Judges Getting the Message About Illegal Immigrants

In December, a federal judge in Oklahoma upheld an Oklahoma law requiring state contractors to determine and verify the immigration status of new hires. U.S. District Judge James H. Payne threw out a legal challenge to the law.

In January, U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber emphatically ruled against illegal immigrants who had sued to overturn a similar ordinance enacted by Valley Park, Mo., a town near St. Louis. The court upheld the ordinance, which was directed at employers who were hiring illegal immigrants.

In February U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake rejected each and every argument challenging a new Arizona law that imposes penalties on businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. He dismissed the claim that federal law somehow ties the hands of state and local governments seeking to protect their own citizens.

These three decisions in three different parts of the country included both Republican- and Democratic-appointed judges. In the term loved by the mainstream media, there is now bipartisan judicial support for state and local legislation against illegal immigrants.

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