The ACLU is going out of its way to encourage illegal immigrants to stay in the United States.
They say that the First Amendment somehow protects those immigrants. Despite what others believe, they insist that illegal aliens are plainly protected by the First Amendment. Breitbart reports that the ACLU is set to make this argument before the United States Supreme Court.
According to Breitbart, the ACLU and the Federal Defenders Office for the Eastern District of California filed a brief this week on behalf of Helaman Hansen. Hansen had previously run an adoption agency that enticed illegal aliens to come to the U.S. and for visa-holders to overstay their visas. Hansen was convicted on charges related to this, but now the ACLU wants to stand up on his behalf.
Hansen appealed the conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the idea that the law is overly broad and unconstitutional. The court of appeals agreed with Hansen and sided with his argument. This led the government to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
Last month, SCOTUS announced it would hear the case on March 27th.
The ACLU argues that encouraging illegal immigrants to overstay their visas or remain in the country for any reason is protected free speech. If that is true, then there is nothing to stop someone from doing something like this if they choose to do so.
ACLUs Esha Bhandari said the following: The Supreme Court should not expand the category of speech that can be criminalized to include speech that merely encourages conduct that is not a crime,
Her statement also went on to say:
The encouragement provision chills a large amount of constitutionally protected, everyday speech to and about the tens of millions of noncitizens in the country. To permit the government to make speech a crime when it does not even encourage criminal activity would be unprecedented.
This case comes several years after a similar case with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf (D), who was also said to have encouraged illegal immigration by warning businesses that hired illegal migrants about upcoming ICE raids.
The Oakland Indie Alliance sent a message: Important Alert! Credible information ICE Raids in Oakland Sunday 2/25 and Monday 2/26, and This information comes directly from the Mayor.
The Mayor claimed that her actions did not endanger ICE agents and that the First Amendment should protect those actions. Regardless, many dont agree that this should be allowed.
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