Thread: AZ:Coalition Challenges Legality Of Arizona Immigration Law

Coalition Challenges Legality Of Arizona Immigration Law

Phoenix— Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform (AZEIR, a coalition that includes the American Subcontractors Association of Arizona) and the Arizona Contractors Association have gone to court following the enactment of a punitive new state law that would impose harsh penalties on Arizona employers for knowingly or intentionally hiring an illegal alien.

Filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, the lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the Fair and Legal Employment Act (H.B. 2779). Signed July 2 by Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) and effective Jan. 1, 2008, the law stipulates that any company knowingly or intentionally hiring an illegal alien could face revocation of its business license.

The AZEIR/ACA complaint contends that the new law violates both the U.S. and Arizona constitutions and is pre-empted by federal law, deprives state businesses of property without due process, and improperly regulates and interferes with state commerce.

"Punitive 'death penalty' employer sanctions without due process are too high a price for an unworkable, incomplete solution to unbridled immigration," said ASA of Arizona Government Relations Committee co-chair Richard B. Usher of Hill & Usher LLC, Phoenix. "The consequences of implementation are too dangerous to the Arizona economy to risk. AZEIR felt action to stop this bad law was essential to our economic future."

The suit seeks immediate injunctive relief and a ruling that the law is unconstitutional.

http://www.acppubs.com/article/CA6471939.html

We need a stong American judge on this one.

Do these people forget that Janet Napolitano has a legal background and once served as a US Attorney? Or that she has, quite often, sent proposed legislation back to the drawing board to fix things that could be unconstitutional or illegal? Or, has flat out said she would refuse to sign legislation period because no matter how it was drafted it would be unconstitutional or illegal? This has always been the way she does things whether the issue has to do with illegal immigration or not. I cannot imagine that this has changed.

I'm sorry, but if there was anything which, in her experience, would have shown her that the law is unconstitutional or illegal, she would not have signed it and she would have said why she didn't sign it.

Recently, too, I caught something on the news where the allegations being made by the Coalition, were addressed.....specifically, the issue of denying due process.......and that is nothing more than the usual hysterics coming from those desperate to hang onto their illegal labor because the law does no such thing. But, even if these low life employers succeed on the state level, how do they plan on avoiding the federal crackdown? Seems to me that their time and money would be better spent hiring legal workers and putting those displaced by illegals back to work.

Quite frankly, all I think these lawsuits ever accomplish is to point out exactly who is the most guilty of hiring, or otherwise aiding and abetting, illegals, but as was pointed out by a previous post, the key is going to be the judge.