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A federal judge on Wednesday said
Alabama law enforcement officers can try to check the immigration
status of those they suspect are in the country illegally... the
toughest in the country.
U.S. District Judge
Sharon Lovelace Blackburn (President George H.W. Bush) said Alabama is
allowed to tread anywhere that
federal law doesn’t explicitly prohibit states from acting,
which means the state can enact its own penalties for immigrants who
fail to carry their registration papers, and can enable its state and
local police to check immigration status.
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Finally, a judge who appears to have read and understood the 9th and
10th Amendments. Almost. This is what I find oddly at odds
with her thinking.
"The powers not delegated to
the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
So what happened here?
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But
the judge did block four parts of Alabama’s law that she said go beyond
what federal law allows: One provision created a civil action against
employers who hired illegal immigrants over legal workers; another
banned illegal immigrants from applying for a job; one made it a crime
to harbor an illegal immigrant; and the other prohibited businesses
from claiming tax deductions on wages paid to illegal immigrants.
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How could Judge Lovelace Blackburn apply the 10th Amendment so
haphazardly? I'm not a federal judge, and that's
unfortunate. I will then direct you the the Federalist Blog's
treatment of this very issue (The
US Constitution Only Delegates the Power Over Immigration or Asylum to
the States)
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Unlike
the Federal Government, State governments claim broad general powers,
and therefore, the question is never whether a power is granted for a
State to exercise, but whether the power has been explicitly withheld
from the State. The Federal Government was given specific national
sovereignty over such things as war, peace, treaties (within the sphere
of powers delegated), print money, define and punish piracies and
felonies on the high Seas, make uniform rules of naturalization for
foreigners who migrated to some State per State law, etc.
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Judge, the ball is in your court. Explain yourself, please.
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