ACLU Files a Useless Case, for Cash

The facts, but not the legal conclusions, for this article come from an Associated Press article on 2 March, 2007. It reported that the ACLU had sued the City of Lake Forest, in the US District Court in Santa Ana, California, to prevent the City from enforcing one of its ordinances. The ordinance in question banned “solicitation on the sidewalk.”

The true purpose of the ordinance was to stop the practice of workers, most of them illegal immigrants, from gathering on the sidewalks in certain places to receive assignments for day labor paid in cash. The fact of this purpose was revealed by the Plaintiffs in the case. The ACLU filed the case on behalf of “La Asociacion de Trabajadores de Lake Forest (Workers Association of Lake Forest), Colectivo Tonantzin and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.”

The ACLU claimed that this case was a matter of freedom of speech and activity. An ACLU attorney said, “”They have the fundamental right to solicit work just like a business can advertise a sale … or a Girl Scout can sell cookies outside a market.”But there were two problems with the case.

One was the absurd claim that illegal aliens seeking cash employment on an American street corner are legally the same as Girl Scouts selling cookies. But the other defect is more basic. The City Attorney said that the City is “absolutely committed to not enforcing” the 1993 ordinance. And he stated that the reason was that Glendale had lost a case three years ago on a similar ordinance, and Lake Forest had therefore decided not to enforce its version.

So, why would the ACLU even file such a case against a local law that was a dead letter? Either it wants another scalp on its wall as the City Council immediately repeals a dead law. Or, the ACLU is just setting up to claim attorneys fees from the taxpayers of the City. Probably the latter reason is true.

ACLU Acts “for the Children”

The facts, but not the legal conclusions, for this article come from an Associated Press article on 6 March, 2007. It reported that the ACLU in Austin had filed suit against “federal officials” concerning children housed at the T. Don Hutto center in Texas.

An ACLU attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, said of the case, “There is simply no justification for imprisoning innocent children who pose no threat to anyone.” The article also recites that The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services have demanded the immediate closure of this facility.

The article does note that the families in this center are awaiting possible deportation. It says that no one there has a criminal record. It neglects to mention that the reason they are being held is clear evidence that the adults are in the US illegally. It also neglects to mention that the normal policy of both state and federal authorities is to keep minor children together with their parents, if at all possible.

In short, the ACLU is merely using the children of (probable) illegal aliens as pawns to attack efforts of the US government to enforce US laws. While the suit claims a laundry list of harm to the children involved, it offers no description of how the children were living either while on the loose in the US, or before that in Mexico, or wherever the parents are citizens.

If the ACLU was genuinely concerned with these children, it would be applauding the government’s efforts to keep parents and children together as much as possible.

ACLU Tries to Undercut Probation in Connecticut

The facts for this article, but not its legal conclusions, come from an article in the Waterbury Republican-American on 7 March, 2007. It recites that the ACLU of Connecticut has accused “state probation officials of breaking the law by working with federal authorities to arrest illegal immigrants.”

They claim that such cooperation will make it “less likely that people who are not citizens will comply with or accept plea deals involving probation.” Notice the delicate phraseology used by the writer of the article, probably at the urging of the ACLU. “People who are not citizens” is tap dancing around the fact that these are illegal aliens who have been found guilty of state charges.

The ACLU claims that talking to probationers about their legal status is a “shameful perversion” of the purpose of probation, and that this is “inhuman.” The ACLU claimed that a state law requires that state officials not cooperate with federal immigration officials, and claimed to have discovered a memo about such cooperation.

What the article fails to note is the contradiction between the claim of the ACLU and the case that it has filed. The ACLU admits a problem of “people who are not citizens” following their probation conditions. Any illegal alien put on probation in Connecticut who thought it through, or who was advised by an ACLU attorney, would get away from Connecticut as fast and as far as possible.

So, the ACLU is not trying to improve the probation system in Connecticut, but to cripple it, where it concerns illegal aliens who have been found guilty of state charges there.

ACLU Attacks Any Public Mention of “God,” As Usual

The facts for this article come from an article published by the Thomas More Law Center on 12 March, 2007. The More Center has a stake in the cased reported, because it has filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of Tangipahoa Parish School Board in Louisiana in a case brought by the ACLU to end the 30-year practice of the School Board of opening its meetings with a prayer, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

Two aspects of this case are interesting. One is that the ACLU is attempting to prevent any prayers by the School Board, no matter how non-sectarian or multi-sectarian they might be. The other is that this case was first decided against the Board by the trial judge, who was President of the ACLU of Louisiana before being appointed to the bench by President Clinton. Then, her decision was affirmed by a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. But now the entire Circuit has decided to review the case en banc, meaning that all the judges of that Circuit will participate.

Since the Board has pointed out that the kind of prayers used by the Board are very similar to those used by Congress before its sessions, and since there is a question whether this judge should have decided the case in the first place, it is quite possible that the full Circuit will reverse this decision. The case itself demonstrates the general hostility of the ACLU against any public use of such words as “God,” no matter how ecumenical or non-sectarian that use may be.