Last week a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals looked at five immigration cases, turned to the Department of Homeland Security, and effectively said, "Really!? Are you really going to deport these people? Or are you going to use your common sense and focus your limited law enforcement resources on dangerous criminals and national security risks?" The court went on to say, in essence, "How about this, go and think about what we've asked and let us know what you've decided by March 19. In the meantime we're going to focus our judicial resources on more important cases."
The court's orders were the result of a memorandum issued last year by John Morton, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in which he announced that the agency would employ "prosecutorial discretion" in its enforcement of the immigration law. Morton ordered ICE agents and prosecutors to focus on the removal of illegal immigrants who pose a threat to our communities -- dangerous criminals and national security risks. Each case considered by Ninth Circuit concerned an immigrant who had been in the U.S. for a long time, had strong family ties, and had no criminal record. Unfortunately, such sympathetic factors are usually meaningless to the immigration law which blindly insists on deportation without regard to fairness, justice, or common sense.
I'll leave it to others to decide whether or not the Ninth Circuit panel overstepped its authority. After all, as Judge O'Scannlain pointed out in his dissent, courts "have only the slimmest authority even to review the exercise of prosecutorial discretion." And while the Morton memo is a common sense approach to enforcing a badly broken immigration statute, it is not the law of the land.
So what was the court up to?
Every day in this country courts are forced to turn their backs on deserving immigrants and American citizens alike because of the dysfunctional immigration law. In courtrooms all across America judges sit helplessly by, their hands legally tied, as the twisted immigration law wreaks havoc on American families, stymies American business, fails to protect people fleeing persecution, and stomps on the due process rights of immigrants and U.S. citizens. Its mean spirited provisions tear husbands from wives, parents from children and brothers from sisters. Like some sinister beast in a horror movie, the immigration law creeps into peoples' lives and destroys them without so much as a second thought about the human suffering it leaves behind.
It's tempting to brush aside the Ninth Circuit judges' orders as improper judicial activism. But that misses the point. Even the U.S. Supreme Court appears to have weighed in on the broken immigration law through its decisions in cases like Padilla v. Kentucky and Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, which derive from the confusing, contradictory, and counterintuitive statute, and signal a major shift in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence toward greater protection of immigrants' rights. Nor is the Supreme Court's concern limited to the law. It has also taken the government to task for its haphazard and illogical reading of it. Late last year in Judulang v. Holder a unanimous Supreme Court called the government's interpretation of a legal provision "arbitrary and capricious" and "unmoored from the purposes and concerns of the immigration laws."
Another, more plausible, explanation for these decisions is that the nation's courts, including perhaps even the Supreme Court, are effectively throwing their hands up and imploring Congress to get to the hard work of fashioning a law that will provide America with a safe, orderly and fair immigration policy -- one that protects American families and businesses and restores civil liberties.
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In the days of Jim Crow, White people were not charged with crimes when they hurt Black people. In the days of the Robber Barons, if a worker was abused by representatives of a Company, Prosecutors often refused to bring any charges. Homestead, the Matawan Massacre, Blair Mountain, the list of beaten and killed workers is long. Are we now to return to the time of the Grapes of Wrath, The Jungle, and Jim Crow where not prosecuted because of what group someone is a part if is to be the rule of law? Apparently so.
"Unfortunately, such sympathetic factors are usually meaningless to the immigration law which blindly insists on deportation without regard to fairness, justice, or common sense."
Blindly insisting on enforcing the law is equal treatment under the law. If the law is reasonable, there should be no issue with enforcing it. We SHOULD enforce it blindly. Lady Justice wears a blindfold after all! The author does not seem to think it's reasonable for a country to control who resides within its borders. Make no mistake: He is not talking about an exception here and there or special circumstances--he wants the courts to ignore the law for practically every person in violation of it. That is extremely radical, not to mention corrupt. People CHOOSE to violate immigration law but he acts like they are victims and it's our fault to expect any accountability to the limits we set.
Or are you lobbying for opening of the border floodgates? Are you in favor of allowing people to acquire US citizenship and make it no harder than buying a quart of milk? Cheapening it even more?
I noticed there was never a word mentioned about enforcement, that's a dead give away.
"As there is no right to the favorable exercise of discretion by the agency, nothing in this memorandum should be construed to prohibit the apprehension, detention, or removal of any alien unlawfully in the United States or to limit the legal authority of ICE or any of its personnel to enforce federal immigration law.
Similarly, this memorandum, which may be modified, superseded, or rescinded at any time without notice, is not intended to, does not, and may not be relied upon to create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law by any party in any administrative, civil, or criminal matter."
Indeed the 9th circuit will probably find that the immigration laws are bad because it infringes on the right of aliens to be happy, ie to live in the US. We should not enforce our laws that illegals are "forced" to break either since they have no choice, so we have to obey them, but illegals do not. Steal my ID? OK Steal my SS number to get a job? OK Forge papers to get a job? OK Commit perjury when swearing they are legal to be here? OK Kill an American as one of the petitioners did in the Judulang case?OK You get to stay and take his place! Way to go!
What was it, O'Malley's 12 oz bar exam?
The major problem is that nobody is willing to cut off international traffic. The smartest illegals walk right thru the ports of entry, because everybody wants to do business with them, especially the hot ones.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but you might have to learn to get along with your neighbors.
Every employee E-Verified along with NIDC.
It might help if you understood the word “immigrant”. The article was about illegal aliens. Here is a US Government reference to help out your comprehension.
Immigrant:
An alien who has been granted the right by the USCIS to reside permanently in the United States and to work without restrictions in the United States. Also known as a Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR). All immigrants are eventually issued a "green card" (USCIS Form I-551), which is the evidence of the alien’s LPR status. LPR’s who are awaiting the issuance of their green cards may bear an I-551 stamp in their foreign passports.
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=129236,00.html
I think that we tried your Amnesty (one-time) solution back in 1986. How did that work out and why would we try it AGAIN?
Fix & fully implement E-Verify. Fine and imprison employers who employ illegal immigrants. Enforce the LAW!
In what country? This country has failed to pass even the Dream Act 12 times in the past 10 years. Even Obama will only say that he will sign the Dream Act if it gets to his desk. Since that hasn't happened even once in the last decade, what are the odds?
We should take a time out to know the "reason" for laws that work against the needs of the country.
Why does a nation that thrived on immigration and needs the labor pool have laws that force immigrant workers to live in the fear of arrest and deportation?
Answers?:
1 we don't need them.
Statistics on Alabama's and Georgia which lost crops because there was no one to pick prove otherwise.
2 They're taking American jobs.
Latinos are doing stoop labor Americans won't do. There's no reason that good jobs are going first to Latinos, unless you think American workers aren't as good. Is that what you think?
3 Immigrant workers in fear of arrest or deportation can't complain when you don't pay overtime, cheat on wages, and raise your profits.
Employers prefer a law that keeps immigrant labor undocumented and "illegal"
4 We don't want people of color making money in America.
I don't think there are that many racists in the US that they would control federal law.
I can't say that about Alabama because I just don't know.
Think about it. Answer number 3 is why we have no rational immigration law.
Taxpayers pay police to enforce that law to subsidize the profits of cheating employers.
The rest is bull.
1) We do not need illegal aliens: True. Your “point” on Alabama and Georgia misses completely. The farmers COULD have hired legal labor at legal market rates. They also could have LEGALLY hired unlimited H-2A workers. Instead they chose to hire illegally. I hope that they suffered from a poor (& illegal) business decision.
2) Taking American jobs: Illegal aliens drive down the wages of low-skilled labor and displace citizens from these positions. Link: www.pewhispanic.org/files/reports/46.pdf
Check out page 27. “For example more than 1 out of every 4 (or 27% of) drywall/ceiling tile installers in the U.S. is an unauthorized migrant.” There are NO jobs that a legal resident will not perform for a “legal” wage. Economics 101
3) Illegal aliens’ status exposes them to employer abuse. I agree. Fix & fully implement E-Verify. Fine and imprison employers who employ illegal immigrants.
4) “We do not want people of color making money in the US”: Very strange comment. Latinos are associated with illegal immigration because the VAST MAJORITY of illegal aliens ARE Latino. (also from the Pew Hispanic Center link). Not necessarily racist, but it is reality.
We DO have a rational immigration law that allows over 1 million legal immigrants each year. Our immigration laws are much MORE lenient than other countries’ laws (Check out Mexico’s). Our politicians have FAILED to allow enforcement of our existing laws.