“As long as there is not a direct conflict, which the federal
government did not do a very good job of pointing to today, the
Arizona law gets to stand under the Preemption Doctrine,” says
Reason’s Damon Root,
who was at the Supreme Court during Wenesday’s oral arguments
surrounding Arizona’s controversial immigration law. “The federal
government is saying that ‘we have the power to stomp out all of
the state experiments in immigration law enforcement.'”

Much like the
Health Care arguments before the Court in March, Root
does not see this as a good day for the Obama administration,
in part due to their Solicitor General Donald Verrilli’s poor
performance. “At one point,” Root explains “Justice Sotomayor
interrupted [Verrilli] and said ‘look, I am terribly confused by
what you are saying.'”

Runs about 3.50 minutes.

Produced by Meredith Bragg.

For more of Reason.tv’s coverage of immigration, go here:
http://reason.com/topics/immigration

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