Judge Lets Key Parts of Alabama's Strict Immigration Law Stand

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Judge Lets Key Parts of Alabama's Strict Immigration Law Stand
A federal judge has refused to block key parts of Alabama's new law on illegal immigration, including its requirement to check the immigration status of students.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn blocked some other parts of the law, which both supporters and critics say is the nation's toughest clampdown on illegal immigration by a state.
Blackburn said in her ruling issued Wednesday that federal law doesn't prohibit the state from requiring schools to check the immigration status of students or from requiring police to determine the status of suspected illegal immigrants.
She upheld the Obama administration's objections to other sections of the law, including making it a crime for an illegal immigrant to solicit work or for anyone to transport or harbor an illegal immigrant.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...#ixzz1ZH0oG8KQ
Judge OKs key parts of Alabama immigration law
A federal judge gave a green light for Alabama to enforce some of the most controversial parts of its toughest-in-the-nation immigration law, ruling that certain measures do not violate federal law.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn ruled that Alabama can enforce the law’s requirements for schools to verify students’ immigration status, and for police to determine citizenship and status of those they stop, detain or arrest. Police are allowed to arrest anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant during a routine traffic stop, under the law.
In a 115-page opinion, Blackburn wrote that “the United States has not met the requirements for a preliminary injunction” for several of the measures the Justice Department had argued violated the Constitution and usurped the federal government’s authority to set immigration policy.
But Blackburn granted the Obama administration’s request to block certain portions of the law until she makes a final ruling. Those sections include provisions making it a crime to transport or harbor an illegal immigrant, or for an illegal immigrant to look for or perform work. Blackburn also blocked parts of the law that would allow discrimination lawsuits against companies that hire illegal immigrants when they discharge or fail to hire a U.S. citizen, and forbid employers from claiming as business tax deductions wages paid to illegal immigrants.
Blackburn sided with the Justice Department on those sections, she wrote, because “there is a substantial likelihood that the United States will succeed on the merits of its claims” that the measures are preempted by federal law.
Alabama’s crackdown — considered even more restrictive than Arizona’s — had originally been set to take effect Sept. 1, but came under fire from the Justice Department and other groups that filed lawsuits against the measure. Blackburn issued a temporary hold on the law at the end of August to give herself more time to review the case.
Multiple lawsuits — filed by the Obama administration, bishops from Alabama’s Catholic, United Methodist and Episcopal churches and civil-rights groups including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union — were consolidated for the motions seeking a preliminary injunction against the measure.
The court has only ruled on the motions by the Department of Justice and the churches thus far.
Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney representing the civil-rights groups whose case is still pending, told POLITICO in a statement that “the court struck down key provisions of the law and candidly acknowledged that on other issues her decision conflicted with the rulings of other courts, which we believe were correct.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz1ZHKgfiec