This morning, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-3 decision striking down three key provisions of Arizona’s SB 1070 law, and effectively limiting the scope of the law’s “show me your papers” provision requiring law enforcement officers to determine the immigration status of anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” to believe is in the country illegally. Here are four key takeaways from this decision:

1. Arizona Does Not Get To Have Its Own Immigration Policy: For decades the backbone of American immigration law has been an understanding that the United States has one immigration policy set by our national government, not fifty different immigration policies set by fifty different states. Today’s decision leaves this basic framework in place. In the words of Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion, “[i]t is fundamental that foreign countries concerned about the status, safety, and security of their nationals in the United States must be able to confer and communicate on this subject with one national sovereign, not the 50 separate States.”

2. Arizona Cannot Create New Crimes Targeting Immigrants: SB 1070 criminalizes “willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document,” it makes it a crime for undocumented immigrants to work or seek work, and it authorizes police to arrest anyone the officer has “probably cause to believe” can be deported. All of these provisions were struck down by the Court. Notably, Justice Kennedy’s opinion acknowledged how forcing immigrants into the shadows can lead to their exploitation: “making criminals out of aliens engaged in unauthorized work—aliens who already face the possibil­ity of employer exploitation because of their removable status—would be inconsistent with federal policy and objectives.”

3. Arizona Cannot Detain People Simply Because They Might Be Undocumented: Although the opinion does not strike down the “show me your papers” provision, it significantly lessens the harm caused by this provision. SB 1070 provides that “[a]ny person who is arrested shall have the person’s immigration status de­termined before the person is released,” but the Court warns the state not to apply this provision literally if it wants to avoid running headlong into the Constitution:

Detaining individuals solely to verify their immi­gration status would raise constitutional concerns. And it would disrupt the federal framework to put state officers in the position of holding aliens in custody for possible unlawful presence without federal direction and supervision. The program put in place by Congress does not allow state or local officers to adopt this enforcement mechanism.

But §2(B) could be read to avoid these concerns. To take one example, a person might be stopped for jaywalking in Tucson and be unable to produce identification. The first sentence of §2(B) instructs officers to make a “reasonable” attempt to verify his immigration status with ICE if there is reasonable suspicion that his presence in the United States is unlawful. The state courts may conclude that, unless the person continues to be suspected of some crime for which he may be detained by state officers, it would not be reasonable to prolong the stop for the immigration inquiry.

Although the Court technically does not reason a decision on this question, under today’s opinion, prolonging a person’s detention simply to verify their immigration status is almost certainly not allowed.

4. Obama’s DREAM Initiative Is Legal: Finally, as Judd Legum notes, the opinion strongly hints that the Obama Administration’s directive allowing undocumented college students and veterans to remain in the country is lawful. Indeed, on page 17 of the opinion, the Court explicitly lists “a veteran” or a “college student” as two examples of undocumented immigrants who should not experience “unnecessary harassment.”

In the end, the Obama Administration got 85 percent of what it asked for from the Supreme Court today, plus an unexpected lift to its newly announced immigration directive. Three of SB 1070′s four challenged provisions were struck down, and the remaining provision was significantly limited. Moreover, it is possible that a subsequent challenge could invalidate show me your papers for good. The Court leaves open the possibility that future constitutional challenges to this provision could strike it down.

Today, the Supreme Court issued a decision invalidating most of Arizona’s controversial immigration law. Georgetown Law professor David Cole, a vocal civil liberties advocate, called the decision “almost a total victory for the Obama administration,” which challenged the constitutionality of the law.

But the decision signaled that the court also views Obama’s recent immigration directive, halting deportations for many young undocumented immigrants, as legal. Essentially, the court underscored that the federal government has broad discretion under the law to decide who to deport. From the decision:

Congress has specified which aliens may be removed from the United States and the procedures for doing so.  Aliens may be removed if they were inadmissible at the time of entry, have been convicted of certain crimes, or meet other criteria set by federal law.  See §1227. Removal is a civil, not criminal, matter.  A principal feature of the removal system is the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials. See Brief for Former Commissioners of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service as  Amici Curiae  8–13 (hereinafter Brief for Former INS Commissioners).

…Discretion in the enforcement of immigration law embraces immediate human concerns.  Unauthorized workers trying to support their families, for example, likely pose less danger than alien smugglers or aliens who commit a serious crime. The equities of an individual case may turn on many factors, including whether the alien has children born in the United States, long ties to the community, or a record of distinguished military service.

Kris Kobach, an immigration advisor for Mitt Romney, said that Obama’s order was illegal. It does not appear likely that the Supreme Court agrees.

This explains why Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion, upholding the entire law, included a lengthy section blasting Obama’s immigration order. He also read from that section at length from the bench.

Former Arizona state Senate President Russell Pearce, the sponsor of Arizona’s harsh immigration law SB 1070, was barred last week from hosting fundraising events in two Mexican restaurants. Pearce was recalled from office last November and the fundraising events were a part of his new bid for Senate.

The fundraising event was originally supposed to be held at Macayo’s Restaurant. But DeeDee Garcia Blase, a co-founder of a Latino organization called the Tequila Party, called Macayo’s and organized a protest of the event, convincing the restaurant to bar Pearce from using the space. Pearce then tried to moved his party to Oaxa Restuarante y Cantina, but was met with similar news:

Within hours, Oaxaca also cancelled Pearce’s event. Joseph Aguayo, the restaurant’s manager, told Arizona Capitol Times he did so after Garcia Blase contacted him and told him the event, which she said was registered under a different name, was actually to help Pearce raise money in his bid to return to the Senate after being recalled last year.

“We don’t need that,” Aguayo said. “We want to keep the support of our Latino community.”

Garcia Blase said that Pearce is trying to hold his fundraiser at Mexican restaurants for purely political reasons.

“They’re doing it to make a mockery of Latinos. It’s to make them appear Latino-friendly,” she said.

Finally, Pearce turned to a local high school but was refused access because he had asked “too late in the day.”

SB 1070, which is currently pending before the Supreme Court, requires that police officers with “reasonable suspicion” check the immigration status of an individual during traffic stops, empowers police to arrest individuals they believe are likely to be deportable, and makes “it a state crime to violate federal immigration registration and employment requirements.” Pearce’s recall, which made him the first legislative presiding officer to be recalled from office in American history, “centered on his authorship of the immigration law.”

Briana Rodriquez, a manager of Oaxaca Restaurante, explained the restaurant’s decision to bar Pearce, saying, “I don’t know why they’re trying to have it at a Mexican restaurant…But we serve the Latino community. Most of our staff is Latino. And we do not support SB 1070. It would be an insult to our ancestors to allow them to come here.”

-Nina Liss-Schultz

In an interview with Fox News Latino yesterday, George W. Bush’s former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales echoed the Obama Justice Department’s legal case against SB 1070, explaining that immigration policy must be handled exclusively by the federal government:

GONZALES: The real story here is not what Arizona and other states like Alabama are doing. The real story is the failure of the federal government to deal with immigration policy. In a perfect world, these states wouldn’t be passing these kinds of laws. Congress and the President would work together, and pass comprehensive immigration reform. We have failed in that respect, and that’s why you see laws like Arizona’s.

I understand the controversy. It’s a very controversial law. I think it’s generally unpopular within the Hispanic community, and probably has been harmful to the Republican Party. We’ll see what the court says. My own view, going into the arguments, was that immigration is an area that’s been preempted by the federal government, and the states do not have the authority. But the arguments did not go very well. I think most court observers would say that the court seemed rather hostile to the government’s position. So we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Watch it:

Gonzales is right that Congress failed to enact the comprehensive immigration reform America should have, but the blame for that rests largely on a rump within Gonzales’ own party. President Bush, to his credit, supported a comprehensive immigration bill that enjoyed the support of top Democrats such as Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), but the bill died in large part due to opposition from a right-wing bloc led by Sens. David Vitter (R-LA), Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Subsequent attempts to pass less comprehensive reform under President Obama failed due to filibusters conducted almost entirely by Republicans.

As Gonzales’ comment demonstrates, however, today’s near-unanimous Republican opposition to immigration reform is a fairly new development — beginning largely with the dawn of the Obama Administration. For this reason, it’s unfortunate that the current Supreme Court fight over state immigration laws did not occur while Republicans still controlled the Justice Department. Although there is no way to know for sure whether the Roberts Court would have been more sympathetic to the federal government’s position if the exact same argument had been made by a Republican, the Court’s increasingly partisan nature suggests that some of the justices might have been less moved by Arizona’s arguments if those claims were not also the established view of the GOP.

WASHINGTON, DC — As the Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday on the constitutionality of Arizona’s “papers, please!” immigration law, supporters rallied outside with hate-filled jabs at Latinos and immigrants in general.

Though outnumbered by opponents of SB 1070 at least 20-to-1, supporters made up for their timid numbers with unabashed hate and racism. Among the things SB 1070 proponents said that were overheard by ThinkProgress:

• “Go back to your third-world armpit if you don’t like it!”
• SB 1070 supporter, pointing to SB 1070 opponents, many of whom are Latino: “We can read, unlike some of the people over there”
• Select lyrics from a song called “God Save Arizona” that compared Attorney General Eric Holder to Japanese bombers at Pearl Harbor: “On a clear Sunday morning 1941…they sank the Arizona in a cloud of fire and smoke…And years later in 2010, Arizona is a target once again…Attacked by drug lords, terrorists, and our own Attorney General”
• A button that read, “Don’t Blame me… I voted for the American.”
• “Mexico doesn’t even want them.”
• SB 1070 supporter to a nearby opponent: “Why don’t you put that sign in Spanish?”
• SB 1070 supporter, pointing to SB 1070 opponents, many of whom are Latino: “Those people over there are trespassing!”
• “Obama can’t even come up with a decent birth certificate.”

Watch a few of the remarks:

The good news at today’s Supreme Court argument on Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law is that the justices appeared likely to strike some of the law down. States are not permitted to set their own immigration policy because immigration, like all other foreign policy matters, is reserved to the national government. There are probably not five votes to eliminate this rule altogether and allow Arizona to criminalize the mere act of being an undocumented immigrant.

The bad news is that the “show me your papers” provision requiring police to determine the immigration status of many people they have “reasonable suspicion” to believe is not in the country legally, is likely to be upheld. And it is likely to be upheld due to a fairly strained reading of federal law.

A majority of the Court appeared sympathetic to Republican superlawyer Paul Clement’s argument that, even if the Court does not eliminate the longstanding rule against states’ setting their own immigration policy, federal law effectively deputizes Arizona to seek out and discover undocumented immigrants within its borders. Under the provision Clement relies on, states are permitted to “cooperate with the Attorney General in the identification, apprehension, detention, or removal of aliens not lawfully present in the United States.” So Clement claims that SB 1070 simply “cooperates” with the federal government by helping to identify undocumented immigrants that federal officials can then detain or deport.

There are a number of problems with this argument, but the most important one is that Arizona is not “cooperating” with the Attorney General in anything — a reality that is pretty conclusively demonstrated by the fact that the Attorney General is suing the state of Arizona to get them to stop enforcing SB 1070. It is a bizarre form of “cooperation” that leads your partner in an endeavor to seek a federal court order to get you to stop trying to lend a hand.

An equally important problem, which Solicitor General Don Verrilli relied upon heavily in Court, is that it’s also not true that federal law calls for the kind of sweeping “attrition through enforcement” regime that SB 1070 expressly states is its goal. The federal government does not deport people who are likely to be tortured in their home country, for example, or many victims of domestic violence. Likewise, federal immigration law delegates authority to set immigration enforcement priorities to the executive branch of the federal government, and the executive branch has used that authority to focus enforcement on high priority groups such as violent criminals and repeat offenders. SB 1070 forces the federal government to waste limited resources deciding how to handle low-priority immigrants that it has no intention of pursuing enforcement actions against — resources that could instead be spent on higher priority targets such as violent felons.

One silver lining came early in the argument when several justices, including crucial swing vote Justice Kennedy, appeared bothered by the fact that the “show me your papers” provision might permit Arizona to detain an individual longer than they would normally be detained while the state is trying to figure out whether or not the person is undocumented. A few of these questions even suggested that the provision could be unconstitutional if it extends the period when someone can be detained. Chief Justice Roberts, however, also seemed to find a way to resolve this dilemma that the Court’s conservatives could find appealing.
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