The Hill News

As the Supreme Court sits down this week to hear oral arguments in Arizona v. United States, legal analysts will dissect the constitutionality of Arizona’s SB 1070 from every possible angle. They will wrestle with questions of preemption and which party bears the burden of proof. 

They will attempt to reconcile SB 1070’s controversial language and harsh penalties with long-standing jurisprudence regarding reasonable suspicion, probable cause, and due process. But the court and the legal pundits are missing something if their focus rests solely on who should be burdened with enforcing our outdated immigration laws. The real story on SB 1070 is the growing national consensus that the law, and the “self-deportation” approach upon which it relies, is a failed and disastrous approach to immigration â€" one that has rapidly fallen out of favor in states across the country. 

At heart, SB 1070 and laws like it aim for what’s known in anti-immigrant ! circles as “attrition through enforcement.” The theory is that if you can make the daily life of an undocumented immigrant unbearable enough, he or she will pack up the family (often including their US citizen children) and hit the road. Thus, the laws deputize local police officers as immigration enforcement agents and turn even routine traffic stops into immigration checkpoints. 

Read more...