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  1. #1
    Senior Member zeezil's Avatar
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    The San Francisco IMMIGRATION DEBATE

    Libidiot, socialist and illegal alien hugger SF lawyer spouts crap:

    THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE
    COMING SOON - A CITY ID? 'Both sides might consider focusing on their shared faith in local action.'
    by Pratheepan Gulasekaram

    Sunday, September 30, 2007


    While immigration has been historically cast as a federal responsibility, state and city governments have seized upon the U.S. government's immigration deadlock by stepping in to fill the void. In the first eight months of 2007, local jurisdictions passed more than 170 immigration-related laws - more than doubling the number from 2006.

    Not surprisingly, San Francisco has entered the fray. Having already declared the city a symbolic haven for undocumented immigrants, the Board of Supervisors recently proposed issuing municipal ID cards to all city residents. These cards would help undocumented people apply for jobs, access city services and open bank accounts - all to ensure that the immigrant population is employed, educated, willing to report crimes and treated with dignity.

    Yet lurking behind the ID proposal is a fundamental constitutional issue. Opponents of the plan argue that the city's proposal violates the U.S. Constitution because it frustrates principles of federal supremacy and power with regard to immigration matters.

    Although the opposition's claim has legal merit, it is not without irony. Just a few months ago, pro-immigrant forces used the same argument to persuade a federal court to overturn a restrictive ordinance against illegal immigrants in Hazelton, Pa. That measure would have denied such immigrants employment, social services and housing.

    Political majorities in San Francisco and Hazelton share the common belief that municipalities can and should deal with their shadow populations of undocumented people. They just disagree on what their local communities should do with that power. Likewise, dissenters in both cities share the same legal strategy, even if they are pursuing different agendas.

    I want to suggest that rather than opt for a zero-sum game of equal and opposite legal claims, both sides might consider focusing on their shared faith in local action. Perhaps we are ready as a nation, in the absence of clear, consistent, and specific federal mandates and enforcement, to consider whether cities should be permitted to manifest their diverse viewpoints on the issue of undocumented immigrants.

    Rather than reflexively resort to expansive claims of federal power and competency, it's time to initiate a conversation, asking ourselves whether we should allow towns such as Hazelton, which have chosen to express xenophobic, law-and-order impulses, to coexist with cities such as San Francisco, which believe that charitable treatment of undocumented people will prove healthier in the long run.

    The Constitution not only mandates that federal law remain supreme over state law, it also grants power to Congress to establish a "uniform rule of Naturalization." This plainly requires state and local subordination to specific federal immigration and naturalization laws. However, the broader claim that the Constitution also commands state and local silence on any aspect of the lives of undocumented immigrants, even in the absence of clear federal mandates, stands on shakier ground.

    Border enforcement and naturalization procedures are national concerns deserving of nationwide solutions. In contrast, once undocumented people have lived and worked within the nation's borders, municipality-specific lawmaking may be the better response. And, with Congress lacking the motivation and political will to provide a coherent, sensible solution, local jurisdictions have energetically entered the immigration debate.

    It is possible that the diverse laws and resulting disparate treatment of undocumented immigrants across regions and states may be so unwieldy that they finally force Congress to compromise, using the localities' experiences as a guide.

    In the event of continued federal inaction, at least undocumented immigrants will face more certainty in the form of explicit municipal policies, even if it means invidious certainty.

    As a San Francisco resident, I support the city's proposed municipal ID ordinance, because it provides assurance, dignity and opportunity to many hardworking members of our society. As a citizen of the United States, I believe that our constitutional principles allow our city to act compassionately, even as it provides others the option not to.

    Although some localities will shut the door and plant a no-trespassing sign, others will provide a sanctuary. Given our nation's economic dependency on the labor and skills of undocumented and documented immigrants, the latter group is likely to flourish.

    Pratheepan Gulasekaram is an assistant law professor at Santa Clara University, where he teaches constitutional law and citizenship. E-mail us at insight@sfchronicle.com.

    http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... 7SDEE5.DTL
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  2. #2
    Senior Member zeezil's Avatar
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    A sane, logical and law abiding alternative view:

    Federal leaders need to rein in cities that go against policy
    Mark Krikorian
    Sunday, September 30, 2007

    Should Americans care about San Francisco having its own immigration policy? Maybe the rest of the country should just shrug off Supervisor Tom Ammiano's proposed ordinance to issue ID cards to illegal immigrants as just the latest example of sanctimonious but meaningless grandstanding by municipal governments, like divestment from Burma or boycotting Pepsi or declaring a nuclear-free zone.

    That would be a mistake.

    Issuing city identification cards to illegal immigrants would not be a symbolic measure, but a very real subversion of the federal government's efforts to control immigration. Measures like this are moved by the spirit of the "nullification doctrine," the principle affirmed by the slave states of the antebellum South so that they could override federal law.

    This is because immigration enforcement is not exclusively about guarding the border and chasing after illegal immigrants who manage to get in. Immigration control also requires what might be called a "firewall strategy," which would make it as difficult as possible to live and work here illegally, so that prospective illegal immigrants don't come and those already here give up and deport themselves.

    With a municipal ID card, illegal immigrants could embed themselves in our country, making it easier for them to live and work here. The result would be increased illegal immigration and a decreased return migration of illegal immigrants.

    This month, New Haven, Conn., became the first city to issue municipal ID cards for illegal immigrants, but there are other actions that state and local governments have been taking to accommodate and help embed illegal immigrants. Some (including San Francisco and Oakland) have declared themselves "sanctuary cities," barring police or other municipal employees from getting involved in immigration questions.

    At the state level, some legislatures have passed laws giving in-state tuition subsidies to illegal immigrants that are not offered to out-of-state Americans. The governor of Illinois last month signed a bill barring employers in the state from using a federal online system to verify a new hire's legal status. And just this month New York announced that it would start issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

    In none of these cases can the city or state governments claim they're simply dealing with local concerns, leaving immigration to the federal government. Every policy that makes it more attractive to live here in violation of federal law promotes illegal immigration. And even in a simple physical sense, immigration is a national issue; once an illegal immigrant gets established in San Francisco or New York, there's little to stop him from traveling to Alabama or Michigan.

    Because the federal government is, indeed, in charge of immigration, Washington needs to act to rein in those states and cities that are attempting to nullify federal policy. An encouraging example happened Monday, as federal lawyers filed suit against Illinois, claiming the state's ban on the use of the verification system is a "direct assault on the federal law," in the words of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

    Other illegal state and local measures must also be challenged by Washington. Sanctuary city ordinances and in-state tuition for illegal immigrants are both prohibited by the 1996 immigration law, but two successive administrations ignored the federal bans. And although it appears that Supervisor Ammiano's municipal ID scheme doesn't violate any federal law, Congress should act to deny federal funds in the future to local governments that issue IDs to illegal immigrants.

    Local neutrality on immigration is no longer possible. Every jurisdiction in the country has a choice to make: Either buttress federal efforts at immigration control or subvert them. San Francisco has chosen the second option. It should now learn the consequences.

    Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, www.cis.org, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that supports tighter controls on immigration. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... DSE14H.DTL
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  3. #3
    Senior Member Captainron's Avatar
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    "Pratheepan Gulasekaram is an assistant law professor at Santa Clara University, where he teaches constitutional law and citizenship. E-mail us at insight@sfchronicle.com. "

    And with the salaries that lawyers make it will probably take about a hundred illegal immigrants to support each one.
    "Men of low degree are vanity, Men of high degree are a lie. " David
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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