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Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach

Posted: June 26th, 2012

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday on illegal immigration gives legislators in his home state a “green light” for a crackdown, but his fellow Republicans still aren’t all behind him.

Kobach, a former law professor who’s advised officials across the nation on get-tough policies on immigration, said he’s pleased with the high court’s ruling on an Arizona law he helped draft two years ago, even though the justices struck down three of the four provisions under attack. The justices kept in place a provision requiring police to check the immigration status of people stopped for other reasons if officers have a reasonable suspicion they’re in the U.S. illegally.

Kobach called the “show me your papers” provision the “core” of the Arizona law and said Kansas legislators can pursue a similar measure. He also noted that the Supreme Court ruling didn’t touch on issues that the state’s lawmakers have discussed, such as requiring government contractors or other businesses to use the federal E-Verify database to check the status of new employees.

“If Kansas wanted to take the two strongest steps, which would be an E-Verify requirement for the whole state and an arrest requirement like Arizona’s that we saw reviewed today, they have a green light to do so,” Kobach told The Associated Press in an interview.

But Kobach’s opponents in Kansas scoffed at his description of the high court ruling as a victory and said it’s likely to hinder any effort to enact proposals favored by Kobach. They noted that while the court spared the provision directing police to check people’s immigration status, the justices didn’t preclude legal challenges later when the law is more fully interpreted by Arizona’s courts.

Read More:  CBSNews.com