Thread: MO Court upholds Valley Park immigration law

Wooo Hooo!!!! :P

Court upholds Valley Park immigration law
Friday, June 5, 2009, 2:15 PM
By Steve Walsh

A Valley Park ordinance (Gray v. Valley Park, Missouri) aimed at cracking down on businesses hiring illegal immigrants has been upheld by a three judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. In a 3-0 ruling, the court affirmed a district court ruling affirming that the St. Louis suburb had the right to enact such a law.

University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School Professor Chris Kobach, lead counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, represented Valley Park. Kobach believes says this is an important legal decision.

"We now have an affirmation of the lower court decision that the Valley Park ordinance is completely legal and constitutional," said Kobach in an interview with the Missourinet. "And it has consequences both for the state of Missouri and nationwide."

Valley Park's ordinance requires businesses to use a federal worker verification program known as E-Verify to maintain business licenses, a component of the state law.

"Missouri's omnibus immigration bill, that was passed in 2008, includes employment provisions that are very similar - nearly identical in some sections - to the Valley Park ordinance," said Kobach. "Indeed, the Missouri bill was based, in some sections, on the Valley Park ordinance. And so now that the Valley Park case is over and the city is victorious, now the State of Missouri is on unassailable legal grounds in moving ahead - which it already has done - but moving ahead with the law."

The impact of this decision to any community or state, anywhere in the country, is that such laws are legal and constitutional.

"This decision affirms the order of the district court below, and that order holds that a city is within its rights - and a county or a state is also within its rights - to prevent the employers of illegal aliens, the employers of unauthorized aliens, from retaining their businesses licenses."

The American Civil Liberties Union and others that took Valley Park to court have the option of appealing this ruling to the entire Eighth Circuit Court or directly to the United States Supreme Court.

Download/Listen: Steve Walsh interviews Attorney Chris Kobach (6:30 MP3)

http://www.missourinet.com/gestalt/go.c ... 7DB2DAB294

Valley Park, Missouri Vindicated in Federal Court, Says Immigration Reform Law Institute
8th Circuit Affirms the Right of Communities to Enforce our Nation's Immigration Laws

WASHINGTON, June 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, in a 3-0 decision, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld local ordinances enacted to discourage illegal immigration and protect business owners.

The case, Gray v. Valley Park, Missouri, involved a small suburb of St. Louis, which passed an ordinance requiring businesses to use a federal worker verification program known as E-Verify in order to maintain a business license. The law was challenged in court by a coalition assembled by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). Valley Park was represented against the ACLU and MALDEF attacks by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), lead by its senior counsel Kris Kobach.

In upholding the lower decision, the appellate court affirmed that:

Communities and local municipalities are within their rights to pass ordinances requiring businesses to sign up for E-verify on pain of losing their business licenses;
On appeal, having lost at the trial level, the ACLU attorneys were unable to show their plaintiffs had suffered no "injury in fact."

In reviewing the facts, the appellate court was puzzled as to why the ACLU even brought the case and dismissed their second complaint with prejudice. Nor did the court understand why the ACLU claimed the ordinance pertains to the hiring of Hispanic workers, when in fact, said the court, the ordinance in question "addresses the employment of illegal aliens, not Hispanics."

According to Mike Hethmon, IRLI General Counsel, "This is an important decision of nationwide significance. Once again Professor Kobach has helped a small town defend its integrity and values when Washington refused to do its job. The court held that local jurisdictions can and should enact ordinances that are consistent with the national desire to discourage illegal immigration," he said. "The citizens should feel particularly justified that the court recognized the manipulative nature of the plaintiff's strategy. We have been facing trumped up opposition from MALDEF and the ACLU in courts all over the country. This time they got caught in the act," Hethmon concluded.

http://sev.prnewswire.com/homeland-secu ... 009-1.html

Copy of court Doc.
http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/09/06/081681P.pdf

The ALIPAC Focus Campaign for more info and links to articles.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=39480

June 5, 2009
St. Louis suburb's immigration law upheld
The Associated Press

ST. LOUIS | A federal appeals panel has upheld a suburban St. Louis town's ordinance prohibiting the hiring of illegal immigrants, a case that some observers believe could have national implications.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday unanimously affirmed a lower court's ruling in favor of the city of Valley Park.

Similar cases have been heard around the country. Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an Arizona state law that also bars the hiring of illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia is weighing a similar case out of Hazleton, Pa.

“The Valley Park case is being cited around the country,â€

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http://www.alipac.us/article4287.html

Let the Domino Effect Begin!