Tipped Hand or Not?

CNN:

High court backs Arizona immigration law that punishes businesses

Washington (CNN) — The Supreme Court has backed an Arizona law that punishes businesses hiring illegal immigrants, a law that opponents, including the Obama administration, say steps on traditional federal oversight over immigration matters.

The 5-3 ruling Thursday is a victory for supporters of immigration reform on the state level.

It was the first high court challenge to a variety of recent state laws cracking down on illegal immigrants, an issue that has become a political lightning rod.

The outcome could serve as a judicial warmup for a separate high-profile challenge to a more controversial Arizona immigration reform law working its way through lower courts. That statute would, among other things, give local police a greater role in arresting suspected illegal immigrants.

The hiring case turned on whether state law tramples on federal authority.

“Arizona has taken the route least likely to cause tension with federal law,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. “It relies solely on the federal government’s own determination of who is an unauthorized alien, and it requires Arizona employers to use the federal government’s own system for checking employee status.”

(snip)

Roberts, backed by his four conservative colleagues, said, “Arizona went the extra mile in ensuring that its law tracks (the federal law’s) provisions in all material aspects.”

Here’s the decision — Knock yourself out.

Conventional wisdom states that if SCOTUS doesn’t see preemption in allowing a state to punish a business for hiring illegal aliens, as long as the state relies on the Federal definition of “illegal alien,” then it will have no problem with SB 1070.  Maybe that’s the case, but reading between the lines of the Roberts opinion, I get the feeling that the big difference between this law and SB 1070 is that parts of SB 1070 actually punish the illegal aliens themselves for transgressions of Federal immigration law, again, relying on the Federal definition of “illegal alien.”  This law, by contrast, punishes business, presumably comprised of American citizen executives and officers, for engaging in a crime that is already a violation of Federal law relating to immigration that applies to American citizens.  I’m not yet ready to jump to the conclusion that this very same SCOTUS, assuming it has the same membership when SB 1070’s constitutional proceedings get to their desks (that will take several years), will rule the same way for the same reasons.