Supreme Court squashes tea-party inspired anti-illegal immigrant laws in Texas and Pennsyvania

[pampango]

US supreme court denies review of states' immigration cases
Texas and Pennsylvania attempts to crack down on illegal immigration quashed as court decides against hearing appeals

The US supreme court on Monday rejected attempts by towns in Texas and Pennsylvania to revive local laws that cracked down on illegal immigration.

The court decided against hearing appeals filed by the towns of Farmers Branch, Texas, and Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which were seeking to overturn appeals court rulings that said the ordinances were trumped by federal immigration law. In doing so, the court left intact the appeals court rulings and avoided wading into the divisive issue of immigration at a time in which reform efforts have stalled in the US Congress.

Prompted by concerns that the federal government was not adequately enforcing immigration laws, officials in both towns enacted ordinances that, among other things, required tenants to provide identification that could later be verified with immigration authorities and penalized landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. The Hazleton ordinance also penalized employers for knowingly employing unlawful immigrants. Groups of tenants, landlords, employers and workers challenged the laws in court. They won in both cases, prompting the towns to seek supreme court review.

The last time the court decided a major immigration case was in 2012 when it partially upheld Arizona’s immigration law. The previous year, the court upheld another Arizona law that penalizes businesses for hiring illegal immigrants. In April 2013, the court signaled a reluctance to get further involved in immigration when it declined to hear an appeal from Alabama seeking to revive a section of the state’s immigration law that criminalized the harboring of illegal immigrants.

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/mar/03/us-supreme-court-denies-review-texas-pennsylvania-immigration-cases

[jsr]

1. Good.

[joeglow3]

3. So, we shouldn't penalize companies for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants?

[pampango]

4. It is the role of the federal government. Under Obama they have gone after the employers rather

than the showy raids under Bush when they would arrest a bunch of illegal immigrants and do nothing to the employer who would hire a new bunch of illegal immigrants the next day.

It is pretty doubtful that small town republican mayors really intended to crack down hard on businessmen in their towns. "Republican mayor cracks down on local business' hiring" is not a headline that you see much in my ares. This was tea party PR to fire up the base.

[jsr]

5. Precisely.

[joeglow3]

6. Personally, I wish they would

My father was a union drywaller. The in the 1980's we started to see a flood of illegal immigrants here that busted every union shop except two. Ten years later, my father's wages were a fraction of what they were. My parents struggled to pay the bills and I remember nights we went to bed hungry. However, we felt lucky because friends of my father flat out lost their jobs...and then their homes.

I read a Harvard study that said something to the effect that the working class was less than 100% better off (i.e. worse off), while the upper class was over 110% better off. I really don't want to see the status quo continue and more families have to face what we did, or worse. I really wish ANY government would do a better job of penalizing companies.

[Excelsyor]

2. Legal experts saw it coming

They said the Tea Party arguments were ludicrous.