Third Circuit: Hazelton Immigration Law Preempted

I was on the road so am slow to report what you all probably have heard by now.

In one of the most infamous anti-immigrant ordinances out there, with similarities to the challenges to Arizona's SB 1070, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Third Circuit, in a 188 page opinion by Chief Judge McKee (joined by Judges Nygaard and Siler (a senior judge from the Sixth Circuit)), upheld the district court and unanimously held that the Hazelton, Pennsylvania law regulating immigration is pre-empted by the federal immigration scheme.

Read Ruthann Robson's detailed analysis on the ConstitutionalLawProfBlog.  The ACLU's press release is here.

Here is the opinion.  Download Lozano v. hazleton

KJ

The federal preemption argument, which also did in Arizona's SB 1070, will be considered in Chamber of Commerce v. Candalaria, currently pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.  

KJ