Federalism FRQ #3

In 2010 Arizona passed a law that sought to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants in the state.

The law made it a crime to seek or obtain work in the state without proper documentation, and it also made

hiring, sheltering, or transporting undocumented people illegal. It also gave local law enforcement the

authority to require proof of residency in the course of a lawful arrest, and it gave them the authority to

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perform warrantless stops of people they suspected of being undocumented.

The United States Department of Justice challenged the state law as an interference with the national

government’s enumerated powers to regulate and enforce immigration law. In Arizona v. United

States (2012), the Supreme Court agreed with the United States in a 5–3 decision stating most of the

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provisions of the law did conflict with federal authority. The Court said, “The Government of the United States

has broad, undoubted power over the subject of immigration and the status of aliens. . . . This authority rests,

in part, on the National Government’s constitutional power to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and

its inherent power as sovereign to control and conduct relations with foreign nations.”