Thread: U.S. makes case against Alabama's immigration law

U.S. makes case against Alabama's immigration law

cnn.com
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 9:39 PM EST, Tue November 15, 2011

ATLANTA (CNN) -- Alabama's immigration law is unconstitutional and aims to threaten "the most basic human needs," the U.S. Department of Justice said in a court filing.

"The Constitution leaves no room for such a state immigration-enforcement scheme," the department said in a brief filed with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta Monday.

The impact of Alabama's immigration law is "clear and deliberate, designed in the language of the legislation's sponsor, to force aliens to 'deport themselves,'" the department's filing said.

Alabama's law cracking down on illegal immigration is considered the strictest in the nation. The U.S. Justice Department's lawsuit against Alabama over the measure is one of several battles in a nationwide skirmish between state federal officials over who controls immigration enforcement.

Monday's brief outlining the federal government's position argues that the federal government, not state authorities, control immigration enforcement. The brief asks the appeals court to block six parts of the Alabama law, including a provision requiring police to check immigration status during traffic stops and a measure requiring schools to determine the immigration status of students.

The brief says oral arguments in the case have been scheduled for the week of February 27.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, who signed the law in June, has said it would not have been needed "if the federal government would have done its jobs and enforced the laws dealing with this problem. However, they have failed to do that."

He added, "This law was never designed to hurt fellow human beings."

In its legal briefs to the appeals court, Alabama has noted a 145% rise in its Hispanic population now numbering around 185,000, or 4% of the population. Lawmakers promoting the legislation said it was motivated mainly to protect jobs of the state's citizens and legal residents.

In October, the appeals court temporarily blocked enforcement of some parts of the Alabama law while allowing other provisions to go into effect.

After that ruling, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange issued a statement vowing "to vigorously defend the law as we proceed through the appeals process."

The Justice Department has also sued Arizona and South Carolina over immigration measures there, and is considering similar action against Utah, Indiana, and Georgia.

The U.S. Supreme Court could ultimately have the final say.

Earlier this month a group of Republican senators said they would attempt to block funding for the federal lawsuits.

"We're working to stop these politically driven lawsuits by cutting off the ability for the Obama administration to use taxpayers' money to pay for them," said Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, called it "absurd" for an administration "which has failed to enforce the nation's immigration laws" to try to stop South Carolina, Alabama, and Arizona "from taking commonsense steps to protect citizens and uphold the law."

CNN's Bill Mears and Terry Frieden contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/15/us/alabam ... +Recent%29

Added to the Homepage
http://www.alipac.us/article-6774--0-0.html

I'd re-title this to:


US makes case for the subversion of the will of the people

Because that's what it amounts to.

DOJ asks federal appeals court to block Alabama immigration law

jurist.org
by Jamie Davis at 10:14 AM ET
Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Many links within the article

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] on Monday filed a brief [text, PDF] in the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] urging the court to strike down Alabama's immigration law [HB 56 text]. The DOJ filed its brief in response to a federal judge's September 28 ruling [opinion text] that allowed the state to enforce a provision that makes it a felony for an illegal alien to conduct business with the state, among other provisions. The DOJ argued in its brief that the Alabama immigration laws are preempted by federal laws regulating immigration in the US because of the Supremacy Clause [Cornell LII backgrounder] in the US Constitution. The DOJ stated:

[D]eterminations about the conditions under which aliens may live in the United States, including unlawfully present aliens, based specifically on their status as such, are reserved for the National Government. It is the National Government that is responsive to the competing goals of immigration policy on behalf of all the States and to the foreign policy concerns that must inform determinations about how foreign nationals in our Nation should be treated. ... H.B. 56 acts as a state immigration policy and not as a mechanism to regulate areas of legitimate state interest.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] filed a separate brief also asking the court to overturn the new law. The ACLU's brief argued that the laws are designed to make life in Alabama so difficult for illegal aliens that they will be forced to leave the state [JURIST op-ed]. Like the DOJ, the ACLU also argued that Alabama's law is a direct attempt to regulate immigration, which is an area that the states have no legitimate interest in regulating and is left only to the federal government to legislate.

In October, the Eleventh Circuit temporarily blocked [JURIST report] portions of the law after the US District Court for Northern Alabama [official website] twice refused to do so. Religious groups and representatives of several rights groups including the ACLU, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) [advocacy websites] have stated that the Alabama law is the most extreme of the recent state anti-immigration laws influenced by controversial Arizona SB 1070 [JURIST news archive]. Since the legislation was signed into law in June, 16 countries filed briefs [JURIST reports] in the Alabama district court against the controversial law, arguing that it provides unfair treatment to citizens of those countries currently residing in Alabama and sanctions discriminatory treatment based on ethnicity.

http://jurist.org/paperchase/2011/11/do ... on-law.php

States do not want illegal aliens. So we must vote all the dems and Obama out in 2012 because they do not care what states want. It is time to vote Obama and his dems out. Obama and the dems are destroying our country with illegal aliens.