Federal judge upholds most of Alabama immigration law

[The Northerner]

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A Birmingham federal judge today upheld most sections of Alabama's tough new immigration law. U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn ruled on a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit seeking to block the law.

Blackburn upheld a provision of the state law related to police stops and detentions of people suspected of being in the country illegally.

She also upheld sections requiring schools to check the citizenship status of children and sections that would nullify contracts knowingly entered into with unauthorized aliens.

Blackburn also upheld a section making it a felony for "an alien not lawfully present in the United States" to apply for a license plate, driver's license, business license or other business license.

Read more: http://blog.al.com/breaking/2011/09/federal_judge_throws_out_xxxx.html

[truebrit71]

1. This bullshit will quite naturally be appealed...

...what a hateful place Alabama must be...

[MrDiaz]

2. It is the LAW

to be in this country legally and not illegally, until this law is changed these kinds of erronious acts will not be stopped. We need to pass a law that would allow anyone in the world to come and live here free, they shouldn't have to do all this paperwork in order to be here legally. We should just erase that law and let whoever wants to be here in all the time.

[jberryhill]

3. That's quite a simplistic answer

Saying something is the "LAW" does not have any bearing on who has jurisdiction to enforce it.

Some things are state laws, some things are municipal codes, some things are federal laws.

In addition to the "LAW", of which you are so fond, there is the question of whether one or another entity has the exclusive jurisdiction to enforce it.

As to the remainder of your post, I hope you have been enjoying your stay here at DU.

[MrDiaz]

5. ???

Enjoy my stay at DU? what does that mean? Does that mean that because I have stated a fact about federal law AND state law, in which you need to be LEGAL and go through the proper branches and fill out the proper paperwork in order to become a legal citizen or the United States to live here, and if you do so without proper actions that you will be held accountable when you get caught, that I will be banned from DU??? If so I hope you are wrong. I never said that i thought these laws were RIGHT. I was simply stating a fact. If these are not facts please provide me with some links to credible sites that will make my statements look absurd and false. Thanks I'll wait.

P.S. I want these laws to change i really do but there is a reason why Illegal Immigrants Have that harsh word "ILLEGAL" in front of the word Immigrant, that is because it is AGAINST the current law.

[jberryhill]

6. Second try

Simply because something is "the LAW" does not answer the question of who is in charge of enforcing the law in question and, more to the point, who is precluded by the doctrine of pre-emption from enforcing it.

There can be various areas of overlap, but the subject of citizenship is an exclusive area of federal pre-emption. In other words, states do not have the authority either to define who is or is not a citizen of the United States, and states cannot pass or enforce laws defining or punishing persons based solely on that status. It is not an area of law in which states have authority.

As noted, there are areas where federal definitions are used, properly, within the scope of a valid state law, but several provisions of this law, and of the similar Arizona law, exceed the power of a state to define and punish offenses based on citizenship.

It would be similar to a state establishing fines for, say, patent infringement, which is another area of exclusive federal jurisdiction.

This works two ways, of course, in that nobody goes to federal court to get a divorce, for example.

[joeglow3]

8. How are they enforcing Federal law?

If they were enforcing Federal law, they would be deporting people. They are NOT. Instead, they stating that they will only provide STATE benefits to legal residents. I fail to see how they are enforcing Federal law.

[jberryhill]

9. This law, and the AZ law do a number of things

Perhaps you might read the actual decision referenced in the OP. It describes, in painstaking detail, which parts of the law are okay and which parts are not.

To take two simple hypotheticals:

1. A state may condition state benefits upon US citizenship, provided there is no federal law to the contrary.

2. A state may not punish illegal status per se. For example, a state may not say "anyone found to be in the country illegally will be fined $500 or imprisoned for 90 days".

That second hypothertical would be an improper attempt by the state to enforce a citizenship law, and is pre-empted by exclusive federal jurisdiction over immigration law.

Do you see the difference between those two things?

Now, when a legislature passes a law on a subject, it is frequently a package of many different provisions. The decision in this case struck down some of the provisions and left others intact on the basis of the two rough categories (actually three if you consider the conditional in the first) outlined above.

Different subjects may be:

1. Subject to exclusive federal jurisdiction

2. Subject to overlapping or concurrent state and federal jurisdiction.

or

3. Subject to exclusive state jurisdiction within Constitutional limits.

The principles that determine whether something falls into 1, 2 or 3 above, is beyond the scope of this course. Please register for advanced topics in federalism next semester.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[badtoworse]

7. Good call by the judge

The Federal government's record on protecting our borders and enforcing immigration law is abysmal. If you don't agree with the laws, change them, but ignoring them is wrong.

It seems to me that Alabama's position is that it won't give benefits and protections it has under its powers to people who are in the country illegally. Why should they be forced to?

[MrDiaz]

10. good question

thanks badtoworse

[jberryhill]

11. Because that's not the only thing this law did

[pampango]

15. Not "abysmal" with this administration.

The extraordinary Mexican migration that delivered millions of illegal immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years has sputtered to a trickle, and research points to a surprising cause: unheralded changes in Mexico that have made staying home more attractive.

A growing body of evidence suggests that a mix of developments — expanding economic and educational opportunities, rising border crime and shrinking families — are suppressing illegal traffic as much as economic slowdowns or immigrant crackdowns in the United States.

Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton, an extensive, long-term survey in Mexican emigration hubs, said his research showed that interest in heading to the United States for the first time had fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. “No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped,” Mr. Massey said, referring to illegal traffic. “For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative.”

The decline in illegal immigration, from a country responsible for roughly 6 of every 10 illegal immigrants in the United States, is stark. The Mexican census recently discovered four million more people in Mexico than had been projected, which officials attributed to a sharp decline in emigration.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/06/world/americas/immigration.html?hp

This plus the fact that the Obama administration has deported many times more people than Bush or any other administration ever did.

Not exactly an "abysmal" record of immigration law enforcement, at least by the current administration.

The republican states (and all the states passing these immigration laws are republican-run) like Alabama that enact these immigration laws do it for partisan reasons. Republican politicians know that the history of their economic performance is abysmal. Rather than have people suffering economically focus on republicans and (synonymously) rich folks as the cause of our economic problems, they distract them with "Watch out for the poor immigrants! They're out to get what little stuff we left you!"

[Obamanaut]

12. +1 for the judge. nt

[truebrit71]

13. -1 For the judge

..and anyone else who thinks that local coppers should be the ones to enforce Federal laws. If you think racial profiling was bad before, just wait til this shit goes nationwide...anyone that isn't as white as the blinding snow is open to being stopped and forced to prove that they are here legally...the fact that some here cannot see how blatantly unconstitutional this is boggles the mind...

[Obamanaut]

16. Now don't I just feel properly chastised. +1 for the effort, -3 for effect.. nt

[xchrom]

14. this for the judge...

:thumbsdown: & my middle finger.