Feds Unleash Barrage of Lawsuits against States Enacting Immigration Bills
(November 2, 2011 — Washington, D.C.) - On Monday, South Carolina became the third state to be sued by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in the Obama administration’s relentless effort to stop the enforcement of U.S. immigration law. The suit seeks to enjoin South Carolina from implementing a law that would allow the state to enforce immigration laws enacted by Congress, which the Obama administration refuses to enforce.
The administration has previously sued Arizona and Alabama claiming that federal preemption precludes states from becoming involved in any aspect of immigration enforcement. Yet, the administration has refused to act against state and local governments endorsing “sanctuary” or non-cooperation policies that brazenly defy the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration laws.
Not only has the DOJ sued the state of Alabama, the DOJ’s Civil Rights division on Tuesday “requested” that local school districts around the state provide detailed and cumbersome data. Even though there has not been a single allegation that Alabama is denying illegal aliens K-12 education, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, who previously headed an illegal alien advocacy group, is attempting to use his office to impose intimidating volumes of pointless paperwork on the school system.
“There can be little doubt that the Obama administration is using the DOJ as political weapon, wielded against state and local governments that get in the way of their politically driven immigration agenda,” charged Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “This is now the third lawsuit of its kind filed by DOJ. The American public has a right to know how many millions of dollars in department resources are being spent by the administration to make sure that no one can enforce immigration laws that interfere with the President’s political agenda.
“The primary objective of the DOJ’s suit against South Carolina is to deter other states from considering local enforcement of immigration laws. Much the same can be said for DOJ’s paperwork ‘request’ from Alabama schools,” Stein said. “The reason that the Obama administration is so aggressively going after states that enforce immigration laws is that those laws work so effectively. Illegal aliens have responded to immigration enforcement policies in Arizona and Alabama by leaving those states in significant numbers. These states have shown that illegal immigration is a controllable phenomenon and that neither mass deportations nor mass amnesty are necessary to address it.
“It is ironic that the same administration that claims it has unfettered ‘prosecutorial discretion’ to not enforce laws against broad classes of immigration lawbreakers continues to show no restraint in going after states that try to enforce immigration laws,” continued Stein. “As the federal government grapples with crippling deficits, this administration is again demonstrating its willingness to spend any amount of taxpayer dollars to circumvent Congress — all to further its own political agenda.”