Official blog of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania
Labels: Hazleton, immigration
posted by ACLU of Pennsylvania at 8/02/2007 05:01:00 PM
Ah, Thompson''s statement is built of nothing but c[an]ards and false assumptions, just like Barletta's. How sad. If this is what we can expect from candidate Thompson, we can do without such blindness.
To be fair to Thompson, while he uses a lot of language that is inflammatory and misinformed, if you read the rest of his statements you'll see he holds a pretty consistent federalist stance across the board. I don't agree with him, but at least he's not making some kneejerk "illegal means they have no rights" argument; he's being consistent with his opinion that States and localities should write their own laws in most cases. I can respect that.The actual opinion goes into great detail about why Judge Munley regards this as a Federal issue only, and why he thinks that status should be maintained. For instance, the fact that treatment of foreign nationals is a matter of international diplomacy, and therefore the Federal government should be making those decisions, rather than allowing a backwater Podunk like Hazleton, PA or Farmers Branch, TX to incite a foreign nation to anger against the U.S.It's not a question of simple preemption, like opponents are making it out to be, and Munley is not an "activist judge," asinine as that term is. For Thompson to minimize the careful consideration that Judge Munley put into this case is disingenuous, even if his conclusions are consistent with his other Federalist views.
States do have the right to control the behavior of their citizens, and legal and illegal aliens within their jurisdiction, commensurate with the bounds of our Constitution. To put foreign nationals beyond the jurisdiction of the states is to surrender to the incompetence and underreesourced federal government. State governments would be neglecting the welfare of their citizens by doing so. Nothing, I repeat, nothing in the Constitution prohibits states from controlling immigration or gives the federal governmnet exclusive regulatory power to do the same. This is evident by states historical control of immigration long after adoption of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has never overruled such actions. The Constitution clearly grants the federal government the power to establish naturalization rules, but nothing else. And as the Constitution states, powers not expressly excluded by that document or granted as a plenary power to the federal government, remains to the states or the people. To call Hazleton and like communities "backwaters podunk"is an arrogant disregard for states rights and the will of the people as institutionalized in our immigration laws. Citizens do hold primacy over foreign nationals, as it is the former that may elect to exclude the latter through the enactment of immigration law. The right to exclude from a society is clearly a power that makes citizens superior in rights to the foreigner, the 14th Amendment notwithstanding.Munley, like may judges before him is enacting legislation in his court. His rulings, like that of many judegs before him, are based upon a house of cards, case law that has no foundation in our Constitution and destined to be overturned by the Supreme nine.
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