CNSNews ^ | April 20, 2011 | Penny Starr
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 8:14:47 PM by jazusamo
(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to file suit in federal court to stop the implementation of a new immigration law in Utah that would allow illegal aliens to gain work permits and employers in the state to hire them.
Smith sent a six-page letter to Holder on Monday asking why the Department of Justice (DOJ) would sue Arizona over its immigration law that closely mirrors federal law while ignoring the Utah law, which Smith says “blatantly” violates federal immigration laws.
“Even though the Utah immigration law blatantly undermines federal immigration law, DOJ has remained silent,” Smith told CNSNews.com. “But DOJ has sued Arizona for their law that merely complements and assists in the enforcement of federal immigration law.”
“This is hypocritical,” Smith said. “If DOJ chooses not to take legal action against Utah’s unconstitutional law, it will be clear the Administration bases their decisions on their own political views rather than constitutional principle.”
Utah’s HR 116 is one of a package of four immigration bills signed into law on March 16, 2011 by Republican Governor Gary Herbert. It would allow illegal aliens who lived or worked in the state prior to May 10, 2011 who pay a fine and pass a criminal background check to be issued a work permit.
It also would provide illegal aliens with work permits to sponsor spouses and their children under 21 who are in the country illegally.
Utah State Sen. Bill Wright, who sponsored the HR 116, told NPR for a Mar. 18 report that the Obama administration would have to issue a federal immigration law waiver before the state could implement the guest worker program.
“Up to this point, the federal government has proved that they’re null and void of any ideas because of the political environment there,” Wright told NPR.
Smith’s letter to Holder about HR 116 details how the Utah law apparently violates federal immigration law, including the Immigration and Nationality Act , which makes it illegal for a U.S. employer to hire individuals who are in the country illegally.
The act would also make it unlawful for a U.S. employer to hire an individual without complying with the employment verification system to determine the legal status of that prospective employee, Smith’s letter points out.
Smith also states in the letter that Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to establish immigration policy and law.
Moreover, Smith said that in suing Arizona over its immigration law, the DOJ claimed that Arizona was violating the Constitution’s Supremacy clause.
“Because [the Arizona law] attempts to set state-specific immigration policy, it legislates in an area constitutionally reserved for the federal government, conflicts with federal immigration laws and federal immigration,” the DOJ said in its Arizona lawsuit. “And impedes the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress, and is therefore pre-empted.”
The DOJ also said the Arizona law would lead to the creation of a “patchwork of state and local immigration policies throughout the country.”
“Your silence regarding the Utah law stands in stark contrast to your early condemnation of the Arizona law that instituted a state immigration enforcement scheme,” Smith wrote in his letter to Holder, adding that the attorney general criticized the bill before he had even read it.
“If the administration is serious about having a uniform immigration policy rather than a ‘patchwork’ of state immigration laws you profess to oppose, then the administration needs to take action against the Utah law,” Smith wrote.
According to a fact sheet provided by the Arizona State Senate, its law against illegal immigration “Requires officials and agencies of the state and political subdivisions to fully comply with and assist in the enforcement of federal immigration laws and gives county attorneys subpoena power in certain investigations of employers. Establishes crimes involving trespassing by illegal aliens, stopping to hire or soliciting work under specified circumstances, and transporting, harboring or concealing unlawful aliens, and their respective penalties.”
The other immigration bills signed into law in Utah include an Arizona-style immigration enforcement bill (H.B. 497); an agreement between Utah and the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon to provide Utah businesses with migrant workers (H.B. 466); and an amendment (H.B. 469) that allows Utah citizens to sponsor immigrants.
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, Utah’s senior senator, did not respond to CNSNews.com’s request for comment on Lamar’s letter concerning H.B. 116. But in a letter to Americans for Legal Immigration, Hatch said he had not taken a position on the measure because he “has the greatest respect for state's rights and the right of the state of Utah to determine state laws.”
“I do not support amnesty and in fact have voted against it,” Hatch said in his letter. “[M]any of our nation’s problems result from a residual effect of a porous border and a breakdown of our immigration enforcement system.”
The Department of Justice did not respond to CNSNews.com’s request for comment on the Utah law and Lamar’s letter to the attorney general.
The Utah laws would go into effect in 2013. The Utah Legislature has sent a letter to the Utah congressional delegation asking its members to support the bills at the federal level and in favor of receiving a waiver from the federal government to allow implementation of the laws.
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