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Joined: Apr 10, 2006 Posts: 32918 Location: Texas - The Lone Star State
Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:20 pm Post subject: MO Court upholds Valley Park immigration law
Wooo Hooo!!!!
Court upholds Valley Park immigration law
Friday, June 5, 2009, 2:15 PM
By Steve Walsh
A Valley Park ordinance (Gray v. Valley Park, Missouri) aimed at cracking down on businesses hiring illegal immigrants has been upheld by a three judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. In a 3-0 ruling, the court affirmed a district court ruling affirming that the St. Louis suburb had the right to enact such a law.
University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School Professor Chris Kobach, lead counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, represented Valley Park. Kobach believes says this is an important legal decision.
"We now have an affirmation of the lower court decision that the Valley Park ordinance is completely legal and constitutional," said Kobach in an interview with the Missourinet. "And it has consequences both for the state of Missouri and nationwide."
Valley Park's ordinance requires businesses to use a federal worker verification program known as E-Verify to maintain business licenses, a component of the state law.
"Missouri's omnibus immigration bill, that was passed in 2008, includes employment provisions that are very similar - nearly identical in some sections - to the Valley Park ordinance," said Kobach. "Indeed, the Missouri bill was based, in some sections, on the Valley Park ordinance. And so now that the Valley Park case is over and the city is victorious, now the State of Missouri is on unassailable legal grounds in moving ahead - which it already has done - but moving ahead with the law."
The impact of this decision to any community or state, anywhere in the country, is that such laws are legal and constitutional.
"This decision affirms the order of the district court below, and that order holds that a city is within its rights - and a county or a state is also within its rights - to prevent the employers of illegal aliens, the employers of unauthorized aliens, from retaining their businesses licenses."
The American Civil Liberties Union and others that took Valley Park to court have the option of appealing this ruling to the entire Eighth Circuit Court or directly to the United States Supreme Court.
Download/Listen: Steve Walsh interviews Attorney Chris Kobach (6:30 MP3)
Joined: Apr 10, 2006 Posts: 32918 Location: Texas - The Lone Star State
Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:23 pm Post subject:
Valley Park, Missouri Vindicated in Federal Court, Says Immigration Reform Law Institute
8th Circuit Affirms the Right of Communities to Enforce our Nation's Immigration Laws
WASHINGTON, June 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, in a 3-0 decision, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld local ordinances enacted to discourage illegal immigration and protect business owners.
The case, Gray v. Valley Park, Missouri, involved a small suburb of St. Louis, which passed an ordinance requiring businesses to use a federal worker verification program known as E-Verify in order to maintain a business license. The law was challenged in court by a coalition assembled by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). Valley Park was represented against the ACLU and MALDEF attacks by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), lead by its senior counsel Kris Kobach.
In upholding the lower decision, the appellate court affirmed that:
Communities and local municipalities are within their rights to pass ordinances requiring businesses to sign up for E-verify on pain of losing their business licenses;
On appeal, having lost at the trial level, the ACLU attorneys were unable to show their plaintiffs had suffered no "injury in fact."
In reviewing the facts, the appellate court was puzzled as to why the ACLU even brought the case and dismissed their second complaint with prejudice. Nor did the court understand why the ACLU claimed the ordinance pertains to the hiring of Hispanic workers, when in fact, said the court, the ordinance in question "addresses the employment of illegal aliens, not Hispanics."
According to Mike Hethmon, IRLI General Counsel, "This is an important decision of nationwide significance. Once again Professor Kobach has helped a small town defend its integrity and values when Washington refused to do its job. The court held that local jurisdictions can and should enact ordinances that are consistent with the national desire to discourage illegal immigration," he said. "The citizens should feel particularly justified that the court recognized the manipulative nature of the plaintiff's strategy. We have been facing trumped up opposition from MALDEF and the ACLU in courts all over the country. This time they got caught in the act," Hethmon concluded.
Joined: May 22, 2006 Posts: 30629 Location: Mexifornia
Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2009 1:12 am Post subject:
June 5, 2009
St. Louis suburb's immigration law upheld
The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS | A federal appeals panel has upheld a suburban St. Louis town's ordinance prohibiting the hiring of illegal immigrants, a case that some observers believe could have national implications.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday unanimously affirmed a lower court's ruling in favor of the city of Valley Park.
Similar cases have been heard around the country. Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an Arizona state law that also bars the hiring of illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia is weighing a similar case out of Hazleton, Pa.
“The Valley Park case is being cited around the country,” said Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor who represented Valley Park and also argued on behalf of the Hazleton law. “This decision has nationwide consequences.”
The Missouri case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Jacqueline Gray, a Valley Park landlord who hires people for odd jobs and maintenance.
ACLU lawyer Omar Jadwat in New York said it was too early to say what future legal steps might be taken. He didn't view the ruling as a defining one on illegal immigration issues. He said Valley Park had amended its own law in recent years, in part due to legal action.
“In the course of litigation, Valley Park cut back on anti-immigration laws it had enacted,” he said. Jadwat said the ruling largely addressed procedural questions. “I don't think this ruling shifts the balance on these issues.”
Valley Park, a working-class community of 6,500 in southwest St. Louis County, has been involved in court battles since the city passed the immigration law in 2006. A St. Louis County judge struck down the original ordinance as well as a revised one.
Then, in 2007, the city revised the law again, this time to repeal a provision prohibiting renting to illegal aliens, but keeping the provision prohibiting hiring them. The ordinance sets out a procedure for lodging complaints, and requires those applying for a business license to sign an affidavit stating that they do not knowingly employ unlawful workers.
City Attorney Eric Martin said the town has not yet enforced the law or accepted complaints, largely because officials wanted to make sure code enforcers were properly trained. However, because Missouri adopted its own illegal immigrant law last year, Martin said the state law includes provisions similar enough that the city may never need to enforce its ordinance.
The original law was spearheaded by former Mayor Jeffery Whitteaker, who was defeated in a re-election bid last year.
Mayor Grant Young, who succeeded Whitteaker, said Valley Park spent about $250,000 in recent years on legal fees related to the immigration law.
“I don't support illegal immigration, but as a fiscal conservative, I would have chosen a different path,” Young said. He said he hoped “we can finally turn the page on a controversial issue.”
Young had previously said Valley Park, which was 89 percent white in the 2000 Census, “has to become multiracial and multiethnic.”
The 2000 Census showed the town's Hispanic population was 2.3 percent.
Alderwoman Stephanie Reynolds wondered why so much effort and money was spent on a law that may never be enforced.
“Pretty much a lot of money wasted,” Reynolds said.
Kobach disagreed. Regardless of whether the city is enforcing the law, publicity about it appears to be deterring businesses from hiring illegal immigrants in Valley Park, he said.
“The message has gone out,” Kobach said. “People who are inclined to violate the law by hiring illegal aliens are inclined to go elsewhere. The law is in place and appears to be having the desired affect.”
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