The Supreme Court of the United States of America

In the real world, the world we all currently live in, if the police in your community have reason to believe that someone they have stopped in a routine manner may be an illegal immigrant, they can demand proof of legal residency or citizenship. If the suspect cannot produce same, the police contact ICE, the Federal agency for immigration and customs enforcement. That’s how it has always been. And now, according to the Supreme Court, that is how it will continue to be.  In the real world, some states don’t do anything about illegal immigrants because they have a vital role in the state’s economy. In Texas, don’t mess with their maids and gardeners. In Vermont, don’t even stop a vehicle carrying persons who appear to be Mexicans because they probably work on our dairy farms.

The SCOTUS upheld those parts of Arizona’s heinous SB1070 that complied with pre-existing conditions in law enforcement and struck down the parts where the state has authority to detain illegal immigrants and make it a crime for illegals to seek work or fail to carry documents.

In striking down most of the Arizona law, the SCOTUS has thrown all the other anti-immigrant laws into limbo. Georgia’s and Alabama’s laws adversely impacted their agricultural sector, as even legal immigrants refused to travel to those states to pick crops.

Governor Jan Brewer in one of those political spinning-top moments called the ruling “a victory for the rule of law.” Huh? The lady just got bitch-slapped and she didn’t notice? The ruling also effectively shut down Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s private little Gitmo where he holds suspected illegals for days while his department diddles around with checking a person’s documents.

The anti-immigration laws have been a cornerstone in the Republican attack on the Obama administration, with the states that have passed them claiming that the administration is “failing to enforce immigration law and secure our borders.” The propaganda machine denies any information about deportations, arrests, repelling of new illegals or the actual reduction in illegal immigrants in America over the past three years.

The Montana case involved a state law banning corporate funding in election campaigns. The law is the oldest in America addressing outside money in our elections and was written specifically to address the buying of elections in Montana by very influential mining companies. The SCOTUS has struck down the law as conflicting with their own Citizens United ruling that allowed corporate money.

There was an article in The New Yorker recently explaining how Citizens United was a massive usurping of powers by the Court. The lawsuit was specific. It sought to set aside certain types of election materials, in this case a 90-minute documentary, and certain types of presentation, a pay-to-view cable access. It did not address the question of wide-spread corporate funding for secret SuperPACs, but Chief Justice John Roberts twisted the case to achieve that ruling.

The third case they announced involved mandated life-without-parole sentences for juveniles who commit murder. In keeping with their previous ruling that the death penalty for those under 16 was unacceptable, they have also stuck down life sentences in Alabama and Arkansas. Life sentences are still possible, but they must include the possibility of parole.

The announcement of the ruling on the Affordable Health Care law will be made on Thursday.  The justices are supposed to take a recess beginning the end of this week, so the delay in announcing this particular ruling conjures images of them having the motors running in their escape vehicles as the ruling is read to the press.