In its ceaseless effort to prevent the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, the Obama administration appears to have adopted the Warren Zevon strategy: \u201cSend lawyers, guns and money.\u201d Okay, they have not yet resorted to guns, but no amount of lawyers and money are being spared in the administration\u2019s war against states that attempt to enforce immigration laws on their own.<\/p>\n
This week, the administration\u2019s political strike force, a.k.a., the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) committed still more lawyers and taxpayer money to pursue their political goals. On Halloween, the Justice Department filed suit against South Carolina to prevent that state from implementing an immigration enforcement law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor \u2013 their trick, our treat. For those keeping score, South Carolina becomes the third state sued for trying to enforce the law. Zero states have been sued for obstructing federal immigration law.<\/p>\n
The South Carolina law is modeled closely on the Alabama law that DOJ attempted, but failed, to quash. Just two weeks earlier, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied DOJ\u2019s request to enjoin the Alabama law (save for two provisions). Thus, the obvious goal in suing South Carolina has less to do with testing the constitutionality of the law than in punishing the state by forcing it to spend money to defend the law and further intimidate other states that are thinking about passing their own immigration enforcement laws. <\/p>\n