Leave immigration issue alone

The Commercial Appeal, Memphis: The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this week in the Arizona immigration law case should send a message to Tennessee’s legislators that they should stop trying to pass similar legislation.

The Arizona crackdown on illegal immigrants was considered one of the toughest in the nation. A divided court last week threw out major parts of the law, but unanimously approved the law’s most talked-about provision, which required police to check the immigration status of those they stop for other reasons.

An effort in the legislature to pass comprehensive immigration laws never won final approval. In 2010, however, lawmakers enacted a more limited law that requires jailers to attempt to verify the citizenship status of each person booked into lockup after their arrest and report violations to the federal authorities.

If you think about it, that’s almost the same as checking if a person under arrest is wanted for other charges.

The court’s decision and President Barack Obama’s recent order to not immediately deport illegal immigrants who were brought into the United States as children does nothing to resolve the issue.

There are an estimated 12 million-plus illegal immigrants in this country. Sending them all back across the border, as some individuals have suggested, is not realistic.

Congress needs to come up with a practical and timely way for those who are here illegally to achieve citizenship — if they’re not a danger to society.