LINCOLN, Neb:Immigration bill appears stuck

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Immigration bill appears stuck
LINCOLN — The sponsor of an Arizona-style immigration bill in the Nebraska Legislature predicted Tuesday that he won’t get the measure advanced for debate this year.
State Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont said he doesn’t see enough support in the Judiciary Committee to advance the bill for debate by all 49 senators.
“I still think it’s worth a discussion,” Janssen said. “This is the first year I’ve run this bill.”
Janssen’s proposal, Legislative Bill 48, promised to be one of the more controversial proposals of the 2011 session.
Four hundred people rallied against the bill on the State Capitol steps last month, but Gov. Dave Heineman and other advocates for tougher enforcement of immigration laws have spoken out in favor of state action.
The bill is scheduled for a public hearing next Wednesday before the Judiciary Committee.
Five of the eight committee members are needed to advance bills, and Janssen said he can count only two supporters at this point.
Janssen’s bill borrows significantly from an Arizona law that is on hold due to a legal challenge.
The bill would require local law officers to check the immigration status of people they suspect are in the country illegally, if they have been stopped for other reasons.
It also would create state crimes for failing to register as an alien, failing to carry such registration information, working in the country illegally and for harboring, transporting or concealing an illegal immigrant.
Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he can’t speak for the panel but he opposes LB 48. He said Janssen has “a heavy burden” in getting five votes.
Nebraska, he said, has already passed a law to deny benefits and public jobs to illegal immigrants, and that law is working because few are applying for them.
Janssen said his bill is the only “meaningful” immigration reform proposal this year, and that if it dies, he’ll introduce it again next year.
http://www.omaha.com/article/2011022...1/702239877/-1

[Jeanfromfillmore]

High Court makes 2 immigration decisions
The U.S. Supreme Court issued two decisions Monday dealing with illegal immigration issues - one that might have a direct impact on Fremont.
Justices vacated a federal appellate court decision that declared a Hazleton, Pa., illegal immigration ordinance unconstitutional.
They also rejected a challenge to a California rule that allows colleges and universities to offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, a policy similar to those in Nebraska and 11 other states.
Hazleton's ordinance is similar to one approved by Fremont voters in June 2010.
Both would require businesses to use the federal e-Verify database to check to see if a person could legally work in the United States and would pull the business licenses of those firms that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Both also address renting to illegal immigrants.
While Hazleton's former mayor, who is now a member of Congress, called the decision a "huge victory," a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the ordinance, said the case isn't over yet.
"This is great news for the city of Hazleton and all municipalities and states who are trying to cope with the substantial burden imposed by illegal immigrants," U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, a Republican from Hazleton, said at a press conference. "The Supreme Court was very clear. It rejected the Third Circuit Court opinion. ... We believe it puts our ordinance in a very good position."
Witolf "Vic" Walczak of the ACLU, which also is one of the group's challenging Fremont's ordinance, stressed the ruling does not reverse the Third Circuit Court's decision. It only directs the court to re-evaluate the case.
"I hate for them to be wasting good champagne, but it's premature for them to be popping the cork. This case ain't over," Walczak said. "The champagne could go bad before Hazleton gets a victory."
He noted the Supreme Court last year returned three other cases to the Third Circuit Court for reconsideration. In two of those three, the court reaffirmed its original ruling.
Barletta said the Supreme Court's recently upholding of an Arizona law that mandates use e-Verify gives Hazleton strong legal footing because key provisions are similar to the city's ordinance. But he acknowledged the Arizona case does not directly address the housing component of Hazleton's ordinance.
Hazleton, like Fremont, has never implemented its ordinance because of the court challenge.
In its other ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to California's version of the Dream Act.
The justices dismissed an appeal from lawyers for a conservative immigration-law group who contended "preferential treatment" for illegal immigrants violated federal immigration law. The group had cited a little-known provision in a 1986 law that barred states from giving "any postsecondary benefit" to an "alien who is not lawfully present in the United States ... on the basis of residence within a state."
But last year, in the first ruling of its kind, the California Supreme Court said the state's policy did not conflict with federal law because the tuition benefit is contingent on a student graduating from a California high school, not the student's place of residence. The state's legislature adopted this policy in 2001.
Nebraska's 2006 Dream Act also requires students to have graduated from an in-state high school.
State Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont has twice tried to repeal the Nebraska law, most recently in the last legislative session. The Legislature's Education Committee killed that bill a week after a Lincoln civil-rights attorney told members the Dream Act does not violate federal law.
In the 2009-10 school year, 37 undocumented students were enrolled at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and one at a state college.
In California, officials said about 41,000 students last year took advantage of the state's special tuition rule, but the vast majority of those were students at community colleges. In 2009, the 10-campus University of California system said 2,019 students paid in-state tuition under the terms of the state law. Of these, about 600 were believed to be illegal immigrants.
The other states with similar laws are Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
Another 12 states have explicitly refused to grant in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. For its part, the federal government - through the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations - has taken no steps to enforce the federal provision.
Citing this confusion over the meaning of federal law, the Washington-based Immigration Reform Law Institute had appealed the California case to the Supreme Court. Kris Kobach, a Kansas lawyer and counsel for the group, said the federal law "will become a dead letter in any state where the legislature is willing to play semantic games to defeat the objectives of Congress."
The justices put out a one-line order dismissing the appeal in the case of Martinez v. Board of Regents of the University of California.
Kobach also represents Fremont in its legal challenge over the illegal immigration ordinance.
http://fremonttribune.com/news/local...cc4c002e0.html