Is suing Arizona the right call?

The Justice Department's lawsuit has stirred up already strong feelings about Arizona's immigration law. Was there a better way?

Should the legality of Arizona's immigration law be decided in a federal court?
(Image credit: Getty)

The Obama Administration finally filed suit against Arizona, seeking to block the July 29 implementation of the state's controversial immigration law. The Justice Department argues that only the federal government can set and enforce immigration policy, and that Arizona's law runs afoul of the Constitution's supremacy clause. Arizona lawmakers, not surprisingly, disagree, and even some opponents of the law say the federal suit is just inflaming an already hot political issue. Is Obama making a wrong move? (Watch a CBS report about outrage over the lawsuit)

Obama had to sue: Arizona officials, "particularly keen to appear tough on this issue" in an election year, are claiming they were forced into this by federal inaction, says O. Ricardo Pimentel in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. But the Mexico border "has never been more rigorously guarded," and "if precedent and logic have any remaining force in the nation's judiciary," the courts will block, then "dismantle the law entirely."

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