NH Court Ruling and Jerry Kilgore
By: Lowell
Published On: 8/13/2005 1:00:00 AM
Yesterday, a New Hampshire judge "threw out a novel strategy that two police departments had tried to use to combat illegal immigration....charging illegal immigrants with criminal trespassing." According to the story in today's New York Times, "The towns' actions [had] received national attention, with police departments from Florida to California considering taking similar steps if the charges were upheld in the New Hampshire courts." You can add Virginia to that list, with Jerry Kilgore basically arguing the same thing, namely that (as the Washington Post explains) "local police [should be given] the authority to detain illegal immigrants after they've been arrested for another crime -- loitering, say -- and turn them over to federal officials."
The Kilgore-style "round 'em up for trespassing, loitering, or whatever you can charge 'em with" strategy has now been ruled as "unconstitutional attempts to regulate in the area of enforcement of immigration violations, an area where Congress must be deemed to have regulated with such civil sanctions and criminal penalties as it feels are sufficient." In other words, immigration and securing the nations' borders are Federal -- not state -- responsibilities. And Jerry Kilgore, once again, has shown that he is "reckless" with the law, especially for someone who served as this state's Attorney General. Sounds like Jerry Kilgore needs a refresher course in Constitutional Law and specfically the role of Federal vs. State governments. Maybe he can go back to school after he loses the election to Tim Kaine in a couple more months.
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