Ninth Circuit: Law Barring People from Encouraging Illegal Aliens to Enter U.S. Is Unconstitutional

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday struck down a law that makes it a crime to “encourage or induce” someone to come to the United States illegally.

According to the Court, the law violates people’s First Amendment rights because “it criminalizes a substantial amount of protected expression in relation to its narrow band of legitimacy prohibited conduct and unprotected expression.”

“We do not think that any reasonable reading of the statute can exclude speech. To conclude otherwise, we would have to say that ‘encourage’ does not mean encourage, and that a person cannot ‘induce’ another with words,” Judge A. Wallace Tashima wrote in the Court’s opinion. “At the very least, it is clear that the statue potentially criminalize the simple words – spoken to a son, a wife, a parent, a friend, a neighbor, a coworker, a student, a client – ‘I encourage you to stay here.'” . . .

The case, United States of America v. Evelyn Sineneng-Smith, was brought about when Sineneng-Smith, a former immigration attorney in San Jose, California, told her clients in the U.S. on visas that they would apply for permanent residence by applying for labor certification from Department of Labor. (Read more from “Ninth Circuit: Law Barring People from Encouraging Illegal Aliens to Enter U.S. Is Unconstitutional” HERE)

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