SETBACK – AT 8:27 A.M. ET:  The liberal Ninth Circuit strikes again.  From the Washington Times:

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Arizona overstepped its bounds with last year’s immigration enforcement law, handing the Obama administration another victory as it tries to squelch states’ efforts on immigration enforcement.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling 2-1, upheld a lower court’s decision that Congress doesn’t want states meddling in immigration. The appeals court said that nullifies Arizona’s attempt to empower local police to detain and question those they suspect are in the country illegally.

“Foreign policy is not and cannot be determined by the several states,” Judge John T. Noonan Jr. wrote in his concurring opinion. “Foreign policy is determined by the nation as the nation interacts with other nations. Whatever in any substantial degree attempts to express a policy by a single state or by several states toward other nations enters an exclusively federal field.”

COMMENT:  We are in never-never land on policy involving illegal immigrants.  Our southern border is unsealed.  The violence of Mexico's drug cartels is spreading to the United States.  Americans legitimately fear that weapons, including WMD's, can be carried across our border, and not much is being done.  Arizona's noble attempt to bring some reasonable enforcement mechanism to the issue is being shot down.

April 12, 2011