Kentucky Illegal Immigration Test

A lawsuit filed, pro se, in Eastern Kentucky U.S. District Court, Monday, has observers on both sides of the issue saying it’s unique, if controversial, new spin on the volatile national debate over immigration policies by attempting to use the court system to deny services to certain peoples rather than allowing them, a Cincinnati.com article this morning said.

According to that article, the suit’s quoting a paragraph in the federal immigration code which says “the government has a duty to assure that taxpayer-supported public assistance programs are not abused, and that doing so relies on a credible system of verification,” calling on Lexington, Kentucky’s government and health department, as well as the state’s vocational rehabilitation office, require proof of citizenship before delivering any city services other than in emergencies.

8 USC § 1621 (a), in fact, says that, with certain exceptions such as treatment for emergency medical conditions, short-term emergency disaster relief, and public health immunizations, “aliens who are not qualified aliens or nonimmigrants are ineligible for state or local public benefits.”

8 USC § 1621 (d), however, provides another exception – “A state may provide that an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States is eligible for any state or local benefit for which such alien would otherwise be ineligible under subsection (a) of this section only through the enactment of a state law after Aug. 22, 1996, which affirmatively provides for such eligibility.” This, in fact, is the base of the plaintiffs’ complaint here.

The article also relates an attorney with the American Immigration Law Foundation as saying that the entire premise doesn’t “make sense,” referring to a 1982 Supreme Court case in which the Court held that illegal immigrants couldn’t be denied public education, and that that precedent also applied to other basic services.

Chief Justice Burger, however, joined by Justices White, Rehnquist, and O’Conner, dissented in that ruling, saying “Without laboring what will undoubtedly seem obvious to many, it simply is not ‘irrational’ for a state to conclude that it does not have the same responsibility to provide benefits for persons whose very presence in the state and this country is illegal as it does to provide for persons lawfully present. By definition, illegal aliens have no right whatever to be here, and the state may reasonably, and constitutionally, elect not to provide them with government services at the expense of those who are lawfully in the state.” [See Plyer v. Doe, 457 US 202, 250]