Illegal immigration lost big in Congress in 2007, but continued to win in the courts. Besieged by an influx of unlawful immigration, the Pennsylvania town of Hazleton passed ordinances prohibiting the harboring and employment of illegal aliens and also requiring tenants to prove they are lawfully here. But ACLU-supported aliens persuaded a federal judge appointed by President Bill Clinton to strike down the ordinances as unconstitutional. Lozano v. City of Hazleton, 496 F. Supp. 2d 477 (M.D. Pa. 2007). An appeal is pending. Adding insult to injury, the ACLU-led attorneys demanded that taxpayers foot their $2 million-plus legal bill.

Within three months a similar lawsuit was filed against Prince William County in Virginia, which had recently adopted its own measures to combat the influx of illegal aliens. First it passed resolutions directing the local police to check the immigration status of suspects when detained for a crime, adopted a resolution to restrict social services to illegal aliens, and third, adopted a resolution that “directs staff to implement processes ... to prevent business licenses from being issued to persons who cannot demonstrate legal presence.”

Unnamed illegal aliens asserted that the County’s actions caused them economic loss, fear of separation from their families, and other injuries. They argued, just as the aliens in Hazleton did, that the County’s “Resolutions and Orders” violated the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution by impermissibly regulating immigration, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by discriminating based on immigration status. They filed suit in the Eastern District of Virginia, the most pro-federal government venue where hundreds of thousands of federal workers reside.

But Reagan-appointed Judge James Cacheris took a different tack. He had no trouble upholding the County’s actions and dismissing the lawsuit. He distinguished the Hazleton decision: “Unlike the ordinance in Lozano, the Resolutions and Orders have no effect on the leasing of property, nor do they have any immediate impact on business regulation.” Roe 1, et al., v. Prince William County, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88405 (E.D. Va. Dec. 3, 2007).

Judge Cacheris ruled that the illegal aliens and their organization lacked standing to challenge the County’s rules, because the aliens had not suffered any real injury. For example, the County did not criminalize any conduct that was not already a crime. “Neither the Resolution nor the Orders direct the actions of private citizens or criminalize behavior that was not already punishable by local, state, or federal ordinance, and thus fear of such punishment does not create a cognizable injury.”

Judge Cacheris has evened the score in the battle over local laws that combat illegal immigration. In 2008, these issues will move up the ladder to the appellate courts, which will weigh in with new views of their own.