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Feds Sue Alabama Over Immigration Law

Says law oversteps its bounds, interferes with federal policy

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Aug 2, 2011 12:09 PM CDT

(Newser) – In a move that will shock exactly no one, the Department of Justice is treating Alabama’s extraordinarily harsh illegal immigration law the same way it treated Arizona’s: It’s suing. The DOJ is asking for an injunction stopping the law from going into effect on Sept. 1, arguing that it unconstitutionally steps on the federal government’s immigration powers, the Birmingham News reports.

“To put it in terms we relate to here in Alabama, you can only have one quarterback in a football game,” says the US Attorney for northern Alabama. “In immigration, the federal government is the quarterback.” Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano also released statements condemning the law, noting that even Birmingham’s chief of police opposes the law. It was one of two lawsuits filed against the law yesterday; the other was from the bishops in charge of Alabama’s Episcopal, Catholic, and United Methodist churches.

Participants in a protest against Alabama's new law against illegal immigration march through Linn Park, Saturday, June 25, 2011, in Birmingham, Ala.
Participants in a protest against Alabama's new law against illegal immigration march through Linn Park, Saturday, June 25, 2011, in Birmingham, Ala.   (AP Photo/ The Birmingham News, Mark Almond)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 43 comments
DaveFrancis
Aug 2, 2011 9:57 PM CDT
The Liberal progressives are at it again in looking for a motive to tax us even more, so we keep supporting illegal aliens. We were just diverted from a calamity, with the $14.5 trillion dollars treasury deficit, if it actually works? But every year and rapidly climbing is the cost of the $113 billion dollars we supplement for lawbreakers, who entered the United States without permission of the people. There is no excuse for our government or any previous administration to keep catering to these non-Americans, who have no right to be here. Eric Holder, a Justice Department Czarists in Obama’s Imperial Court, is currently serving papers on Alabama. This Southern State is trying to save its citizens and permanent residents, by enacting illegal immigration enforcement. The court challenge seeks an injunction before the law goes into effect on September 1 and states that the Alabama law undermines federal enforcement efforts of immigration laws. Alabama's Governor Robert Bentley signed the bill into law in June a bill, to stop illegal aliens wrecking his State, as they have in Sanctuary State of California and Nevada. Alabama is not a rich State as is now, suffering from a $298 million dollar loss annually, from serving illegal foreigners with free welfare programs. The bill requires the mandatory use of E-Verify for all public and private businesses and includes the following provisions:   Creates an affirmative defense against business penalties if E-Verify is used;Prohibits lawsuits against businesses that fire an employee due to an E-Verify final non-confirmation determination; Requires state and local governments to use the SAVE system to verify public-benefits eligibility for those attesting to be non-citizens; Creates a misdemeanor for failure to carry an alien registration document; Requires police, after a lawful stop and when practicable, to check a person’s immigration status if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person is illegally present. 4th Amendment protections are included and the status-check requirement is stayed for persons who are crime victims or witnesses; Creates misdemeanors for seeking day-laborer work when illegal present and hiring illegally-present day laborers;Creates misdemeanors for aiding and abetting illegal aliens; Bans illegal aliens from state universities and colleges; andProhibits illegal-alien sanctuary policies; Requires the Attorney General to apply for a 287(g) MOU for state police; Creates a crime for producing fake IDs; and Requires elementary and secondary schools to request a birth certificate for all enrolling students and to determine whether such children were born outside of the U.S. or are children of illegal aliens requiring English-as-a-Second-language classes. Also requires the collection of statistics and a determination of the costs related to illegal-alien students. Should Obama win the 2012 election, he will return the favor to non-citizens and illegal aliens with the passage of another Amnesty. Another Amnesty similar to the 1986 Simpson/Mazzoli bill is projected to cost $2.5 Trillion dollars, according to the Heritage Foundation. Then there is the evident question why would the US government consider this, when every State is struggling to climb out of a financial hole? Every day billions of dollars are added to the US deficit, and still President Obama, Sen. Reid, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano and Eric Holder and his Liberal friends, want to add even more dollars to the growing deficit. California now is carrying a $26 Billion dollar deficit neglecting its own legitimate citizen’s interests as a priority. If the Liberals sitting in Sacramento was ousted, then they would not be adding another $21.Billion and then Carson City, Nevada $1Billion, 191million dollars annually. Both States have very high populations of illegal aliens and no State can survive this type of maltreatment. Welfare for illegal immigrants has got completely out of hand. American taxpayers are spending 3 to 4 dollars on these people, for just one dollar illegal aliens pay into the US Treasury and State general funds. These dollar figures are not speculation, but real numbers on years of calculation's, data and assessments contributed to the general public by (FAIR) Federation of American Immigration Reform, Robert Rector Chief analyst for the Conservative Heritage Foundation and NumbersUSA.  I’m a TEA PARTY MEMBER, are you? The Leftists have been unable scare the TEA PARTY or come to that, average Americans; the Tea Party recognizes all racial groups or individuals religious conviction to welcome, as long as you came to the United States through the front door. Now the panicking Leftists are frantic, as now their calling me and multiples of millions –TERRORISTS. What a wretched lot, when they can’t fight you fairly and sink down into a cesspit of slurs, along with their radical reporters in the press. The Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, aided in winning the first round, to a balanced budget amendment, but it’s a progressive uphill battle in opposition to the Tax and Spend Liberals. Every American who sees that this is a silent occupation by illegal foreigners should call their Washington Representatives. If they want stop the Obama federal government encroaching on State rights, your rights, that only the people raised voice can halt this sham?  This especially covers issues such as border fence remaining insecure and yet Americans still forced through federal law to pay for 300 thousand children who are smuggled across the border annually, that taxpayers must educate. Issues like the DREAM ACT or any action such as a Sanctuary State or Immigration Reform just encourages millions more to slip past borders, or enter by jet with a visa and then stays. Courts have ordered that Taxpayers must cover costs for illegal pregnant Mothers, the whole family and their offspring for non-reimbursed hospital care. Then there are billions of dollars being spent, to cover Medicaid and other welfare programs.  But the activist Liberal judges interpreting the law to their own advantage just dumped the free programs on state taxpayers, as the US government reimburses only a small portion to the respective states. Soon Georgia, Arizona, Utah could face similar court injunctions, from the communist ACLU, the radical La Raza organizations from saving their taxpayers from this disturbing situation.
dungbeetle
Aug 2, 2011 3:52 PM CDT
Sorry Glasswalker, they aren't white so they aren't human. I grew up in the South and why any intelligent, educated person would want to live in any of the 'deep south' states is beyond me. Racist, ignorant, and repressive describes most Alabamians (Georgians, Mississippians, etc.) The bigotry and racism hasn't gone away, it just crawled back under it's rock.   Just judgin' . . .
saucier111
Aug 2, 2011 3:32 PM CDT
I believe we should blame this one on Ronald Reagan,in the fall of 1986 before his second presidential run he gave over 5,000,000 illegals citizenship for votes.Here is the ass hole that kicked that can down the road,and never once tried to enforce America law on immigration,he was for big money.
 

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