The folks out in Farmers Branch, Texas who crafted and led the effort that passed into law the local--underline just here "local"--ordinance that makes it illegal for landlords to lease apartments to individuals who do not have proof of legal residence in the United States received a near death blow last Thursday when U.S. District Judge James M. Munley struck down a similar ordinance passed in Hazelton, Pennsylvania.
The Hazelton ordinance was a symbol for the growing national movement among city and state officials across the nation to take immigration law and reform into their own hands. . . locally.
Bottom line, the judge's ruling establishes a clear principle: immigration law and enforcement is and must continue to be considered a federal issue. Judge Munley ruled in a 206-page decision that local authorities cannot go beyond federal law to impose penalties of their own making.
Hundreds of such ordinances have been enacted by local governments, as well as by state legislatures across the country.
Here are two of the judge's key conclusions:
"Allowing states or local governments to legislate with regard to the employment of unauthorized aliens would interfere with congressional objectives. . . ."
"We cannot say clearly enough that persons who enter this country without legal authorization are not stripped immediately of all their rights because of this single illegal act."
Munley's decision established the fact that immigration law involves much more than local issues, including factors related to the U. S. economy, labor, employers' rights to due process, international relations, and national security. Only federal authorities responsible for the direction of these larger, "national community" issues have the authority to pass legislation related to national immigration.
Communities like Farmers Branch, Texas and Hazelton, Pennsylvania may feel justified in taking immigration law into their own hands, but the interests of our national community will and should always trump local opinions and interests. If our history as a people teaches us anything, it teaches us this. Memories of the American Civil Rights Movement, national voting rights, fair housing rules, arguments about states' rights and even the nullification controversy preceding the U. S. Civil War come to mind just here.
The strength of our national life and the power of our national identity, our psyche as a people, resides in the fact that we are a national community. We do not act in isolation from one another. We live and we thrive as a community.
When our sense of community connection is gone, our unity and our collective strength will be gone as well.
A federal judge has ruled. The Farmers Branch City Council doesn't speak for our larger community as a nation.
Thank God.
17 comments:
I think there can be too much "community." For example, the Democrats are livid that the Republicans succeeded in the authorization for a border fence. To get back at them, and to lure more illegals here, they want to expand the SCHIP program to include illegal aliens by giving states the option NOT to enforce the citizenship requirment.They should not be permitted to get away with using SCHIP to funnel more taxpayers assistance to illegals. This is about redistribution of wealth. This is about controlling people. This is from the Washington Times this past week.
Local authorities feel they have to do something because the laws already on the books are not being enforced. Where do judges get the right to make laws? I think the Farmers Branch speaks for more people than you know.
Chris, the option for the states to enroll immigrant children in CHIP already exists and Texas already opts to cover such children. And, of course, with sincere apologies to the Washington Times--that most objective source of all things newsworthy--providing such coverage actually saves taxpayer funds when compared to the cost to the state of children with no coverage.
Then, the fact that federal laws are not being enforced to the satisfaction of local authorities does not provide justification for seeking a local solution. We have elections to change approaches to goverance.
As to federal judges "making" laws, this judge made no law. He simply interpreted the law that was already there.
By the way, people who question the acts of federal judges often don't have very strong feelings about human or civil rights because, thankfully, in our recent national history we've had judges who ruled to insure both.
When SCHIP was first established, states were required to verify citizenship. When did it change?
Hillary has co-sponsored a bill that would expand SCHIP to 400% of the poverty level and include families who have "children" up to 25 years old. That would mean that a man of 25 and his 24 year old wife and their two children would all be children under the law and eligable for medicaid coverage even if their income was $82,600 a year. Hello universal government health insurance! We must stop this insanity.
We have also had judges who tried to legislate from the bench.
Chris, please help me here by directing me to an authoritative source for Sen. Clinton's proposed legislation. I'd like to read it as submitted. Others have said the same thing here, but I have not been able to find the actual proposed legislation.
As to universal health coverage, are you telling me you are against that? We are almost there already with Medicaid, Medicare, VA health and CHIP. The cost savings would be a minimum of $45B annually in overhead. Who is behind the move to not have such a national benefit?
Hillary Clinton introduced the Children's Health First Act, S. 895 on March 15, 2007. The text is here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.895:
It's the Clinton-Dingell bill. I sent you an article about it.
Yes, I am against the nannie state. The proposed cost is never the bottom line. Even the countries who have socialized medicine are trying to go private in a lot of ways. I guess you could say that I am behind the move to not have such a national benefit.
I have looked at S. 895 (but not done a full analysis that would have to include looking at the way in which in amends the current law).
The short version of what it does, however, is that it permits states, at their option, to adopt programs that would include persons up to 400% and younger adults, and low income women and legal immigrants in SCHIP, if the state doesn't impose any limitations on enrollment of children in the program.
Everything is a state option--in the best tradition of local control and federalism.
Serious Summer, thanks for this. Check me here: I understood that states had the option of covering undocumented immigrants in SCHIP--as I think about it, maybe what I should have said is legal immigrants are eligible if the state in which they reside says that they are--that is up to each state. Is that correct? I want to make sure we are factual here and I may have spoken incorrectly earlier here.
Larry, I've just looked at the proposed amendments in S. 895 (and the current bill a long time ago), but my understanding is that a state can cover legal, but not illegal, immigrants under either version.
By the way, people who question the acts of federal judges often have very strong feelings about protecting our children from sexual predators.
Chris,
I was just wondering, do you tape Rush and then type verbatim what he says?
I listen to him every day, and it seems like your posts in response to most anything are just reproductions of what he says on his radio show.
And this is coming from someone that agrees with you on occasion... but you need to listen or read something besides talk radio. Sure its the new media, and sure it gets stories out there that the mainstream media doesn't cover, but its intellectually dishonest how often you pull quotes from his show on this blog nearly daily.
Immigration is one of the few federal issues out there, and according to the principles of federalism, the state's don't have jurisdiction in those situations. However, I can understand those that are employing this tactic, because the federal government has overreached on many issues that were supposed to be left with the states.
Maybe if we went back to the principles of federalism, where the federal government only did things within their reach of power, and the states did everything else (like they are supposed to) we might get something done. The whole reason that we have a federalist system is because governments that have jurisdiction over smaller groups of people can operate more efficiently and fairly than one massive government. Just like with the last two presidential elections, when you have a slight majority that has a massive amount of power and a slight minority whose voices are all but silenced, and your federal government can oversee major issues, you get large groups of people who are, well, pissed off.
If you state votes to have health care for all its citizens, then so be it. If your state doesn't choose to do that, so be it as well.
That's a ramble, so here is the point.
The government needs to either
A. Change immigration laws to make it easier to get here for those that want to work, not collect a check
or
B. Enforce the law, then talk about pardoning those here illegally.
I find it ironic that those that claim to want smaller government think the government will do a good job tracking down and arresting millions of undocumented people.
/long comment
Ron Paul 2008
"By the way, people who question the acts of federal judges often don't have very strong feelings about human or civil rights because, thankfully, in our recent national history we've had judges who ruled to insure both."
Larry,
Judges also upheld rulings that denied people their rights under the constitution. And people questioned their judgement, and I'm glad they did. Dred Scott Decision anyone?
That was kinda a low blow, I feel like.
And by the way, on the topic of rights, our government only has the ability to enforce rights that the constitution guarantees. If you think something is a right that the govt should guarantee, you better amend the constitution, this coming from a strictly legal standpoint.
Justin,
No,I don't tape Rush but I do listen to him. I can't think of a better or more informed person to quote.
I don't think the government should track down and arrest illegals. The employers should be held responsible and no government services should be given to them. The Mexican government seems to think it their duty to tell us how to do immigration but if I slipped into Mexico I would be lucky not to be shot.
Justin, yes, the Dred Scott reference is a "low blow." I, of course, referred to more recent rulings against mainly the insanity of Southern governors/governments in the 1950s and 1960s. In the case of Dred Scott, politics played a huge part as I believe 4 justices were from the South. Quite a different time.
I was actually meaning that your comment was a low blow. I think we should always question the government's decisions, because many times their interests aren't the same as ours. And you seemed to imply that anyone who questions the government or supreme court must want to deny rights to people.
Oh, I see, Justin. Now that I think of it, how could I have assumed you were cutting me any slack at all? :)
To clarify: I was not meaning we should not question the government in any of its branches or functions. I just grow tied of people attacking courts when, in my opinion, they serve us well for the most part. But, then, that always boils down to one's point of view, I suppose.
Just an observation: this post on Farmers Branch and immigration policy got lots of comments. The post that follows on "Monica," a very specific case gets no comments.
Conclusion: we feel free to be meaner or more forthcoming when things are abstract. We find it harder to do when a real person stands in our vision.
I find that encouraging.
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