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 Post subject: Feds considering lawsuits against Indiana, other states over
PostPosted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 9:38 am 
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http://www.indystar.com/article/2011093 ... /1001/NEWS

Feds considering lawsuits against Indiana, other states over immigration laws

Indiana's tough new immigration law -- already being challenged in U.S. District Court by the ACLU -- could face yet another wave of opposition, this time from the federal government.

The U.S. Justice Department said Thursday it is considering challenging immigration laws in Indiana and several other states, including one largely upheld by an Alabama court Wednesday.

"To the extent we find state laws that interfere with the federal government's enforcement of immigration law, we are prepared to bring suit," Justice Department spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa told The Indianapolis Star on Thursday.

Rep. Eric Koch, R-Bedford, who co-sponsored the law in the Indiana House, criticized the federal government for knocking Indiana's immigration strategy without offering its own.

"The federal government has created the problem," Koch said. "As states, we have acted to solve it. So it would be ironic in that regard if they chose to challenge our efforts to solve a problem that they created."

But opponents of Indiana's law have long argued that's the point: It's the federal government's problem. Beyond that, opponents argued that Indiana's law likely would be ruled unconstitutional, could subject immigrants who are in the country legally to harassment and might make it more difficult to attract employers.

The news pleased Sen. Tom Wyss, R-Fort Wayne, an early critic of the state's immigration law.

"It doesn't surprise me that the feds are going after it," he said. "I felt like we were doing something more for political posturing than something that we should be doing as a state.

"Law enforcement has enough to do," he said, and "dangerously, some law enforcement officers could start profiling, and there could be civil rights and civil liberties problems."

Indiana's state law, approved this year, denies tax breaks to businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants; makes illegal immigrants ineligible for in-state tuition and certain scholarships; bars the use of consular identification cards; and allows state and local police to arrest people whose immigration status has been questioned by federal authorities -- even if those authorities have since determined that the person should be able to remain in the country.

Those last two provisions -- which the American Civil Liberties Union and others contend are in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal law -- already have been placed on hold by U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker, who is hearing the ACLU case, which is scheduled for November.

Alabama's new immigration law received a different reception Wednesday, when a federal judge there allowed key provisions to take effect.

The Justice Department already has filed suit in that state and in Arizona, the first to pass a get-tough immigration law. Federal lawyers are talking to Utah officials about a possible third lawsuit and also are considering legal challenges in Indiana, Georgia and South Carolina, according to court documents and government officials.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller's office is required by his position to defend the law in court, but he is not contesting Barker's hold order.

During debate over the legislation, Zoeller, a Republican, joined a group supporting an "Indiana Compact," which stated that immigration "is a federal policy issue between the U.S. government and other countries, not Indiana and other countries."

Zoeller's office did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. A spokeswoman for Gov. Mitch Daniels said the office had no comment at this time.

Legal experts said it is highly unusual for the federal government to take such an aggressive stance on state laws, especially since -- as in Indiana -- civil rights groups already have sued most of those states.

"I don't recall any time in history that the Justice Department has so aggressively challenged state laws," Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert at George Washington University Law School, told The Washington Post.

The legal skirmishing was triggered by last year's Arizona law, which requires that police check immigration status if they stop someone while enforcing other laws. Amid a fierce national debate, a Justice Department lawsuit led federal courts to block that measure's most contested provisions, but similar laws were approved in recent months in Alabama, Utah, Georgia, Indiana and South Carolina. At least 17 other states have considered such measures this year.

Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said new state laws such as the one approved in Indiana offer a common sense approach to a problem the federal government is ignoring.

"Basically," Dane said, "all the states are doing is replicating the laws the feds already have -- with one difference: The states are going to enforce their laws."

Dane said FAIR represents citizens who think federal immigration policies must be reformed. He said the laws passed in Indiana and many other states offer a good balance.

"They call for neither amnesty nor mass round-ups," he said. "It's common sense."

Immigration attorney Angela Adams, who is working with the ACLU to strike down parts of the state law, said she hoped any Justice Department suits would be a step toward a conversation about comprehensive federal immigration reform.

"It's saying what states can and can't do," she said, "but hopefully with an eye toward fixing the broken immigration system, because somebody has to, and it should be the federal government, Congress."

While the Justice Department mulls its options -- here and in other states -- the issue still might end up in the hands of another branch of the federal government: the U.S. Supreme Court.


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