National Government Supreme Court Rules on State Immigration, Campaign Finance and Juvenile Sentencing

BRADENTON -- The Supreme Court struck down provisions in Arizona’s immigration law and a Montana law limiting corporate campaign spending on Monday. The ruling affirms the Citizens United case. The court also ruled that sentencing juveniles to life in prison without parole for murder is unconstitutional.

However, the court unanimously sustained the Arizona immigration law’s so-called ”show me your papers“ provision, which requires state law enforcement officials to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest, if they feel there is cause to suspect that the individual might be an illegal immigrant.

The court split on some of the provisions. Writing for five members of the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the federal government’s broad powers in deciding immigration policy meant that other parts of the state law could not be enforced.

”The national government has significant power to regulate immigration,“ Kennedy wrote. ”With power comes responsibility, and the sound exercise of national power over immigration depends on the nation’s meeting its responsibility to base its laws on a political will informed by searching, thoughtful, rational civic discourse.“

The three blocked provisions were making it a crime under state law for immigrants to fail to register under a federal law, allowing police to make warrantless arrests with probable cause of illegal status; and making it a crime for illegal immigrants to work or to try find employment. 

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia said that they would have sustained all three of the blocked provisions. Justice Samuel Alito Jr. would have sustained two of them.