Posted on 08/03/2007 11:41:46 AM PDT by Graybeard58
In what has been called "A Tale of Two Cities," Hazleton, Pa., and New Haven have been taking sharply contrasting courses on illegal immigration. But they came to a crossroads of sorts in a Pennsylvania courtroom last week.
Hazleton, once a bustling coal town that fell on hard times after the mines played out, enacted a law penalizing landlords and employers who associated with illegal aliens. In a lawsuit bankrolled by the American Civil Liberties Union, illegals and their advocates contended Hazleton was interfering with the federal government's constitutional authority over immigration. U.S. District Court Judge James Munley agreed, but Hazleton intends to appeal.
"The genius of our Constitution is that it provides rights even to those who evoke the least sympathy from the general public," Judge Munley wrote in a 206-page decision. "In that way, all in this nation can be confident of equal justice under its laws.
"Hazleton, in its zeal to control the presence of a group deemed undesirable, violated the rights of such people, as well as others within the community."
It's not easy to grasp the concept that a municipality is not allowed to penalize U.S. citizens for enabling a pattern of federal law violations. And if Mayor Lou Barletta's argument that illegals are diminishing his city's safety and quality of life, it's incomprehensible the federal government would deny Hazleton the tools to solve its civic crisis. Barring the unlikely emergence of a forceful federal policy controlling illegal immigration, rendering Hazelton's law moot, it seems likely the city will win its appeal.
Still, the ruling turns New Haven's identification-card program into the opposite side of the same coin. Facing a severe budget deficit that would render it unable to afford to meet its obligations to its own citizens, the city is issuing ID cards to anyone who asks for one and is able to prove residency. The idea is to help illegals open bank accounts so they don't have to rely on cash transactions and, more broadly, to bring them into the open as contributing members of society.
What's good for the goose should be good for the gander. If Hazleton's effort to curb illegal immigration by usurping federal authority was unlawful, is not New Haven's campaign to usurp federal authority in the name of helping illegal immigrants likewise outside the law?
That the ACLU is litigating the Hazleton law with passion and vigor while ignoring New Haven's ID-card scheme says much about the intentions of this and other groups seeking to sustain, or even expand, the tide of illegal immigrants into the United States.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
You should know by now that the Anti-American Civil Liberties Union is a hypocritical, America-hating organization. Anyone who would help or support them has tapioca for brains.
I guess it must follow that it's unlawful for states and cities to go after drug pushers for the same reason.
(Not that I support the War on Drugs.)
Am I the only one to see the dishonest trap here?
By failing to qualify "residency", it renders all the U.S. immigration laws null and void by virtue of inaction on the part of the Federal government.
This power can never be a "local" one, no matter how "well-intentioned". Two wrongs still don't make a "right".
For a minute there, I was excited that the town was asking its legal residents to voluntarily prove legal status, since doing the "reverse" hurts the feelings of the illegal criminals and, presumably, Judge Munley.
Let the “far, far better thing (we) do than (we) have ever done before” be the deportation of 25,000,000 illegal aliens...
yep
ping
BUMP!
Munley's decision is a burlesque of law. He inverts meanings ( how is it that a law that mimics or conforms to a federal law supercedes it? ); he fabricates outcome where necessary ( his ludicrous assertion that unnamed illegals have standing - do they even exist? ); he asserts insane conclusions ( Hazelton violates Art. 12 prohibitions against compacts with a foreign state? Huh? ); etc etc, ad nauseum.
It won't stand. Even with the nutcases we have in black robes, this one won't stand. It's the work of one smug, arrogant, ideological freak.
MAYOR BARLETTA: And a federal judge has granted that. And, you know, he made the claim that by removing illegal aliens, we will effect foreign alliances.
GLENN: That’s not his job.
MAYOR BARLETTA: That we should have contacted foreign countries to ask them if it’s okay to remove illegal aliens.
GLENN: He did not say that. Wait, wait, wait, wait. He did not say that.
MAYOR BARLETTA: I was asked during the trial when I was on the stand if I had called President Calderon to tell him about this ordinance before we passed it. And in the judge’s decision he said, by removing illegal aliens, we will effect foreign alliances.
GLENN: Let me tell you something. Anybody who said Mex-Ameri-Canada, that I was crazy for Mex-Ameri-Canada, here it is. We are now asking permission if we can enforce our own laws here? What was your response to him? MAYOR BARLETTA: I laughed. I thought the joke was a lighter moment in the trial, but the ACLU attorney was serious and obviously the judge agreed because he felt that we should have checked with other countries before we passed this law.
The judge also made the claim that the federal government wants some illegal aliens to remain in the country, that the government wants a balance, by closing off the border but allowing some illegal aliens in the interior. Now, I don’t know what law in this country of America said that we want illegal aliens to remain in the interior of the country, and this judge obviously was imposing his own views, and we need...
This judge needs to be disbarred.
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