>>> governor romney is in arizona today for a fund-raiser in scottsdale later this afternoon. today's decision by the supreme court on arizona 's immigration law could have a major impact on the presidential election , especially among latino voters. joining the panel now is michael waldman, president of the brennan center for justice , nyu school of law and msnbc contributor, steve kornacki of salon.com. he is also co-host of msnbc's "the cycle" which premieres today at 3:00 p.m . eastern. and from mexico city , telemundo's jose diaz -balart. let me ask you first, my friend, how does this decision play out with latino voters?
>> good afternoon. let's talk about the 360,000 undocumented that live in the state of arizona . this essentially tells them that any time they are stopped for any kind of infraction, whatever the police officer believes is an infraction, their legal status can be questioned. this is huge. earlier you were talking about the impact on non-latinos and the documented. let's talk about 360,000 people that are living in that state, contributing to that state's economy, and many have roots in that state, and that right now are being told that the constitutionality of that section is not to be questioned. what's fascinating to me, this was unanimously decided by the supreme court .
>> you seem to have -- we have been talking about the political analysis here and a lot of folks say because three of the four provisions were struck down it is in some ways a win for the white house but certainly, your point about how this affects the undocumented population of the united states and specifically in arizona is not to be lost. do you think this increases enthusiasm across the country among hispanic community, understanding of course that hispanics are not a monolithic voting bloc ?
>> yeah. that's a tough question to answer. all the questions you ask are always so pinpoint accurate on what you want to know. i'll tell you, first and foremost, we have to think about i think how it affects the state of arizona , and how it affects both those who support this law and those who are opposed to it, because you know, there's a whole issue of people that may look brown and can be asked about their papers and if they're citizens but don't have some passport, because what do we as american citizens carry with us on a daily basis to prove we were born in the united states of america ? what document? there is no national i.d. so the question is how do we prove to a police officer that we are indeed legal if we're stopped in arizona and your name is jose diaz -balart or, you know, not john smith . how do you prove these issues? so you know, there are a lot of political implications to this, but really, it boils down to the state of arizona saying that barring immigration reform in washington, which is something that the federal government has a responsibility to deal with and neither republicans nor democrats have been really successful in dealing with this issue, barring that, every state has the possibility of, according to the supreme court , unanimously to ask people that are stopped whether they're citizens or not.
>> michael , i want to turn to you for a sort of deeper dive on the provision that was upheld as jose speaks about it. it would seem to be a setback but your analysis said you thought it was terms of the support for it.
>> yes, that's right. it's certainly in human terms, he's right. in human terms, this is going to be something that will affect hundreds of thousands of people, potentially, in arizona . but what the court said was in effect not yet, the fight goes on. the court said they weren't ready to rule on it but that there could be a state constitutional challenge and they wanted to see how it was put into effect. people who have racial profiling, people who have unfair stops will be able to challenge it, so in a way, coupled with the very strong striking down of the rest of the law on the grounds of federal power over immigration , i think this offers some hope for a different approach on immigration . in a way, this was even pretty clearly talking in part about what president obama did recently on immigration , making it clear it's up to the federal government to decide who gets removed.
>> that's the question, steve kornacki, is where the fate of immigration reform lies and sort of how this pushes the movement forward or not at all, especially if we talk about second terms and so forth.
>> right. the onus will be on congress to come up with something. the problem that i still don't see a way around, let's say there's an obama second term. i think it's still likely at that point there will be a republican house. the problem that you have to get around is the republican primary problem. any republican member of the house, any republican senator who decides they want to sign on with barack obama 's comprehensive immigration reform plan, even if you've got a guy like marco rubio on the republican side who supports it, there is suddenly a huge amount of real estate to the right of that candidate for a republican prime arkansas challenge, especially living in the super pac area now where all it takes is one angry billionaire who doesn't like federal immigration overhaul, that billionaire can get behind any challenger, fund that guy, rile up the conservative base because the republican party base, you know, we're talking about the problems the republican party has with latino voters. there aren't that many latino voters in the republican party base. there's really not a constituency for the average republican member of congress to appeal to in saying i'm for comprehensive immigration reform . the only case they can make is guys, this is in the long term, 10, 20, 30 years interest of or party.
>> even marco rubio on "meet the press" said as much. a lot of hispanics in this country are liberal democrats . they're not going to change parties just because of immigration reform . john, are you surprised we haven't gotten a statement from the white house yet?
>> no. the white house never surprises me. to steve 's point, i think the question is what happens in november because it's true that, i mean, the republican party , if the republican party loses this election and there's a widespread sense that part of the reason they lost the election was because of its problems with hispanic voters, there will be a faction of the party that will make an argument it's imperative for the party if it wants to be a national governing party to fix this problem and there will still of course be part of the problem that is restrictionist, but that battle could play out in a lot of different ways. there will be a big part of the republican party that will say as there is now, in fact, not the majority part but there are leaders in the republican party who see this as a political imperative. so --
>> marco rubio .
>> it's possible in the face of a romney defeat that's interpreted as being importantly about this issue, that the debate, the terms of the debate would very well shift in congress and you could see an opening for immigration reform getting done.
>> there's another big constituency, the republican party that would like comprehensive immigration reform , which is business.
>> which is all mitt romney , when he has talked about immigration , it has been in the lens of sort of immigration reform that business likes which is visas for laborers, green cards , et scetera.
>> they would also like a work force . he hasn't addressed that. you need a strong president who has the trust of the other party to get immigration reform at any time, particularly now, because things are so polarized. again, what both candidates have to do not just on immigration but on a range of issues, but immigration is one of the toughest along with tax reform , is to convince the country i can get elected regardless of the makeup of congress, when i get elected, i can do this. that is where governor romney has at least a small advantage because the president's had four years and hasn't been able to do it. there's reason to be skeptical that governor romney can do it. he hasn't put forward a specific set of ideas. but he does not have the record the president does of not getting it done.
>> indeed. jose diaz -balart, hang with us. we will go to break. michael , sit in your seat, please. much more to discuss on immigration and also the week ahead in washington.