Top Court's Decision on Arizona Will Affect Other States, Too

CNN (Article by Tom Watkins): The Supreme Court's decision on Arizona's attempt to legislate immigration is likely to have far-reaching effects on other states' efforts to enact similar legislation and underscores the need for federal action, experts said Monday.

The decision is "a resounding defeat for the legislators of Arizona and other parts of the United States who think that immigration can be regulated at the state level," said Charles H. Kuck, managing partner at Kuck Immigration Partners in Atlanta.

He predicted Monday's decision will affect Alabama, South Carolina, Indiana, Utah as well as Arizona. The court's message to each state is the same, he said: "This is a federal issue."

The big question now, he said, is what Congress will do to fix the immigration problem. But he doesn't expect any immediate movement. "I would guess they won't touch this with a 10-foot pole until after they come back after the election."

In a written statement, President Barack Obama vowed to work with "anyone in Congress who's willing to make progress on comprehensive immigration reform that addresses our economic needs and security needs, and upholds our tradition as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants."

The attorney general of Alabama, Luther Strange, issued a statement expressing the hope that the decision will "spur the federal government to enforce the rule of law in the immigration arena."

Georgia's attorney general, Sam Olens, noting Arizona's law was partially upheld, said he is looking forward to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals' proceedings "regarding Georgia's immigration reform law in the light of this decision."

Monday's ruling means states have to "really almost go back to square one and really rethink their approach and how much time and money they want to put into these types of statutes," said Dan Kowalski, editor-in-chief of Bender's Immigration Bulletin and an immigration lawyer at the Fowler Law Firm in Austin, Texas.

"Number one: They're going to have to spend a lot of money on lawyers to try to craft something that they think can withstand Supreme Court scrutiny; Number two: they're going to have to budget money for further litigation because, no matter what they propose on a state level, it's going to be challenged. That costs a lot of money. So they're going to have to figure out if it's worth it."

That gets to a fundamental question of what the purpose is behind such an immigration law, he said. "Does it make economic sense for the states to try to clamp down on immigration or is it merely an expression of some sort of cultural distress or worry about change in demographics? So that's going to have to be on the minds of legislators at every state level."

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-New York, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, applauded the majority opinion.

"This decision tells us that states cannot take the law into their own hands and makes it clear that the only real solution to immigration reform is a comprehensive federal law," he said in a written statement. "The decision should importune Republicans and Democrats to work together on this issue in a bipartisan way."