Federal appeals court denies Alabama request to reconsider immigration law News
Federal appeals court denies Alabama request to reconsider immigration law
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[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] on Wednesday denied a request [order, PDF] from Alabama state officials to reconsider its August ruling partially striking down [order, PDF] the state’s immigration law [HB 56, PDF]. In September state officials petitioned [press release] the appeals court to reconsider its ruling [JURIST report] after a three-judge panel rejected provisions making it a crime for undocumented immigrants to work or solicit work, imposing criminal penalties on persons who rent property to illegal immigrants and requiring state officials to check the immigration status of children in public schools. The court ultimately upheld [opinion, PDF] several provisions, including one allowing police officers to check the immigration status of persons suspected of a crime.

Immigration law [JURIST backgrounder] has became a hot button issue over the past few years as many states have passed laws giving state and local officials more power to crack down on illegal immigration. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] in September denied a request for a new injunction against a controversial provision of Arizona’s immigration law [SB 1070, PDF] which requires law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of persons they stop or arrest if there is a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the US illegally. In August the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] again heard arguments [JURIST report] on two anti-illegal immigrant laws enacted in 2006 by the city of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which deny permits to businesses that employ illegal immigrants and fine landlords who extend housing to them. In July a judge for the US District Court for the District of South Carolina [official website] declined to lift an injunction [JURIST report] against South Carolina’s controversial immigration law [SB 20 materials], despite the recent Supreme Court ruling in Arizona v. United States [JURIST report]. Last May the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Immigration Law Center filed a class action lawsuit challenging Utah’s immigration law, the same month that the ACLU filed a class action [JURIST reports] in the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana [official website] challenging that state’s immigration law.