Thread: NE-Attorney, ACLU are at odds over ordinance

Attorney, ACLU are at odds over ordinance
By Chris Zavadil
Posted: Saturday, June 12, 2010 3:00 am
(9) Comments

The Kansas City attorney who crafted Fremont's proposed illegal immigration ordinance says it's time to restore law and order.

At stake are unemployed Americans, crime and costs to taxpayers, Kris Kobach said.

The executive director of ACLU Nebraska says it's time to stop the politics and leave immigration in the hands of the federal government.

"Kris Kobach has used localities around the country as laboratories to experiment with unconstitutional ordinances that only divide communities and cost them millions of dollars to defend in the courts," Laurel S. Marsh said. "It's time to stop politicians like Kobach from robbing us of our core values of fairness and equality for all people."

Kobach, who by his account has worked on more than two dozen illegal immigration laws for cities and states, including co-authoring Arizona Senate Bill 1070, says it's his ordinance - not the ACLU - that will provide justice in Fremont.

"This ordinance will have a very significant impact in restoring the rule of law in Fremont," Kobach said. "It will protect Fremont citizens in a very difficult job environment right now. Fremonters who are out of work are having a hard enough time putting food on the table, and competing with illegal labor is a burden they should not have to face.

"Whenever illegal aliens enter a particular industry in large numbers, the wages in that industry go down because the employers who violate the law are able to exploit the illegal workers and pay them substandard wages, and we've seen that happen in meatpacking," he continued. "So U.S. citizen workers are in a double whammy; some of them lose their jobs to the illegal alien workers, and others may keep their jobs but their wages go down because of the wage depressant affect of the illegal labor."

On top of that, Kobach said, is an influx in illegal immigration is costing Fremont taxpayers thousands of dollars.

Pointing to a 2007 report by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, Kobach said, "The average illegal alien head of household consumes $19,600 more in government services and benefits every year than it pays in taxes."

Domestic policy analyst Christine Kim worked with Rector on the report.

"If you multiply that times the many such households in Fremont, it's a real significant tax burden for the taxpayers of the city," he said.

That figure, he said, is a combination of services provided and taxes paid at all governmental levels.

Kobach said it is difficult to determine exactly how many illegal aliens live in Fremont, "but it's enough that it's having a significant impact on the city budget, and it's enough that it also has a criminal impact as well, you see a substantial number of illegal aliens violating, committing misdemeanors and, in some cases, felonies."

Police do not keep statistics on how many crimes are committed by illegal immigrants.

Marsh said Fremont residents have contacted the ACLU about the ordinance.

Concerns have varied, she said, but some calls have come from renters and rental property owners who don't like the occupancy license and harboring provisions of the ordinance.

"Clearly you're establishing a class, renters, that are treated differently than another class, home owners, or even homeless," Marsh said.

It may not be the intent of the law, she added, "but it does in fact kind of become a tracking system of the renters who live there if you have to get a new license every time you change residences."

"That certainly seems to be in conflict with a number of values that we have expressed or inferred through our Constitution and our Bill of Rights," she said.

"What we feel is this violates the Supremacy Clause and there are some real 14th Amendment problems with it," Marsh said.

Marsh said the ordinance would violate privacy and rely on databases that may not be reliable. She pointed to a July 23, 2009, letter from the ACLU to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, discouraging mandatory electronic employment verification - a provision of Fremont's ordinance.

"The E-Verify program remains fraught with database errors involving U.S. citizens, permanent residents and lawful workers," the letter stated, claiming mandatory use of the system nationwide would result in 3.6 million workers annually being misidentified as unauthorized to work.

"Immigration status is not an easy thing to determine," Marsh said. "What a person's immigration status is at a moment in time may be different than what is reflected in an individual data base, not because somebody is trying to pull the wool over somebody's eyes, but simply because things change, and databases change, but they're not always updated as rapidly as statuses change.

"I'm not going to tell (Fremonters) that frustrations they feel are invalid, because there are legitimate frustrations that go with cities that change," Marsh said. "But what I'm going to suggest to them is that we are a creative society and we don't have to have our ways of dealing with change channeled into those that create controversy and have been found to be unconstitutional."

Posted in Local on Saturday, June 12, 2010 3:00 am | Tags: Kris Kobach, Aclu Nebraska, Illegal Immigration, Ordinance

http://fremonttribune.com/news/local/ar ... 002e0.html

The ACLU needs to worry about AMERICANS’ civil liberties – the right to not have American citizens money used to take care of illegal alien baby-popper-outers and their children while American citizen families have a hard enough time keeping a roof over their heads, food on the table, and trying to pay for exorbitant medical bills and health insurance.

The right of American citizens to have a job in their own country not be taken away by illegal alien invaders. The right of American citizens not to be put secondary to illegal aliens to have that chance at a better life for their families in their own darn country.

The right of American citizens to not be kept from a job because they do not speak Spanish. The right of employers to require that they employees be able to speak English in a predominately English speaking country so that people can actually use their services!


The right of American citizens to not have their IDs and SS numbers stolen by illegal aliens causing tremendous financial and emotional stress and strain trying to get their records straightened out. The right of American citizens to not be disqualified for the assistance they may need due to their SS records showing they have made wages that they didn’t. The right to not have their lives turned upside down due to the high prevalence of this kind of crime perpetrated by most illegal alien invaders.

The right of American citizens to not have the social services that their tax dollars pay for used up by illegal aliens and their anchor babies; and then to be put out into the streets, hungry, and jobless while illegals get to have a roof over their heads, food stamps, free medical care, free education, and all the other freebies they can get their hands on.

The right for the AMERICAN DREAM to be for AMERICANS first!

The right of American citizens to not have criminal records that damage their lives and cause misery because of illegal aliens stealing their identities and committing crimes.

The right to not be subjected to more and more gangs and gang violence that is so prevalent in especially the Hispanic/Latino illegal immigrants’ children.

The right to not have to listen to chicken clucking, roosters crowing, loud music to all hours of the night, and to not be afraid to call and report it for fear of retaliation and being called racist or be physically retaliated against and then have the lying illegals get us charged with a hate crime for trying to exert our rights in our own country.

The right of American citizens not have their neighborhoods turn into little barrios filled with illegal aliens and their unruly and often unattended children running amok, vandalizing homes and parks.

The right to fly the American flag in America without worry.

The right to not have to be hassled by day-laborers while you try to go into Home-depot and other stores.

The right of women to not be leered at and hear lewd comments and see filthy gestures when they walk past a group of illegal alien men whose home countries’ culture accept this kind of degrading behavior toward women.

The right of little girls to not be raped by illegals of third-world mentality and culture.

The right to not be subjected to more drunken-driving, hit-and-runs, killing of innocent citizens by illegals here. Not one more of these violations should have to occur because of an illegal. We have enough of our own citizens’ actions to endure. We don’t need more!

The right to not have to pay for illegal aliens incarcerations, for their lawyers and legal defense.

The right to not have to be afraid to go to our national parks and enjoy a hike or campout or fishing or whatever without being accosted and even killed by the illegal alien cartels that have set up drug production shop there.

The right of ranchers along the southwest border not to have their properties violated by all kinds of criminal activity and to not be afraid of being killed by drug lords while out checking on their herds. The right of these ranchers to not be afraid to go outside their own homes without a gun. Their right to not live in constant fear.

The right of American kids not to have access to any seats in colleges, schools and jobs in their own country denied to them because of the massive influx of illegals and their children using up these resources. The right of American children to these things first and foremost.

The right of American citizens to draft and enact laws that discourage illegal immigration and illegal activity and crime; and the right to have those laws fully and promptly enforced.

The right to kick out of this country ANYONE who sneaks, steals, stows away into this country illegally and to ban them from entering again for whatever period of time.

The right to expect our country’s laws be enforced against all illegal activity not just from its own citizens but all persons on alive and present on US soil. The right to those laws to be applied fairly and equally! ILLEGAL means ILLEGAL!

In short, THE RIGHT of AMERICAN CITIZENS to THEIR RIGHTS in THEIR OWN COUNTRY!


ACLU = AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union… NOT ICLU – Illegals Civil Liberties Union! Either be for Americans first and foremost or go do your civil liberty work in another country! The American citizens don’t need more traitors and enemies in their own land!


I'm sure there's a lot more American rights being ignore by the supposedly Ameircan civil liberties union. My brain just ran out of steam - literally, because I steam when I read about the ACLU protecting others before Americans. What a bunch of crock they are. They are traitors.

the hell with the ACLU and those that support em.