Immigration: Why did Obama sue Arizona?

President Obama must have a deep moral objection to Arizona’s new immigration law, said Steve Tuttle in Newsweek.com, because his decision to sue the state sure wasn’t “poll-driven.” The administration last week went to court to challenge the constitutionality of the controversial Arizona law, which requires anyone stopped by police to show proof of their immigration status if cops suspect they’re in the country illegally. Attorney General Eric Holder says the statute is unconstitutional, since when it comes to setting the nation’s immigration policies, “federal law trumps state.” In court, the administration may win that argument, said Seyward Darby in The New Republic. But a lot of politically vulnerable Democratic governors and members of Congress are wishing Obama picked another fight. Polls show that about 60 percent of Americans approve of the Arizona law, and most want their own states to follow suit. With November elections coming, and voters already in a grouchy mood, Democrats “are right to be worried.”

That’s a simplistic view of the politics of this issue, said John Heilemann in New York. For the “mainly white” voters who deeply resent illegal immigrants, Obama’s party has already committed “a multitude of greater sins: health care, bailouts, socialism, yadda yadda yadda.” So the lawsuit won’t change their vote. The bigger danger for Democrats is that the party’s base, including millions of Latinos, “will stay home this fall out of frustration with Obama,” and the lawsuit helps remind them why they elected Obama in the first place. But isn’t it interesting, said James Doty in Salon.com, that the suit is based on the rather technical claim that federal law “pre-empts” state law on immigration—not on the grounds that Arizona police will only demand papers from people with brown skin? Obama, it appears, has become very sensitive to conservatives’ charges that he favors blacks and other minorities, so he’s avoiding the firestorm that would result “if the challenge were grounded in race.”

In other words, said Rich Lowry in National Review Online, Obama’s “animus toward Arizona is nakedly political.” Obama recently warned of a “patchwork” of immigration laws arising as “states and localities go their own ways.” That’s quite true, because the federal government refuses to enforce its own immigration laws. “Sanctuary cities” that openly defy immigration laws, however, did not draw this administration’s wrath; only Arizona did, for the crime of taking “existing law too seriously.” Besides, said Kris Kobach in the New York Post, Arizona’s law essentially makes a federal crime—being in the country illegally—a state crime. So where’s the “conflict with federal law?”

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Since it’s based on “a fallacy,’’ Arizona’s law is in conflict with reality, said Dana Milbank in The Washington Post. Gov. Jan Brewer and other state officials insist they had to step in because the feds “aren’t doing enough to stem increasing border violence.” Brewer even claimed recently that several decapitated bodies had been unearthed in the desert. This is a flat-out lie. Medical examiners in the state say they’ve never seen a single beheading related to illegal immigration. And official crime statistics show that violent crime rates in all the border states have been dropping over the past decade. Still, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, Arizona’s law is clearly “a cry for federal help.” The country’s immigration policy is broken. Fixing it, though, would require Republicans and Democrats to show some real courage. What a pity that the politicians have chosen instead to bicker over legalities, and pander to their respective bases.