http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/us/10immig.html?ex=1360299600&en=81757bfd313cf911&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
After groups challenging state and local laws cracking down on illegal
immigration won a series of high-profile legal victories last year, the
tide has ****fted as federal judges recently handed down several equally
significant decisions upholding those laws.
On 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 Federal District Court, methodically rejected all of the contractors’
arguments that the Arizona law invaded legal territory belonging
exclusively to the federal government.
On Jan. 31, a federal judge in Missouri, E. Richard Webber, issued a
similarly broad and even more forcefully worded decision in favor of an
ordinance aimed at employers of illegal immigrants adopted by Valley
Park, Mo., a city on the outskirts of St. Louis.
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. Judge 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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