Scalia Likens Undocumented Immigrants To ‘Bank Robbers’

[kpete]

Source: Talking Points Memo

In his fervent defense Wednesday of Arizona’s right to crack down on illegal immigration, Justice Antonin Scalia likened immigration enforcement to crackdowns on bank robbers.

“What’s wrong about the states enforcing federal law?” Scalia said during his aggressive questioning of U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. “There is a federal law against robbing federal banks. Can it be made a state crime to rob those banks? I think it is.”

The Reagan-appointed justice mocked the Obama administration’s argument that S.B. 1070 unconstitutionally forces the federal government to re-prioritize its enforcement resources and go after undocumented people who are not dangerous.

“But does the attorney general come in and say, you know, we might really only want to go after the professional bank robbers?” Scalia said. “If it’s just an amateur bank robber, you know, we’re going to let it go. And the state’s interfering with our whole scheme here because it’s prosecuting all these bank robbers.”

Read more: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/scalia-likens-undocumented-immigrants-to-bank-robbers.php?ref=fpb

[muntrv]

1. Scalia should know about robbers. Check out Bush v Gore and

Citizens United.

[KansDem]

3. You are correct.

Scalia speaks with the voice of experience...

[sofa king]

2. Said the guy who stole the election for G. W. Bush.

The sum total of illegal immigrants in the history of the United States likely cannot be held accountable for the total monetary damage George Bush did to the U.S.

[saras]

4. The first time an illegal immigrant is caught in the US it is a misdemeanor civil offense.

Let's arrest ALL the bank robbers, federal, state, and local, before worrying about ANY misdemeanors.

It's just common sense.

Bank robbers - what shit. Bank robbers who put money IN the vault, and clean the bank and make lunch for everyone while they're at it.

[Xipe Totec]

5. I burn with an overwhelming indiference toward Scalia's second childhood accomplishments nt

[CarmanK]

6. Scalia is part of the SUPER RATS (Robt, Alito,Thos & Scalia) who steals freedom.

The SCOTUS is a corporate body which offers americans no opportunity for justice as long as these guys sit on the THRONE of life appointment. What a crock. What a legacy. We haven't seen anything yet. They have just begun their attack on the constitution that is supposed to govern ppl not corps that feign personhood to spend lots of money, and have no responsibility for the damage they do to the economy and to our democracy.

[dotymed]

7. Is there a law against

President Obama packing the SCOTUS?

[onenote]

8. just the law that specifies the number of justices

and the constitutional provision that gives justices life tenure.

So exactly how would the President go about "packing" the court?

[dotymed]

16. When TPTB balked at FDR's plans for regulations

and other, people benefiting legislation, he was stymied by a SCOTUS largely supportive of the corptocracy as it then existed. He threatened to "pack the court" (double the size, I believe) with judges who were sympathetic to his vision for America. This threat worked and the SCOTUS refused to interfere with most of his legislation.
I am not sure if they legally limited the size of the SCOTUS since then (if it was not defined then, it probably is now). I am not sure if FDR threatened to change the size of the court by Presidential mandate or if there was an ambiguity about the size limitation. Either way, he was successful in intimidating the court to leave his legislation alone. That is leadership. Thank God that he had the best interests of the people, at heart.

[onenote]

17. FDR's court packing plan failed in every respect

FDR was understandably frustrated by the refusal of the SCOTUS, led by the "Four Horseman" -- four conservative justices -- to affirm his New Deal agenda. So in 1937 he came up with a plan to reshape the court by appointing a new justice for every justice over the age 70. This would have given him six new appointees. However, the only way to implement this plan was to get Congress to enact it in legsislation. FDR proposed such legislation and it blew up in his face. The Senate Judiciary Committee refused to report the bill favorably and the Senate as a whole, despite a very lopsided Democratic majority (76-16) voted to kill the bill by a overwhelming 70-20 vote.

While it is sometimes argued that FDR ultimately succeeded because his court packing plan caused the court to tilt in his favor, what really made the difference was that three of the conservative Four Horseman retired or died within two years of the unveiling of the court packing plan and FDR was able to replace them with justices more likely to support his agenda. Indeed, the first retirement, that of Justice Willis Van Devanter, occurred even before the Senate voted on FDR's plan.

Given that history, a proposal by President Obama for legislation altering the Court's make up would blow up in his face. There is zero chance that such legislation would be approved by the Senate and it would merely link Obama with what is generally understood to be one of FDR's biggest failures.

[dotymed]

19. Maybe it is "generally understood to be one of FDR's biggest failures".....

IMO, it was a great threat that showed the depth of his convictions.

[onenote]

20. This "great threat" is often cited as one of the factors that led to Democrats losing seats in 1938

It may have shown the depth of FDR's convictions, but I'm not sure what makes it a "great" threat when it resulted in an embarassing political defeat and may have contributed to the loss of Senate seats in the next election (although it by no means was the only reason Democrats lost seats in 1938).

[treestar]

9. How did he get on the Court?

He sounds like a pundit there. Not like someone trained in the law.

[Smilo]

10. And this jerk has a life time appointment - God help

anyone who is poor or needs help with the likes of Scalia around

Pompous oaf.

[provis99]

11. what warped logic he uses.

he is stating that illegal immigration is just as bad and dangerous as bank robbery, which of course is bullshit. If he wants to compare it to a crime, compare it to littering.

[onenote]

21. at the risk of taking some flak, that's not what he was doing

Last edited Thu Apr 26, 2012, 04:44 PM - Edit history (1)

Scalia wasn't substantively equating bank robbery and "illegal" immigration. What he was doing was trying to argue that its not unique in the law for states to criminalize conduct that also is illegal under federal law. Where his point fails, I believe, is that there is not the same overriding federal interest in uniform enforcement of bank robbery laws as there is for immigration laws. It has nothing to do with whether bank robbery is as "bad or dangerous" as illegal immigration. Indeed, your suggestion, that illegal immigration is more akin to littering would completely undermine the government's case since it would undermine the assertion that immigration is a particularly important area that inherently requires uniform federal oversight -- an argument that one couldn't make if the issue was littering.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. That's must be good news for undocumented immigrants

After all, Scalia protects bank robbers. He does, at least, as long as they work form the inside.

[6000eliot]

13. Has there ever been a bigger jerkoff on the Supreme Court?

[bemildred]

14. What a fool. nt

[goclark]

15. Pure Evil

If anyone needs to be sent back from where he/she came from it's this Devil.

[Fearless]

18. Citizens United says what? n/t

[polichick]

22. Apparently Scalia cares a lot more about robbing banks than robbing citizens.

[chervilant]

23. Hyperbolic rhetoric aside,

Scalia is using the tried and true corporatist strategy of vilifying undocumented workers in an ongoing effort to inculcate divisiveness and 'hatred-of-the-other-group' among the Hoi Polloi.

For the average sheeple, his statements evoke the sphincter-tightening, knee-jerk fear of the COST to the 'American taxpayers,' allegedly forced to pony up precious dollars to 'support' these vile usurpers in our country. A discredited right-wing screed with links to Lou Dobbs' old show put the annual cost at $338.3 billion. Research-driven sources provide a range of figures: from 10.4 billion (CIS) to 19.3 billion (Rice U. Prof, 1993) annually. Notably, the figure used by FOX was 113 billion. After reviewing multiple resources, the CBO concluded that the financial "impact is most likely modest."

For more, see: http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/cost-of-illegal-immigrants/

NOW, since Scalia has used 'bank robbers' in his hackneyed screed, we might look at how much the bank bailouts will cost the Hoi Polloi. Per the TARP sycophants, the cost was $700 billion, with the allegation that the banks' repayment of these funds has resulted in a profit for the American taxpayers (either untrue or unverifiable, depending on which resource you trust). Per Bloomberg News, the bank bailout has actually cost the poor American taxpayer closer to $12.8 TRILLION.


For more, see: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-25/wall_street/31397136_1_tarp-neil-barofsky-profits

Scalia as a member of the highest court of this nation is an embarrassment--observable evidence of the continued degradation of 'leadership' and diplomacy among our 'educated' professionals.

(Sorry for the edits, I was quite angry when I typed this...)

[Democrats_win]

24. Is it time to get rid of "Judicial review?"

"The Constitution does not explicitly grant the Supreme Court the power of judicial review; nevertheless, the power of this Court to overturn laws and executive actions it deems unlawful or unconstitutional is a well-established precedent."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

"The Supreme Court first established its power to declare laws unconstitutional in Marbury v. Madison (1803), "
--

My understanding is that the court didn't use this power again until the infamous Dred Scott decision which, arguably, led to the Civil War. Although judicial review has been good for liberals in the middle of the last century, it is obvious that the court, like the rest of our government, has fallen into the arms of the corporatocracy. I fear that the only thing that will bring about positive change is the catastrophic economic failure of our current path.

[fascisthunter]

25. sayeth the traitor who helped steal an election