Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Accidental Governor, Jan Brewer, was on her way to becoming a footnote in history in 2010 until she embraced SB 1070 and churned up anti-immigrant hysteria to ride to victory.
As Brewer's PR guy Howie Fischer frequently reminds readers, Jan Brewer has not yet declared if she will be a candidate for governor this year (which would require a legal challenge to Arizona's term-limit provisions).
Jan Brewer is embracing SB 1070 again. So does this mean that Jan Brewer is running for governor? Howie Fischer reports, Brewer asks Supreme Court to allow expanded SB 1070 enforcement:
Gov. Jan Brewer is asking the nation’s high court to let Arizona enforce a 2010 law making it a crime to knowingly transport or harbor illegal immigrants.
Legal papers filed Monday on the governor’s behalf at the Supreme Court contend there is nothing improper about the state having its own laws aimed at controlling immigration. John Bouma, Brewer’s chief legal counsel, said the fact that there are federal laws criminalizing the same conduct does not pre-empt state action.
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The law in question makes it illegal for someone to transport, conceal, harbor or shield anyone unlawfully present in this country or “encourage or induce the alien to come to or live in Arizona.”
It is part of SB 1070, a broader package of measures designed to give police more power to question and detain those they believe are in the country illegally. Several provisions already have been voided by courts, including three by the Supreme Court itself, as preempted by federal law.
Linton Joaquin of the National Immigration Law Center pointed out that argument did not wash with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Judge Richard Paez, writing for the majority, noted Arizona was not asking to have state and local police turn over violators to federal court but instead setting up its own system for prosecuting violators.
He said letting Arizona enforce its own immigration laws would let the state undermine federal policies, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Paez noted that program allows certain people here illegally who arrived in this country as children and meet other conditions to remain and work.
But Brewer has deemed those in the program “unlawfully present aliens,” a category she uses to deny them the ability to get a state driver’s license.
The judge said if Arizona were allowed to enforce this law, “it would authorize the (state) prosecution of those who transport or provide shelter to these young people despite the fact that the federal government has chosen to allow them to stay, and work, in the country.”
The Arizona Republic recently editorialized Come on, Jan, you can offer in-state tuition to DREAMERS, as Gov. Chris Christie has done in New Jersey:
Brewer’s stubborn refusal to grant driver’s licenses to young people who qualify for deferred deportation under President Obama’s administrative Dream Act is anachronistic.
Give them their licenses. And when they drive to Arizona State, the Univeristy of Arizona or Northern Arizona University, find a way for them to pay in-state tuition.
Brewer's response is to double-down on SB 1070 and to embrace anti-immigrant hysteria. She must be running for governor again.