by Carolyn Coleman

As Congress continues to find itself mired in partisan politics and an inability to resolve disagreements, the U.S. Supreme Court is on track to have one of its most historically significant terms settling disputes on a wide range of controversial issues.

Last week, the Supreme Court decided to weigh in on the constitutionality of states' rights to limit the way undocumented immigrants live in the United States. At the center of that controversy is Arizona's immigration law (also known as S.B. 1070) that addresses state law enforcement related to illegal immigration.

Specifically the Arizona law: (1) requires police to determine if an individual has a legal right to be in the U.S. if the officer has reasonable suspicion of illegality upon making an arrest or a stop; (2) makes it a crime under state law to fail to obtain and carry immigration papers as required by the Immigration Naturalization Act (INA); (3) makes it a misdemeanor for a undocumented immigrant to apply for a job or work in Arizona; and (4) allows police to arrest a person the officer has probable cause to believe has committed a crime that would make the person subject to deportation.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed S.B. 1070 into law in April 2010. However, before it went into effect, the U.S. Department of Justice sought a temporary injunction to prevent the law from taking effect until it received a full review from the courts.

The injunction was granted in an opinion holding that immigration matters were the exclusive domain of the federal government and that the four provisions of S.B. 1070 were unconstitutional because they intruded upon this domain.

Arizona appealed the grant of the injunction to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where it was ultimately upheld by a three-judge panel. After this decision, the state asked the Supreme Court to weigh in.

The court will hear arguments in the case - Arizona v. United States, No. 11-182 - later this spring with a final ruling expected by June just as the 2012 presidential and congressional campaigns head into full swing. Justice Elena Kagan will recuse herself, most likely because she had previously worked on the case as the solicitor general.

While the court's eventual ruling will settle the questions presented by the Arizona law, it won't answer the larger federalism question of the right of states to make their own laws in policy areas in which the federal government has failed to act.

The court's ruling also won't fix the real problem: a broken immigration system. NLC has called for Congress and the Administration to leave the divisive rhetoric behind and work together to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

According to legal experts, a potential 4-4 split would block the aforementioned four provisions from taking effect, but not resolve the larger constitutional issues for Arizona or any other state with similar laws currently being challenged (i.e., Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah).

In a released statement, Gov. Brewer expressed relief that the highest court in the land would ultimately resolve the matter.

"Decades of federal inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation and states deserve clarity from the court in terms of what role they have in fighting illegal immigration," she said.