SCOTUS immigration decision
I find it interesting that Tea Partiers can be so pleased with the SCOTUS upholding Arizona immigration law requiring state trooper to investigate immigration status of "suspected" undocumented aliens. After all, isn't the effect of this, essentially, opening the door to laws that will require US citizens to carry documentation on them at all times or risk detainment? This seems like a significant imposition on individual liberty, so why is this imposition on liberty okay but the individual mandate is just beyond the pale? I'm not arguing that police should never be allowed to ask about immigration status, although I do wonder a bit about how to apply the status law check w/o racial or ethnic profiling, but I just see a big tension here on the part of the TP.
Interestingly, I was reading up on this a bit more yesterday. and discovered that all "aliens" in the US for more than 30 days are already required to be fingerprinted and carry an alien registration card. This was news to me. Prior to our getting fingerprinted for our green cards we'd never been fingerprinted or received any such card or been advised by our lawyers to obtain one. We did have an I-94 or some such "receipt" in our passport, but, of course, we didn't carry that around. (and we never gave it up when we left the country although, technically, that's what's supposed to happen, apparently) Also, few green card holders actually carry their green cards with them, despite the law requiring it, because they're a huge pain and expense to replace and one is never asked for it unless reporting to a new job or coming into the country. So, I also wonder whether and how police are being trained to establish legal presence, and steps being taken to make it easy for those legally present to be able to straightforwardly prove it, as it seems like things aren't currently very well set up to handle this.