First Hispanic Supreme Court justice takes prominent role

[steve2470]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-immigration-arizona-sotomayor-idUSBRE83O1IO20120425

(Reuters) - The Supreme Court was deep into arguments over Arizona's new immigration law on Wednesday when the high court's first Hispanic justice focused on how difficult it could be for police officers to determine whether someone they stop is in the United States legally.

"What information does your (federal) system have?" Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli as she methodically extracted a core element of the Obama administration's case against the state of Arizona.

"How does that database tell you that someone is illegal as opposed to a citizen?" asked Sotomayor, 55, born in the Bronx to parents who had migrated from Puerto Rico. "Today, if you use the names Sonia Sotomayor, they would probably figure out I was a citizen. But let's assume it's John Doe, who lives in Grand Rapids. ... Is there a citizen database?"

Puerto Ricans have for nearly a century been U.S. citizens, so Sotomayor's family did not face the dilemmas of many other Hispanics who moved to the United States. Yet Sotomayor, who grew up in a housing project and went to Princeton and Yale on scholarships, has referred to the sting of discrimination and feeling "different" among people from elite backgrounds.