The state argues that illegal residents consume scarce government resources.Alabama and Georgia will try to salvage their laws targeting illegal immigrants in arguments before a federal court that already said there’s a “substantial likelihood” some parts will be thrown out.
By Laurence Viele Davidson - Mar 1, 2012 12:00 AM ET
A three-judge panel set to hear cases today in Atlanta temporarily blocked Alabama from requiring illegal immigrants to carry registration papers and forcing schools to determine the legal status of students as they enroll. It refused to block other provisions.
The Justice Department and nongovernment advocacy groups are likely to win parts of their challenges to the statutes because the federal government exclusively controls immigration, a different three-judge panel of the court said earlier.
Today’s oral arguments on three cases, two from Alabama and one from Georgia, will take place separately in one session for each state.
Georgia’s law would allow the police to check immigration status and bar transporting illegal aliens in some circumstances. It would require employers to verify whether a worker is a legal resident. The statute was blocked in June by a trial judge’s preliminary injunction. The state appealed.
Both states argue in court papers that they are trying to help the federal government manage immigrants. The laws are aimed at authorities who police and teach illegal residents, not the immigrants themselves, the states say.
Lawyers for Georgia say the law will help prevent illegal immigrants from being “victimized by employers or others” and “forced to work in horrific conditions.”
Georgia Argument
“The state does not regulate immigration but rather criminalizes its consequences,” Georgia Attorney General Samuel S. Olens said in a brief.
Alabama will get the most time from the judges, 40 minutes for each side in one case and 20 in the other. One suit was filed by the U.S. government and one by the Hispanic Interest Coalition.
Georgia’s lawsuit was filed by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights. Each side will get 20 minutes to argue to the court.
Alabama’s law would require students and their parents to provide documentation of their legal status to their schools. The state argues that illegal residents consume scarce government resources.
The documentation rule would “have a chilling effect,” causing children to drop out of school and thus denying them due process of law guaranteed in the Constitution, Justin Cox, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in court papers. The ACLU joined the lawsuits filed by the Hispanic groups in both states.
‘Self-Deport’
The Alabama law would encourage illegal residents to “self-deport to states that are supportive” of illegal residents, making it more difficult to find them, the Justice Department said in court papers. The statute “frustrates the federal government’s ability to pursue removal proceedings” when necessary, it said.
The federal government has also sued to block laws aimed at apprehending illegal immigrants and keeping them from taking U.S. jobs in South Carolina, Arizona and Utah.
The U.S. Supreme Court in December agreed to review a ruling against Arizona’s requirement that police officers check the status of someone arrested who they reasonably suspect is in the country illegally. The Georgia and Alabama laws have the same provision.
The Arizona case will be heard in April by the high court.
The cases are U.S. v. State of Alabama, 11-14532, and Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama v. Bentley, 11-14535, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit (Atlanta) and Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights v. Deal, 11-cv-01804, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia (Atlanta).
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