The US Supreme Court Missed the Point

    I am disappointed in the recent action of the US Supreme Court on the Arizona immigration law SB 1070. Not because the court did not review the details of the Arizona law and pass judgment on its various components, but rather because it missed the main point. The main point is, What do you do when a president and administrative agencies do not enforce laws passed by Congress?"
    When the House and the Senate pass a bill and submit it to the President, it becomes law when the President signs.
    With respect to the now existing federal law on immigration, U.S.C. § 1302(a) says, "It shall be the duty of every alien now or hereafter in the United States, who (1) is fourteen years of age or older, (2) has not been registered and fingerprinted under section 1201 (b) of this title or section 30 or 31 of the Alien Registration Act, 1940, and (3) remains in the United States for thirty days or longer, to apply for registration and to be fingerprinted before the expiration of such thirty days".
    The above says what the alien (non-US citizen) must do. The next part, says additionally what an alien must do, the category of the crime if he doesn't do it, and the penalty involved.  U.S.C. § 1304(e)(e) says, "Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d) of this section. Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both." The obvious implication is that federal law enforcement must catch the alien, who appears to have committed a crime, and submit him to a federal court for prosecution.
    When there is existing federal law, it is the responsibility of the President and various agencies to enforce the law. There are many agencies with this responsibility and enforcement in most of them has narrow boundaries, but collectively they cover all aspects of existing law. With respect to immigration and the prosecution of illegal aliens, which are those persons not adhering to U.S.C. § 1302(a) and U.S.C. § 1304(e)(e), the responsibility for enforcement is with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICC is the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). ICE has 20,000 employees, and John Morton is the Director. When one goes to the Director's homepage on the Internet, one sees a list of the recent activities of ICE. They are: child exploitation, honoring ICE's fallen heroes, seizing fake merchandize, human trafficking, educating the Departments of Motor Vehicles about document and benefit fraud, commemorating 9/11, Hurricane Irene, Intellectual Property Rights, 9/11 Commission, visa application reviews, transnational organized crime, human rights violators, INS death investigation,
detainees in ICE custody, human trafficking organizations, gang enforcement, and secure the Southwest border.
    The above list of activities goes back to items ICED reported on since February 2011, of the 17 items listed, note that only two were connected with immigration, which is insignificant with respect to ICE's major responsibility.
    The President of the United States is the Chief Executive Officer of all agencies in the Executive portion of the Federal Government. He gives orders to the Agency Directors. The President of the United States is also Commander-In-Chief of all Military forces and gives orders to the Generals and Admirals. A number of agencies have guns, including the FBI and the Secret Service. The Military also has guns. If the President doesn't like the law passed by Congress and a previous President or a US Supreme Court judgment and decides not to enforce that law or to enforce it in only a cursory manner, who is to stop him?
    I spent some time on the Internet investigating the question of non-enforcement of laws. I found nothing. Apparently, either this is a new concept or something which until now has had no significance.
    Let's go back to Hitler. The German people elected him on the basis of his great oratory skill and his promise to take them out of a recession. He subsequently made his own laws and had the military and police force to back them up. Many of those laws were against the German people, but the people had no recourse. They had no guns or if they had, they apparently had no willingness to use them. Are we in the same boat, where Pres. Obama can do is he pleases with respect to existing laws and make up his own through Executive Orders? Perhaps I have not given Supreme Court enough credit for intelligence. It may very well be that it saw that the Executive  branch of the federal government has not and is now not enforcing immigration law, but there's not much it can do about that. It has no guns.