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Background:

Legal tide turns: State, local immigration laws upheld
By JULIA PRESTON

Thursday, February 14, 2008

The New York Times

Groups challenging state and local laws cracking down on illegal immigration won a series of high-profile legal victories last year, but the tide has shifted as federal judges recently handed down several equally significant decisions upholding those laws.

Last Thursday, a federal judge in Arizona ruled against a lawsuit by construction contractors and immigrant organizations who sought to halt a state law that went into effect on Jan. 1 imposing severe penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. The judge, Neil V. Wake of U.S. District Court, methodically rejected all of the contractors’ arguments that the Arizona law invaded legal territory belonging exclusively to the federal government.

And, in an even more sweeping ruling in December, a judge in Oklahoma, James H. Payne, threw out a lawsuit against a state statute enacted last year requiring state contractors to verify new employees’ immigration status. Payne said the immigrants should not be able to bring their claims to court because they were living in the country in violation of the law.
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