in the Federalist Papers -- you know this is true.


Justice Alito's opinion on enforcement priorities/agency policy:

The United States' attack on S2(B) is quite remarkable. The United States suggests that a state law may be pre-empted, not because it conflicts with a federal statute or regulation, but because it is inconsistent with a federal agency's current enforcement priorities. Those priorities, however, are not law. They are nothing more than agency policy