Sotomayer Uses Position to Influence Immigrant Terms

President Barack Obama Announces Sonia Sotomayor

With all the debate and concerns over Sonia Sotomayer’s past statements and judicial opinions, she proves these concerns to be legitimate with a recent statement that backs up her race-conscious and activist judicial philosophy.

You will recall all the debate over these very issues prior to Justice Sotomayor’s being approved as Supreme Court Justice because of her history of seeing her judicial power as being to make law rather than interpreting Constitutional law.

I recall a strong statement, regarding this very issue, put forth by Congressman Steve King (R-IA), “The very last people in America who should be amending the Constitution are the Supreme Court justices. The Supreme Court is charged with interpreting the Constitution, but instead its recent activism has amended it.”

In her debut opinion, Sotomayor used the terms “undocumented immigrant” and “undocumented worker” in lieu of “illegal immigrant” or “illegal alien” in her opinion on the Mohawk Industries, Inc. vs. Carpenter case.

Illegal immigrants being rounded up by the Border Patrol.

This level of unacceptable activism by a high-ranking judge is hardly new, though it’s largely unprecedented in the nation’s High Court. Just last year the chief justice of Arizona’s Supreme Court was blasted for enforcing the Hispanic Bar Association’s demands of banning the terms “illegal” and “aliens” in all of the state’s courtrooms. We can only hope this trend of Supreme Court activism, on any level, will be brought to a stop before too much damage is done.

From JudicialWatch.org’s, “Judge Bans Use Of “Illegal” and “Aliens””

“In a strongly worded letter to the chief justice, Los Abogados’ president says attaching an illegal status to a person establishes a brand of contemptibility, creates the appearance of anti-immigrant prejudice and tarnishes the image of courts as a place where disputes may be fairly resolved.”

When asked to comment on Justice Sotomayor’s opinion, Rep. Steve King stated,

“Based on this logic, we will have to start referring to the White House party crashers as undocumented guests. Giving special treatment to illegal aliens is fundamentally unfair to legal immigrants who have invested a great deal to comply with our immigration laws or obtain legal citizenship.  We should not reward those who have broken our immigration laws with the same benefits as those who have made an effort to respect the law.”

Other stories of interest:

1. Sonia Sotomayor Confirmation Hearing and Answers to Activist Judicial Profile
2. Sonia Sotomayor Doesn’t Have A Leg To Stand On