Source: Town Hall .com
Judges Getting the Message About Illegal Immigrants Four children including two brothers
were killed, and 12 others were hospitalized with injuries, in
Minnesota last week when a van reportedly ignored a stop sign and
barreled into a school bus. The driver of the van, who did not speak
English or have a valid drivers license, was charged with homicide.
Authorities described the driver as an illegal immigrant using a
phony name. She had pled guilty in 2006 for driving without a license.
For years, courts and lawyers have intimidated towns from
protecting themselves against the invasion of illegal immigrants. In
2006, Escondido, Calif., backed away from its housing ordinance to
curtail leases to illegal immigrants and even agreed to pay $90,000 in
legal fees to plaintiffs challenging the law.
Last summer, a federal court slapped down an attempt by
Hazleton, Pa., to penalize employers and landlords who hire and lease
to illegal immigrants. Hazleton had been hit by an influx of illegal
immigrants and victimized by some of their shocking crimes.
But in August, Newark, N.J., no stranger to violence, was
shaken by the brutal murder of several college-bound teenagers who were
harmlessly enjoying music at a playground. The victims were black, and
the perpetrator was an illegal immigrant from Peru who had been
previously charged with raping a 5-year-old girl but had been released
despite his obvious illegal presence in this country.
Another imported crime is driving the wrong way on highways,
with headlights turned off, in order to escape detection while
smuggling drugs or people. Several deadly crashes resulting from this
practice have been reported.
The American people's outrage at violations of the law by
illegal immigrants was heard loud and clear by the U.S. Senate when it
defeated the amnesty bill last year. Now, even judges may be getting
the message. In December, a federal judge in Oklahoma upheld an Oklahoma
law requiring state contractors to determine and verify the immigration
status of new hires. U.S. District Judge James H. Payne threw out a
legal challenge to the law.
In January, U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber emphatically
ruled against illegal immigrants who had sued to overturn a similar
ordinance enacted by Valley Park, Mo., a town near St. Louis. The court
upheld the ordinance, which was directed at employers who were hiring
illegal immigrants.
The third strike against illegal immigrants came in February
when U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake rejected each and every argument
challenging a new Arizona law that imposes penalties on businesses that
knowingly hire illegal immigrants. He dismissed the claim that federal
law somehow ties the hands of state and local governments seeking to
protect their own citizens.
These three decisions in three different parts of the country
included both Republican- and Democratic-appointed judges. In the term
loved by the mainstream media, there is now bipartisan judicial support
for state and local legislation against illegal immigrants.
University of Missouri at Kansas City Law professor Kris Kobach
says these decisions give "a green light to other communities" seeking
to pass similar ordinances.
Hazleton, Pa., Mayor Lou Barletta vigorously supported his
city's ordinance cracking down on illegal immigrants. Despite being
vilified by liberal Pennsylvania newspapers, he won nearly 95 percent
of the vote in his Republican primary for re-election last year.
But that wasn't all. In the same election, Barletta also won
the Democratic nomination on a write-in vote, defeating the leading
candidate in the Democratic primary by a stunning 2-to-1 margin.
In the Arizona case, the court noted the research of George
Borjas, an economist at the Harvard University Kennedy School of
Government, who concluded that hiring illegal immigrants depresses
wages for legal workers because illegals accept lower pay without
benefits. Those hardest hit are uneducated legal workers, who in
Arizona alone lost $1.4 billion in 2006 in the form of lower wages.
The nine months between now and the November election give
states, cities and towns ample time to do what Congress has failed to
do: protect U.S. citizens against the lawless entry of illegal
immigrants. That means penalizing employers who hire illegal immigrants
and landlords who lease to them.
It is long overdue for public officials to rid the United
States of imported crimes and to stand up for legal workers, especially
the poorly educated ones who need an entry-level job to start building
their lives. Now that a green light has been provided by the courts,
states and cities should proceed full steam ahead to protect their
citizens from illegal immigrants.
By Phyllis Schlafly
Monday, March 3, 2008
A Pakistani immigrant, right, who didn't want to give his name, talks
to the media on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008, in Barcelona, Spain, about how
the police broke into his apartment on Jan. 19, arresting Rafqat Ali,
background right. Rafqat Ali, who was one of two men arrested by
Spanish police on Jan. 19 as terrorist's suspects and later released,
but Ali has accused police of beating him and holding him in a darkened
cell for hours. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
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