Today's show of judicial good sense in Arizona is likely just to enflame the anti-immigrant thugs

Madre de Dios! It's another of those Islamofascist terrorists pole-vaulting into the U.S. as part of a fiendish plot to take away yet another seven-figure-salary CEO job from a hard-working American. (Or he could be aiming a bit lower, like maybe for a merely high-five-figure position as an agricultural stoop laborer or a toilet-cleaner?)

by Ken

I know tonight was supposed to be the continuation of last night's post on the WaPo report "Top Secret America." After insisting that "you absolutely have to read the WaPo series," I still have to explain why "you'd have to be nuts to read the WaPo series."

Well, that will have to wait. Something came up, and I'm afraid that's going to have to wait too, except for this quick hit --

HOME DEPOT STANDS UP TO THE GOONS
OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION

As the Southern Poverty Law Center's invaluable Hatewatch blog reports, the ignorance- and hate-mongers of the AFA have unleashed a campaign to smear Home Depot for Satanic gay-friendliness, trying for example to make it sound shocking that "Home Depot has chosen to sponsor and participate in numerous gay pride parades and festivals." However, as company spokesman Stephen Holmes explained in a statement remarkable for its simplicity and elegance: “To forbid our associates to have any involvement in pride festivals would run counter to the company’s culture of inclusion. We’re not going to discriminate against anyone because of race, religion or sexual orientation.” Yes!

Today we have, er, breaking-er news, and it's good news too. As you've no doubt heard, in Phoenix today U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued an injunction barring enforcement of significant portions of Arizona's misbegotten legal road map for all-out war on immigrants and anyone who might have the misfortune to be suspected of being one. What's left of the law goes into effect tomorrow.

Judge Bolton ruled (according to the Washington Post's Stephanie McCrummen and William Branigin) --

that the injunction would apply to the portion of the state law that requires police to try to determine the immigration status of a person they arrest, stop or detain while enforcing other laws if they reasonably suspect the person is in the United States illegally.

In a lawsuit filed against Arizona, the Obama administration said the law was unconstitutional and warned that the provision would result in racial profiling and harassment of U.S. citizens, legal immigrants and foreign visitors.

Bolton said in her ruling that it was "not in the public interest" for Arizona to enforce provisions that preempt federal enforcement of immigration law.

Also put on hold were parts of the law requiring foreigners to apply for or carry certain documents and making it a state crime for undocumented workers "to solicit, apply for or perform work," the ruling said.

Bolton ruled that the partial injunction should apply until the issues are resolved by the courts.

Here's our legal go-to guy Adam B on Daily Kos:

As legal opinions go, the 36-page opinion is as lucid as they come for lay readers -- don't be afraid. From the very beginning, the Court makes clear: (1) here's what wasn't challenged; (2) here's what parts of the statute were challenged where the challenge lacks merit; and (3) here's what I'm striking down. From there, the Court goes on to explain why certain provisions of the Arizona law are invalid as encroachments on the federal prerogative to regulate immigration.

[A preliminary injunction is the means by which a litigant can stop some action before the suggested harm occurs -- in this case, the harm being enforcement of SB 1070. Here as in all cases, it requires you to prove that you're likely to succeed on the legal merits of your claim, that you are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities (fairness) tips in your favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest.]

The first question the Court answers is whether the statute as a whole must be blocked. The United States had argued that because the statute functioned as an integrated whole seeking to take over federal space it must be struck down even though not every part was itself suspect; the Court found, instead, that it was obliged to save as much of the statute as it could.

Adam B proceeds to review Judge Bolton's discussion of the merits of the case against the provisions she enjoined, basically because she finds that they interfere with federal immigration law, as she makes clear again in her finding on "irreparable harm," necessary for the issuance of an injunction:

If enforcement of the portions of S.B. 1070 for which the Court finds a likelihood of preemption is not enjoined, the United States is likely to suffer irreparable harm. This is so because the federal government’s ability to enforce its policies and achieve its objectives will be undermined by the state’s enforcement of statutes that interfere with federal law, even if the Court were to conclude that the state statutes have substantially the same goals as federal law.

"Next step," Adam B concludes: "an Arizona appeal to the notorious Ninth Circuit, where you can draw all sorts of fun panels from the judicial pool."

Again, I take this all as good news, but good news only as compared with some of the possible (if unlikely) alternatives. And if this were all I had to say on the subject, I wouldn't have bothered, since you can easily find this information elsewhere.

Let me just paste in a note I wrote Howie this morning, before the ruling was handed down, when I hoped I could persuade him to write about this. First I pasted in a sentence from The Progress Report this morning, "Arizona's D-Day":

As one law professor pointed out, if the law is struck down, it will take the "wind out of the sails" of local efforts to pass immigration laws. If it isn't, Bolton's decision will "unleash more copycat legislation."

Now I didn't quote the second sentence in my note to Howie. This seems self-evidently true. But the first sentence really got me going.

This seems to me really important. I just can't believe how obtuse people on our side of the issue are being about this. How is it possible that they don't grasp that lots of (most?) Americans love love LOVE the Arizona law and don't see the slightest thing wrong with it and think anyone who's against it is a homosexual Commie pervert-creep who hates America? And THERE IS NO EASY WAY TO EXPLAIN WHY THEY'RE WRONG. Doesn't anyone grasp the implications of this? It makes progressives Official America-Haters with almost no possible defense. Almost the least of the consequences is the impossibility of arriving at any kind of reasonable immigration reform legislation.

The sentence I've quoted above just hit me as one of the crazy-stupidest things I've ever heard. If the law is struck down, it's going to INTENSIFY the push for more and better and probably more radical anti-immigrant laws. It can become a rallying point for a national crusade. How can anyone with a triple-digit IQ not see that?

This is what I'm saying.

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