The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected much of Arizona's immigration law, but the court's decision still allows police to check the immigration status of people they detain.

Jacob Vigdor
Professor of public policy and economics, Duke University
(202) 862-5878 or jacob.vigdor@duke.edu
http://fds.duke.edu/db/Sanford/jacob.vigdor

Vigdor specializes in racial and ethnic segregation, and immigrant assimilation.

Quote:
"The Supreme Court's majority opinion in Arizona v. United States hands the federal government a clear victory in the ongoing immigration battle. Although the court declined to pre-empt one provision of the law, the opinion clearly argues that enforcement of this provision should be monitored -- giving the state the benefit of the doubt, but leaving the possibility of further pre-emption open.

"This will not be the final skirmish in the immigration battle between certain states and the federal government. The battle originates with a constitutional mismatch: the federal government has the express authority to regulate immigration and citizenship, but state and local governments engage in the lion's share of law enforcement.

"A fiscal mismatch exacerbates this tension. Most analyses conclude that immigrants pay more in federal taxes than they receive back in the form of benefits, largely because many federal benefits target the elderly. It's a different story for states, which face most of the costs of educating the children of immigrants. Couple these two with the partisan divide between the Obama administration and many governors, and you have a recipe for continued dispute."