Purpose: Read to prepare the argument you will present to your opposing pair.

Use information from these articles, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights to make your case. Before reading: Think about what you already know about immigration laws in the United States.

Close Reading - Chunk the text - Make sense What does this section say? What does it mean? -Ask your questions -Make connections

THE ISSUE: Is Arizonas Senate Bill 1070 Immigration Law Constitutional? Background The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (introduced as Arizona Senate Bill 1070) is a law that was passed by the legislature of Arizona. It is the broadest and strictest anti-immigration law in recent U.S. history. It has received national and international attention and caused lots of controversy. U.S. federal law requires all aliens over the age of 14 who remain in the United States for longer than 30 days to register with the U.S. government, and to have registration documents in their possession at all times. Violation of this requirement is a federal crime. The Arizona Act additionally makes it a state crime for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying the required documents. It also requires Arizona law enforcement officers to determine an individual's immigration status during a "lawful stop, detention, or arrest" that is not related to immigration if there is a reasonable suspicion that the individual is an illegal immigrant. For example, an Arizona police officer can check the immigration status of someone stopped for a traffic violation. The Act was signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on April 23, 2010. It was scheduled to go into effect on July 29, 2010 but legal challenges over its constitutionality and compliance with civil rights law were filed, including one by the United States Department of Justice. Now, the Supreme Court must rule.

--------------------------------------------------------------------Alien - In law, an alien is a person in a country who is not a citizen of that country.

YES The Arizona Law Isn't About Racial Profiling By ROBERT ALT, Deputy Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation Arizona's SB 1070 immigration law requires officers stopping or arresting an individual for a reason other than a suspected immigration offense to contact federal immigration authorities to verify the individual's immigration status if he has a reasonable suspicion that the person is unlawfully present in the United States. The law encourages the cooperative enforcement of federal immigration law in Arizona, and therefore the Supreme Court should find it constitutional. It's important to understand what the case is not about. First, it's not about whether Arizona's immigration law is good policythat is a question for the legislatures. Arizona's legislature considered the policy, including the fact that Arizona bears the disproportionate burden of illegal immigration: Approximately one third of illegal border crossings occur in Arizona, and Arizona has become a major corridor for drug and human smuggling. All this costs Arizona a huge amount of money. Second, the case is not about racial or ethnic profiling. Arizona's law expressly prohibits consideration of race, color, or national origin except as permitted by the state and U.S. Constitution, and requires that the law be "implemented in a manner consistent with federal laws regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all persons and respecting the privileges and immunities of United States citizens." The language is remarkably similar and arguably more restrictive than the Justice Department's own guidelines prohibiting racial profiling by federal officers. So what is the case about? Whether federal immigration law "preempts" Arizona's law. Under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, if a federal law and a state law conflict, the Constitution says the federal law must be enforced. But there are plenty of areas where state and federal laws harmoniously regulate the same areas, where both laws can coexist without any constitutional problem. That's what is happening here. Indeed, far from prohibiting local enforcement, one federal court of appeals noted that federal law "evinces a clear invitation from Congress for state and local agencies to participate in the process of enforcing federal immigration laws." The Justice Department has argued that Arizona's law conflicts with the Obama administration's enforcement priorities, which include the nonenforcement of immigration laws passed by Congress in a broad array of circumstances. But the Constitution doesn't permit the president to run roughshod over state laws because he has different priorities. If he wants to prevent Arizona from cooperatively enforcing immigration offenses, that judgment needs to be put into law by Congress. Because federal law doesn't conflict with Arizona's law, but actually requires federal cooperation with the kind of immigration status inquiries that SB 1070 requires state officers to make, the Supreme Court should uphold the law. --------------------------------------------------------------------Evinces demonstrates Preempts prevents, takes priority over Run roughshod - to act in the way you want to, ignoring rules

NO The Constitution Protects U.S. Citizens From Laws Like Arizona's By JEANNE BUTTERFIELD, Special Counsel at the Raben Group Arizona's frustration with our nation's dysfunctional immigration system is understandable. But its restrictive "show me your papers" immigration law is unconstitutional and un-American. The U.S. Constitution protects and safeguards our most fundamental rightsthe rights that are the bedrock of our freedom and democracy. Each of us has the right to be treated equally and fairly, and to not be discriminated against on the basis of the color of our skin or the accent with which we may speak. Arizona's law violates these precious Constitutional protections. Already, in Arizona and other states with "show me your papers" laws, U.S. citizens who don't happen to carry proof of their birth in the United States in their back pockets are being treated with suspicion and are facing arrest and detention until they can convince law enforcement authorities of their citizenship. This racial profiling and assault on personal freedom and security is both unconstitutional and un-American. The U.S. Constitution was also written to safeguard and protect our fundamental character as a nation of united states. In areas where it is important for states to determine their own policies, the Constitution protects states' rights. But in areas where it is important that our nation speak with one voice, the Constitution prohibits states from taking matters into their own hands. Immigration is one of those areas involving our country's relations with foreign countries and nationals where our nation needs to speak with one voice. Just as states cannot sign their own treaties with, or declare war on, other countries, so too states cannot enact their own immigration laws. If they could, the resulting patchwork of 50 different state laws would lead to confusion, conflict, and chaos. Other nations would retaliate and treat U.S. citizens unfairly as they travel, work and study abroad. Citizens and immigrants alike would flee from one state to another, seeking freedom from discriminatory laws. Businesses would leave states where their workers and visiting foreign managers were subject to intrusive police demands for "papers." The United States could not survive as two nationsone slave, one free. Neither can the United States accommodate two sets of immigration lawsone that requires the Department of Homeland Security to enforce the laws that Congress enacts, and the other that requires all of us, citizens and immigrants alike, to "show me your papers."

THE ISSUE: Is Arizonas Senate Bill 1070 Immigration Law Constitutional? YES
Think about: -Why does the author include the section on what this Act is NOT about?

NO
Think about: -How does the author make her point about racial profiling?

Arguments:

Arguments: