Thread: Lawsuit: End Services For Illegal Immigrants

Lawsuit: End Services For Illegal Immigrants

Last Update: 7:11 am

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - Three Kentuckians claim in a federal lawsuit that Lexington is a sanctuary for illegal immigrants and it breaks the law by failing to verify citizenship before providing cancer screening, pregnancy tests and other services.

Observers on both sides say the lawsuit offers a unique if controversial new spin on the volatile national debate over immigration policy by attempting to use the court system to deny services to certain people rather than allow them.

The three plaintiffs - who are not lawyers and filed the lawsuit themselves - made the claim Monday in U.S. District Court. They predict other cities will use it as an example for waging their own local crackdowns on services for undocumented residents.

Others, however, predict the lawsuit will be thrown out before it even gets a hearing in front of a judge.

"Federal funds are thrown around here without anybody being held accountable," said David Duncan, one of the three who signed the lawsuit. "This can be applied as a template throughout the country."

The lawsuit calls on Lexington's government and health department as well as the state Office of Vocational Rehabilitation to require proof of citizenship before delivering any city services, other than emergency help like ambulance runs.

Spokeswomen for both the city and the state agency declined comment.

Duncan, a former Navy Seal, says he is disabled but was denied vocational rehabilitation services in Lexington. He blames the denial in part on illegal workers taking benefits without proving their citizenship with a driver's license or Social Security card.

Nadine Wettstein, an attorney with the American Immigration Law Foundation, says the entire premise of the lawsuit, which seeks a writ of mandamus to compel government action, doesn't make sense. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that illegal immigrants can't be denied public education, and that precedent also applies to other basic services, she said.

"It's potentially a misuse of the court if they're arguing there is some law being violated when there isn't," Wettstein said. "I don't know of any law that prohibits states from providing services."

The lawsuit quotes a paragraph in the federal immigration code that says, "the government has a duty to assure that taxpayer-supported public assistance programs are not abused" and that doing so "relies upon a credible system of verification."

Jenean McBrearty of Danville, Ky., who filed the lawsuit with Duncan and Wendy DeVier, both of Lexington, says her reading of the law is that non-emergency services are denied to undocumented workers unless Kentucky's General Assembly passes a law guaranteeing them. That won't happen for political reasons, she said.

"It's political suicide for people to say, 'Oh by the way, we have this bill and we're going to give benefits to illegal immigrants,"' she said.

Douglas Rivlin, a spokesman for the National Immigration Forum, a watchdog for immigrant rights, said this appears to be the latest battleground for a polarizing issue that already has dominated presidential politics this year.

"Using the courts to fight immigration is nothing new, although this particular approach to sue against benefits is new to me," Rivlin said. "Since Congress gave up on fixing our immigration system, states, localities, individuals and organizations are trying to deal with the issue at the local level. This appears to be what that is."

Steve Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, which promotes tougher enforcement of immigration policies, said the lawsuit makes a valid point regardless of how far it progresses in court.

"This is not an absurd argument," Camarota said. "The city of Lexington doesn't have its own printing press for money. Every dollar spent on somebody illegally in the country can't be spent on somebody legally in the country."
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I like it....I hope it goes all the way

"Every dollar spent on somebody illegally in the country can't be spent on somebody legally in the country."

May I add, "and excludes many American citizens in need of support from their country."