Thread: Federal judge: Law penalizing those that hire illegals OK

Federal judge: Law penalizing businesses that hire illegals OK
'You are going to see this decision quoted by cities across the country'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: February 2, 2008
8:05 p.m. Eastern



© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com


The right of a small town in Missouri to deal with the cost and crime caused by the influx of illegal aliens has been upheld by a federal judge who ruled the community's ordinance penalizing local companies that hire undocumented workers is not pre-empted by federal law, does not discriminate against Hispanics and does not violate due-process rights or state law.
The ruling late Thursday by U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber was in favor of Valley Park, Mo., located about 20 miles west of St. Louis.

Valley Park is one of several cities across the U.S. that have attempted to address the problems resulting from illegal immigration and the failure of the federal government to address the issue.

City officials have been in court since 2006 after passing the town's first immigration law fining landlords who rent to illegals and suspending business permits of companies that hire them. The city eventually repealed the rental ordinance but continued to target businesses.

WND has reported on dozens of towns – including Hazleton, Pa., Manassas, Va., Bridgeport, Pa., Prince William County, Va. and Cape Cod, Mass. – that have adopted similar local ordinances.

WND has also reported on statewide crackdowns in Oklahoma and Arizona.

(Story continues below)


This week's Valley Park decision is the first time a federal court has ruled in favor of such an ordinance. Last year, an almost identical law in Hazleton, Pa., was struck down by another federal judge in a different district.

"It's an across-the-board victory," attorney Kris Kobach, who represents Valley Park and Hazleton, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "You are going to see this decision quoted by cities all across the country."

Kobach noted Judge Webber rejected arguments the local ordinance violated the clause to the Constitution giving exclusive jurisdiction over immigration law to the federal government.

Michael Jung, an attorney for Farmers Branch, Texas, which is defending a similar ordinance, agreed.

"[The judge's] approach ... is to say that Congress has not taken over this whole subject matter and shoved the states out of the way," Jung told the Dallas Morning News.

Additionally, Webber rejected claims the ordinance discriminated against Hispanics.

"The only authority granted to employers under the ordinance is the authority to refuse to hire an individual who fails to provide the documentation, required by federal law, showing employment status," he wrote in his 57-page ruling.

Jung expressed optimism the Valley Park ruling could positively influence his case on behalf of Farmers Branch, but the town's mayor pro tem was more cautious.

"A court opinion from a jurisdiction that's different from the one we are in is not binding on our jurisdiction, so I'm not going to sit up and tell you, 'Great, that's going to make ours go through,' " Tim O'Hare said. "But I can tell you that it can't hurt. Judges do look at what other jurisdictions are doing."

This week's decision 'is vindication for this small city," Kobach said. "The city stood firm and didn't back down."

But, he noted, with the contradictory rulings in Hazleton and Valley Park, "now you have two diametrically opposed decisions from the federal courts."

In a prepared statement, Lucas Guttentag, the ACLU's immigrants rights project director, said, "If every city and town across the country were allowed to enact its own immigration laws, we would end up with chaos and confusion causing discrimination and profiling against individuals based on their appearance, accent and ethnicity."



http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.a ... E_ID=60016

We already have chaos and confusion because our local, state and federal officials are not enforcing the law. And when a community seeks to change that, twisted logic such as in the quote below is used to undermine the effort.

In a prepared statement, Lucas Guttentag, the ACLU's immigrants rights project director, said, "If every city and town across the country were allowed to enact its own immigration laws, we would end up with chaos and confusion causing discrimination and profiling against individuals based on their appearance, accent and ethnicity."

Every city, town and state should have the right to control and protect their enviorment, illegal aliens affect every town different, some are worse than others, and no one else seems to be coming to their rescue, financally or protecting them from crime....who would know better when they have had enough.

These are our towns, and states, illegal is immigration is to big for the federal government to handle alone.

We don't have time for them to decide our fate!!

There are 94 federal judicial districts, including at least one district in each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Three territories of the United States -- the Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Each federal court could have a different outcome. I hope the ACLU appeals this to the 8th Circuit Court and loses. A ruling in our favor, at this level would be more powerful.

If you remeber, we have had a favorable ruling in the 9th circuit cout, which filed to halt the implementation of AZ's new immigration law.

http://www.uscourts.gov/images/CircuitMap.pdf

One thought that keeps recurring to me when I learn of decisions like this one , is this...

The court, in effect, is giving IAs a 'pass' - by not holding them responsible for the current state of affairs. Yet, at the same time, corporate entities are being held to the same high bar as US citizens (well, in this particular case). IAs are not seen as belonging under the jurisdiction of the US judicial system, but more as 'stateless individuals seeking prosperity'.

Or, in other words, the focus and subject of the law *is* US citizens (corporations and individuals alike, as opposed to non-citizens / aliens) - the IA is seen merely as a circumstantial or unwilling participant in the overall scheme of things.

While I don't necessarily agree with this view of things, it is at least modestly reassuring that Federal courts will show some compunction to begin to hold corporate entities responsible for their actions as they do with individual citizens.

OK, it's still a little early and I haven't had my usual quota of coffee this morning. So all the above is IMHO, and I apologize if the delivery lacked the concise meaning that was intended....