Thread: US supreme court denies review of states' immigration cases

US supreme court denies review of states' immigration cases

Texas and Pennsylvania attempts to crack down on illegal immigration quashed as court decides against hearing appeals

• Reuters in Washington
• theguardian.com, Monday 3 March 2014 12.05 EST

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Groups of tenants, landlords, employers and workers challenged the laws and won in both cases, prompting the towns to seek supreme court review. Photo: Jonathan Ernst /Reuters

The US supreme court on Monday rejected attempts by towns in Texas and Pennsylvania to revive local laws that cracked down on illegal immigration.

The court decided against hearing appeals filed by the towns of Farmers Branch, Texas, and Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which were seeking to overturn appeals court rulings that said the ordinances were trumped by federal immigration law. In doing so, the court left intact the appeals court rulings and avoided wading into the divisive issue of immigration at a time in which reform efforts have stalled in the US Congress.

Prompted by concerns that the federal government was not adequately enforcing immigration laws, officials in both towns enacted ordinances that, among other things, required tenants to provide identification that could later be verified with immigration authorities and penalized landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. The Hazleton ordinance also penalized employers for knowingly employing unlawful immigrants.

Groups of tenants, landlords, employers and workers challenged the laws in court. They won in both cases, prompting the towns to seek supreme court review.

Advocates for immigrants say that five out of six federal courts of appeals that have dealt with similar housing-related ordinances have held that they conflict with the federal government’s role as the primary enforcer of immigration law.

The outlier was the St Louis, Missouri-based 8th US circuit court of appeals, which in June 2013 upheld an ordinance passed in the town of Fremont, Nebraska. That ordinance was different, lawyers opposing the laws say, because it did not penalize immigrants themselves, unlike the two ordinances at issue in the cases before the supreme court. Under both ordinances, tenants can be arrested and fined for occupying a residence without the necessary license.

The last time the court decided a major immigration case was in 2012 when it partially upheld Arizona’s immigration law. The previous year, the court upheld another Arizona law that penalizes businesses for hiring illegal immigrants. In April 2013, the court signaled a reluctance to get further involved in immigration when it declined to hear an appeal from Alabama seeking to revive a section of the state’s immigration law that criminalized the harboring of illegal immigrants.

The cases are City of Hazleton v Lozano, 13-531 and City of Farmers Branch, 13-516.

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/...igration-cases

This is pretty much IT!

Mar 3, 2014, 7:03pm CST

Supreme Court won’t review Farmers Branch citizenship requirement for rentals

William Brewer III of Bickel & Brewer

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a Farmers Branch rental ordinance that would have forced renters to prove their U.S. citizenship in order to live in the city.

The decision on Monday may mark the end of a lengthy battle that has cost the city millions of dollars in legal fees. Voters approved the ordinance in a nonbinding referendum in 2007, sparking years of challenges and appeals.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans voted last summer to reject the ordinance, finding it unconstitutional. The appeals court ruled that the federal government, not municipalities, have authority over immigration policy.

“Our hope is that the city will close this unfortunate chapter in its history and begin to embrace the changing demographics of the community,” William A. Brewer III, partner at Bickel & Brewer Storefront, said in a news release.

The Storefront is an affiliate of Dallas-based Bickel & Brewer law firm that has worked in opposition of multiple versions of the Farmers Branch ordinance.

“(We) hope that these past years of litigation are instructive to communities and courts around the nation,” Brewer’s statement said.

Farmers Branch elected officials who supported the ordinance have argued that city officials took action because the federal government had failed to adequately enforce immigration laws.

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/ne...rs-branch.html

By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Monday, March 3, 2014



The Supreme Court declined Monday to review a ruling that overturned a Pennsylvania town’s effort to fight illegal immigration, leaving the legal situation muddled for communities.

Justices declined without comment to hear an appeal from Hazleton, Pa., which saw an appeals court strike down its ordinances prohibiting illegal immigrants from renting rooms and barring businesses from employing them.

But a different appeals court last year upheld a similar ordinance from Fremont, Neb., and backers said the Supreme Court should have stepped in to provide a final answer.

“Simply put, if Hazleton were in Nebraska instead of Pennsylvania, the city would be able to enforce its law. But for the unfortunate fact of geography, the law of the land in the Midwest is deemed unconstitutional in Pennsylvania,” said Rep. Lou Barletta, the Pennsylvania Republican who was mayor of Hazleton at the time the town passed its ordinance.

While the national debate on immigration has stalled in recent years, states and localities have tried to fill the void. While some localities have pushed for their own enforcement, others have passed measures giving more help to illegal immigrants and, in some cases, preventing local police from cooperating with federal authorities.

The Obama administration challenged states such as Arizona who tried crackdowns, but has yet to go after other states and cities that are refusing to cooperate with federal laws.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court upheld some of Arizona’s pioneering crackdown law, but overturned other parts that would have set state penalties for those in the country without authorization.

After that ruling, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals went back and took a new look at Hazleton’s ordinances. The judges concluded that the town was infringing on federal prerogatives.

“Hazleton may not unilaterally prohibit those lacking lawful status from living within its boundaries, without regard for the executive branch’s enforcement and policy priorities,” the appeals court ruled.

In the Nebraska case, the ordinance required police to check the lawful status of anyone wishing to rent in Fremont. The appeals court upheld that, saying that it would only conflict with federal prerogatives if the national government created a conflict.

“It seems obvious that, if the federal government will be unable to definitively report that an alien is ‘unlawfully present,’ then the rental provisions are simply ineffectual. Plaintiffs and the United States do not explain why a local law is conflict pre-empted when the federal government has complete power to avoid the conflict,” the decision said.

Fremont voters last year voted to keep the housing ordinance on the books.

For its part, Congress appears split on how much authority to give to localities as part of any new immigration law. The bill that passed the Senate last year would prohibit most state law enforcement efforts, while House Republicans are eyeing legislation that would promote state efforts.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...s-illegal-imm/

We need Universal E-Verify.

IMO sooner or later, Americans will become sick and tired of seeing benefits conferred on illegals, while the American middle class is disappearing. Polls show that majorities favor enforcement over amnesty, but those majorities will probably have to become large enough to frighten federal legislators, before they will legislate Universal E-Verify.
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Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

Added Washington Times article to the Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/content.php?r=2...mmigration-law