Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 9:53 am by Darryl
Livin’ in the U.S.A.
Ya learn something new every day. Apparently, the term “illegal alien” is a misnomer except under some very specific circumstances. People who illegally come into the U.S. are not illegal once here. Their crime is limited to a one-time act at entry, not an ongoing “flaunting of the laws of the U.S.” as many righties would have it.
The Wichita Eagle reports on an appeals court ruling in Kansas:
In a Barton County case, a three-judge panel issued an opinion Friday that a judge could not deny probation and order jail time for convicted drug dealer Nicholas L. Martinez based solely on the grounds that Martinez is an unauthorized immigrant.
“While Congress has criminalized the illegal entry into this country, it has not made the continued presence of an illegal alien in the United States a crime unless the illegal alien has previously been deported and has again entered this country illegally,” Judge Patrick McAnany wrote for the court majority.
The prosecutor refused to release Martinez on probation because, the very act of him being in the U.S. would be a violation of the law, hence a violation of his probation. Not so.
McAnany cited a 1958 U.S. Supreme Court decision and a 1979 ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, both of which separated the act of entering the country from the act of being in the country.
“Entry is limited to a particular locality and hardly suggests continuity,” the Supreme Court ruling said.
One exception to this is when someone has been deported and re-enters the country without proper authorization. There are specific laws that put such a person into a perpetual state of illegality.
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 11:58 am
Another example of bad law based on other, old bad law which ignores more recent laws and precedent, courtesy of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the most overruled circuit in the USA. In United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990), the United States Supreme Court said it was not even a settled question whether illegal aliens in this country had Fourth Amendment rights! Also, “illegal alien” is a term that appears in Title 8 of the U.S. Code, and the Federal Register, in denying federal benefits. So don’t believe everything you read, even in an appellate court decision.
Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Conservatives can gain from the Kansas ruling. See this analysis: http://www.scragged.com/blogs/scragged/archive/2007/08/28/kansas-immigration-decision-is-good-for-conservatives.aspx