Obama vs. Arizona

David Rivkin and Joe Jacqote:

...
...   the Obama administration claims that federal power preempts Arizona’s law in two ways. First, it has argued, in court filings intended to strike down the Arizona law under the Constitution’s “supremacy clause,” that federal law prevails when state law conflicts with it. The administration argues that, as Congress has authorized the executive branch to identify and detain illegal immigrants, the president’s decision not to enforce the law creates a conflict. 

But no precedent suggests that the president’s refusal to carry out Congress’s wishes, as expressed in law, somehow prevents a state from doing so or renders its actions contrary to congressional intent, which is the appropriate standard for preemption. And that argument is especially ludicrous in this instance, where Congress specifically required federal officials to inform state and local law enforcement of a person’s immigration status when requested. In this way, federal law actually supports and facilitates Arizona’s enforcement approach. Congress’s intentions could hardly be clearer. 

The administration’s fallback argument is simply that the president has unilateral power under the Constitution to nullify Arizona’s law respecting immigration. Mexico, the administration explains, has lodged complaints regarding Arizona’s law, and this implicates the president’s power over foreign affairs, which in turn trumps Arizona’s immigration-related actions. 

This is a stunning and audacious power grab, far more expansive than the legal theories that prompted critics of President George W. Bush to argue that he established an “imperial presidency.” It simply cannot be that, despite all the Constitution’s limitations on federal power and executive action, the president’s powers become absolute whenever another nation complains. 

Indeed, the Supreme Court recently rejected even a more limited version of that argument advanced by the Bush administration. In Medellin v. Texas , the court rejected Bush’s attempt to enforce U.S. treaty obligations by blocking Texas’s execution of a Mexican national who had not been given his consular-notification rights. Yes, the court explained, the president is well-placed to resolve sensitive foreign policy decisions, but that status does not confer “unilateral authority to create domestic law” or override state law.
...

Obama's argument is that he does not have to faithfully execute the laws of the US that he does not want to. In fact, it is Obama's refusal to enforce the law that prompted Arizona to pass it law dealing with the illegals who were allowed into the state.  What is the relevance of Mexico's position that it wants its nationals to remain here illegally?  The whole argument makes no sense.