Reuters
By Lawrence Hurley
May 5, 2014
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left intact a Nebraska
town's ordinance that cracks down on illegal immigration, declining to
hear an appeal filed
by a civil rights group.
The 2010 ordinance in Fremont, Nebraska, includes a provision that bars landlords from renting to illegal immigrants.
Plaintiffs
represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund sued, saying the
measure was trumped by federal immigration law.
The
high court's decision not to hear the plaintiffs' appeal leaves intact a
June 2013 ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which
concluded that the ordinance
does not conflict with federal law.
The
rental provision, one of only a handful around the country, requires
prospective tenants to obtain an occupancy license. They must declare
their immigration status.
City police then check with the federal government. If a tenant is
found to be an illegal immigrant, the license is revoked.
In
March, the Supreme Court declined to take up two similar cases in which
lower courts had struck down ordinances in Texas and Pennsylvania.
The
ordinances in those cases were slightly different in that they imposed
penalties on immigrants, which the Fremont ordinance does not.
The
last time the court decided a major immigration case was in 2012 when
it partially upheld Arizona's immigration law. The previous year, the
court upheld another Arizona
law that penalizes businesses for hiring illegal immigrants.
In
April 2013, the court signaled a reluctance to get further involved in
immigration when it declined to hear an appeal from Alabama seeking to
revive a section of the
state's immigration law that criminalized the harboring of illegal
immigrants.
The case is Keller v. Fremont, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 13-1043.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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