Citeas: 567 U. S.
(2012)
1
Opinion of SCALIA, J.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 11-182
ARIZONA, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. UNITED STATES
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[June 25, 2012]
JUSTICE SCALIA, concurring in part and dissenting in
part.
The United States is an indivisible "Union Of sovereign
States." Hinderlider v. La Plata River & Cherry Creek
Ditch Co., 304 U. S. 92, 104 (1938). Todays opinion, ap-
proving virtually all of the Ninth Circuit's injunction
against enforcement of the four challenged prmåsions of
Arizona's law, deprives States of what most would con-
sider the defining characteristic of sovereignty: the power
to exclude from the sovereign's territory people who have
no right to be there. Neither the Constitution itself nor
even any law passed by Congress supports this result. I
dissent.
1
As a sovereign, Arizona has the inherent power to ex-
clude persons from its territory, subject only to those
limitations expressed in the Constitution or constitution-
ally imposed by Congress. That power to exclude has long
been recognized as inherent in sovereignty. Emer de
Vattel's seminal 1758 treatise on the Law Of Nations
stated:
"The sovereign may forbid the entrance of his territory
either to foreigners in general, or In particular cases,
or to certain persons, or for certain particular pur-
poses, according as he may think it advantageous to
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