In other words, 1) requiring state and city police officers to act like Federal officers, and 2) usurping the Federal Government's power to punish those that refuse (or fail) to enforce Federal immigration laws as the Federal government sees fit.
They aren't usurping any powers at all. They are requring municipalities to inform ICE (an arm of the federal government) that they have an illegal alien. ICE takes it from there - or doesn't. That's up to ICE. And yes, a state government can indeed impose requirements on inferior governments, as long as those requirements do not violate the Consitution of the US or the Constitution of the state. The state is not actually enforcing Federal immigration law; it is simply passing illegal immigrants on to ICE
for ICE to enforce the law. Or not to, as it chooses. If ICE simply says "we don't want them", Arizona would have to release them unless they had some non-immigration related crime to charge them with. That exact thing happens frequently already: a state or municipality will inform ICE that it holding an illegal immigrant, ICE doesn't respond within some threshold amount of time (which I can't remember), the state or municipality
has to release the illegal immigrant it is holding. It happens all the time. This would merely (at least, it's the hope of authors of the law) increase the number of illegal immigrants that are held for that threshold amount of time waiting for ICE to respond.
Can't imagine why they have a problem with that. This has less to do with "the Obama administration" and a whole lot to do with setting precedents that weaken Federal power. Let's just hope this time round the folks here don't start firing on Fort Huachuca over this.
This does absolutely nothing to weaken Federal power. The Federal government can choose to simply not enforce it's own immigration law, or it can change that law at whim. Nothing Arizona does requires the Federal government to act in any way. ICE can, for instance, simply refuse to accept or deport any illegals from Arizona (or from any state for that matter). Congress can, for instance, simply pass an amnesty or otherwise change immigrations laws.
Nothing that the Arizona law does minimizes Federal power. It might very well pose a
political problem, but that is different. The
political problem is that there will be political consequences if Arizona is sending tons of Illegals to ICE and ICE does nothing.
In fact, the head of ICE has come right out and said that they won't
process illegals from Arizona.
The head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE, told the Chicago Tribune editorial board his agency would not necessarily process any illegals arrested in Arizona.
...
Now about this, the DHS released a statement late this afternoon, saying, quote, "Across the country we exercise lawful discretion in order to focus our efforts on violent and dangerous criminal in order to make our streets safer. The president ordered the DOJ to examine the civil rights and other implications of the Arizona law, and that review will inform the government's actions going forward."
In other words, "we don't want to enforce the law as written, don't embarrass us by making noise about how we
aren't enforcing the law because that will cause political problems for us".
I happen to agree with DHS that deporting every illegal immigrant found in the US would be very problematic and that we should instead focus on those arrested for some crime other than simply an immigration violation, but the Federal immigration law doesn't just apply to those arrested for other crimes; it applies to all immigrants here illegally.
If the Federal government doesn't actually want to deport illegal immigrants who have not committed a violent crime, the law should be changed to reflect that. Of course, doing so would have substantial political consequences. There are many people in DC who want to NOT enforce the law to gain support from one constituency while not antagonizing another constituency by making their desires official government policy. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
If Arizona was deporting illegal immigrants, that would be an encroachment on Federal power. If Arizona was holding people who weren't defined by Federal law as illegal immigrants
on immigration charges, that would be encroachment on Federal power. Arizona is doing neither.
