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Illegal Immigrant Laws Challenged

November 27, 2006

Eunice Moscoso

WASHINGTON --- As local governments across the United States enact tough ordinances to fight illegal immigration, the American Civil Liberties Union is leading a charge to fight the measures in court.

The national civil rights group has joined Hispanic organizations in suing several localities, saying the laws are unconstitutional and conflict with state and federal immigration and housing statutes. Most of the ordinances -- including one proposed for Cherokee County -- target landlords who rent to illegal immigrants or businesses who hire them.

"These ordinances promote and encourage discrimination … [and] heighten suspicion about anyone who looks or sounds foreign," said Vic Walczak, legal director of the ACLU in Pennsylvania, where one of the most restrictive ordinances was approved in the small city of Hazleton.

The ACLU, together with other groups, challenged the Hazleton ordinance in court. It requires renters to register with city hall so officials can make background checks on them. Landlords renting to people who have not registered face penalties of $1,000 a day. In addition, businesses found to be employing illegal immigrants could lose their business permit for five years for a first offense and 10 years for a second.

Last month, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Hazleton ordinance and later extended the order. A trial is expected early next year.

The ACLU claimed another preliminary success this month when a federal judge issued a restraining order against an ordinance in Escondido, Calif., that gives landlords 10 business days to evict tenants found to be illegal immigrants. Landlords who fail to comply could face a variety of penalties, including fines up to $1,000 a day, six months in jail, or suspension of their business license. The judge put the measure on hold until a preliminary injunction is considered.

The main groups joining the ACLU in the lawsuits are the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The ACLU has challenged immigration ordinances in Riverside, N.J., and Valley Park, Mo., and is considering a challenge to an ordinance passed earlier this month in Farmers Branch, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The measure includes fines for landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and establishes English as the town's official language.

Lisa Graybill, legal director for the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement that the ordinance "puts landlords between a rock and a hard place, as unpaid immigration agents of the city of Farmers Branch."

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national group that supports lower levels of immigration and backs the city ordinances, said the legal setbacks are minor and predicted that the towns will prevail as the issue works its way through the courts.

FAIR has provided legal assistance to Hazleton and other towns and cities in crafting the laws to withstand court challenges.

Mehlman said the measures reflect a growing frustration that the federal government has failed to stop the tide of illegal immigration and that local communities are footing the bill.

"Local governments have to provide the education, the health care, all the human services. They have to deal with the crime, with housing issues," he said. "It's reached a point where ... they can't sit around and wait for the federal government to get off the dime and do something."

But Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said many of the city ordinances will likely be overturned in court, but that it could take several years.

Turley said the measures are too imprecise, often including ambiguous definitions of who is an illegal resident. For example, they could affect include immigrants who are in a grace period whie waiting for a review of their immigration status, he said.

In addition, there are questions about the ordinances contradicting or interfering with federal authority on immigration and housing, he said.

"If little towns like Hazleton can create their own de-facto immigration agencies, you could have a patchwork of hundreds of different laws related to immigration," he said.

Mehlman, however, said the ordinances deal with areas that cities routinely regulate, such as how business and leases are conducted. "This is what the ACLU and other groups raise money for, to make sure the immigration laws don't get enforced," he said.