C'ville trustee consults D.C. firm on immigration plan

July 8, 2007
BY BEN LEFEBVRE Staff Writer
CARPENTERSVILLE -- Village Trustee Paul Humpfer said he is talking with a national law firm advocating tougher immigration laws in an effort to possibly tweak the controversial Illegal Alien Immigration Relief Ordinance proposal that he and Trustee Judith Sigwalt put forward last year.

Humpfer confirmed that he called lawyers at the Washington, D.C.-based Immigration Reform Law Institute to discuss ways to make the Carpentersville proposal more resilient to the legal challenges now surrounding similar legislation passed in Hazleton, Pa. The institute is the law firm for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates tougher immigration laws.

Humpfer declined to say what legislative tweaks he may be considering for the Carpentersville proposal, which, as now written, would require business owners and landlords to check the residency status of employees and tenants and penalize those that hire or rent property to illegal immigrants. Formal discussion on the proposal was tabled in October, and last week Village President Bill Sarto banned village residents from bringing it up at village board meetings.

Institute lawyer Mike Hethmon confirmed that his group has had pro bono consultations with Carpentersville trustees and citizens groups about how to proceed with the proposal.

"We provide a unique service," he said. "A great many of the measures are by and large well-intended but are put together the same way as those dealing with loose dogs or other purely local issues without factoring in the rather subtle balancing aspects that are necessary with constitutional law."

Hethmon said his group also helped craft the Hazleton legislation, which attracted lawsuits from the ACLU and other civil rights organizations as soon the city passed it in July 2006. The case there is expected to reach the Supreme Court.

"We're hopeful now that ... with the learning curve with cases like Hazleton, we're beginning so see what the sort of issues we need to spot," Hethmon said. "At the state and local level, its more valuable to take it in the incremental fashion, with one town or state taking one caution step, and then another town saying they'll take that and build a little more on it."

Hethmon said his law firm has helped up to two dozen communities draft measures intended to crack down on illegal immigration, which they cite as the cause behind heightened crime, overcrowding and a drain on community resources. Among the proposals is one in Prince William County, Va., that would direct police to check the residency status of anyone detained for breaking the law -- including those caught riding a bicycle without a helmet. It also would allow residents to sue the county if they suspect its agencies authorized services for illegal aliens.

ACLU: Key issue the same
Ed Yohnka of the ACLU of Illinois said the changes don't address what he considers the main point of the lawsuits -- that federal law trumps local immigration ordinances.
"Everyone acknowledges that the federal system is broke," Yohnka said. "But it's not the answer to waste local law enforcement resources in attempting to enforce federal law. If a small community's law enforcement could solve federal problems, we should have put them on the budget problem."

Yohnka also warned that the type of measures Carpentersville and Prince William County are proposing ultimately would poison ethnic and cultural tensions.

"If we get enough towns with these kinds of laws, we're going to get a lot people of color getting stopped by law officials for no real reason," he said. "People at the local level will be harassed and won't feel welcome because they're newcomers and don't speak English proficiently yet ... and will wonder why their local governments have turned against them."

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