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WASHINGTON The Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday in a First Amendment challenge to an unusual federal law that makes it a crime to encourage unauthorized immigrants to come to or stay in the United States.

Read literally, several justices suggested, the law would chill constitutionally protected speech.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked about a grandmother living in the United States without authorization. The grandmother tells her son shes worried about the burden shes putting on the family, the justice said. And the son says: Abuelita, you are never a burden to us. If you want to continue living here with us, your grandchildren love having you.

Justice Sotomayor asked whether the government could prosecute the son.

Brian H. Fletcher, a lawyer for the federal government defending the law, did not give a definitive answer. I think not, he said.

That frustrated Justice Sotomayor. Stop qualifying with think, because the minute you start qualifying with think, then youre rendering asunder the First Amendment, she said. People have to know what they can talk about.

Justice Elena Kagan said it was not hard to imagine violations of the law based on the ordinary meaning of the word encourage.

What happens to all the cases where it could be a lawyer, it could be a doctor, it could be a neighbor, it could be a friend, it could be a teacher, it could be anybody says to a noncitizen, I really think you should stay? she asked.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wondered about charitable organizations. Theres still going to be a chill or a threat of prosecution for them for providing food and shelter and aid and recommending people for scholarships, he said.

Mr. Fletcher said the justice was describing conduct rather than speech. Justice Kavanaugh responded that the charitable aid might be accompanied by a statement like, I want you to stay here and Im going to help you.

Even as they posed questions about hypothetical prosecutions, the justices appeared to have little sympathy for the defendant in the case before them, Helaman Hansen, who was convicted of violating the law, along with mail and wire fraud, for taking large fees to help undocumented immigrants obtain citizenship through adult adoption. It was a scam.

It is a little awkward, though, that this case comes up in a posture with Mr. Hansen, who I dont think anybody could say hes been chilled from speaking, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said. I mean, hes had no problem soliciting people here in this country and defrauding them to the tune of lots and lots of money.

Mr. Fletcher said the key word in the law encourages was a term of art that required complicity in a crime and did not apply to casual exchanges.

Esha Bhandari, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Mr. Hansen, said that was at odds with ordinary usage. The government concedes that the statute is unconstitutional under its plain meaning, she said.

Mr. Fletcher said that Mr. Hansens case, involving outright fraud, was the typical one and that prosecutions of charities and grandmothers were far-fetched.

Justice Sotomayor countered that there was at least one questionable prosecution under the law, citing the 2012 conviction of a Massachusetts woman, Lorraine Henderson, for hiring an unauthorized immigrant to clean her home and offering general advice about immigration law.

In that case, Judge Douglas P. Woodlock, of the Federal District Court in Boston, wrote that the plain and unadorned language of the law can be read to cast a wide net over those who interact with illegal aliens by offering employment.

In the case before the justices, United States v. Hansen, No. 22-179, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld Mr. Hansens fraud convictions, which resulted in 20-year prison sentences. But it reversed his convictions under the law for encouraging immigrants to overstay their visas, which would have come with 10-year sentences to be served at the same time as the sentences for fraud.

The law, Judge Ronald M. Gould wrote for the panel, was unconstitutional. Under it, he wrote, many commonplace statements and actions could be construed as encouraging or inducing an undocumented immigrant to come to or reside in the United States. All it would take to turn an utterance into a felony, he wrote, was knowingly telling an undocumented immigrant, I encourage you to reside in the United States.

Last year, a divided three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit, in Denver, joined the Ninth Circuit in striking down the law, saying that it was surely violated scores of times every day.

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Supreme Court Hears a Free Speech Challenge to an Immigration Law - The New York Times

WASHINGTON

Is it a crime or free speech for someone to encourage immigrants to come to this country illegally, or remain here after their visas have expired?

The Supreme Court grappled with that question Monday in a clash between immigration law and the 1st Amendment.

It arose in the case of Sacramento man who charged immigrants $500 to $10,000 and falsely promised he could help them obtain U.S. citizenship. More than 470 immigrants paid for the bad advice from Helaman Hansen, and he was convicted of 15 counts of fraud as well as two counts of encouraging two immigrants to overstay their visas.

That latter charge won him a partial acquittal before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and sent his case to the high court.

Since 1952, federal law has made it a crime to encourage or induce an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that doing so would be illegal.

Pointing to those broad words, the 9th Circuit ruled that the provision violated the 1st Amendment because it could be read to make it a crime for family members or friends to encourage a person to come to this country or to remain here illegally.

We apply the overbreadth doctrine so that legitimate speech relating to immigration law shall not be chilled and foreclosed, the San Francisco-based appeals court said. The 15 fraud counts against the defendant were upheld along with a 20-year prison term.

The justices agreed to hear the governments defense of the encourage provision of the law, and most of them sounded skeptical of the free-speech claim, at least in this case.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said it was odd to argue that Hansens right to free speech was violated.

I dont think anybody could say hes been chilled from speaking. Hes had no problem soliciting people here in this country and defrauding them to the tune of lots and lots of money, Gorsuch said, adding this law has been on the books for 50 years.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed, noting there is no record of the law being used to prosecute otherwise innocent people for encouraging immigrants to stay in this country.

The statutes been on the books for a long time. Theres an absence of prosecutions. There is also an absence of demonstrated chilling effect, she said.

But the courts liberals said they saw a potential free-speech problem.

Were criminalizing words related to immigration, said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. So why should we uphold a statute that criminalizes words and makes the punishment five years, which is rather significant?

Justice Elena Kagan said the laws wording is so broad that it could threaten everyday conversations. What if a lawyer, doctor or neighbor advises someone they should stay in this country even if they are undocumented, she asked.

A huge number of such communications are taking place every day, because for every person whos in this country unlawfully, there are probably some number of people who want that person to stay, family members, you know, whatever, she told Deputy Solicitor Gen. Brian Fletcher. They say, I really think you should stay. What happens?

He replied the government has not and will not prosecute people for such family or friendly conversations. He argued the government takes a narrow view of the words encourage or induce.

Everyone agrees that in criminal law, the terms encourage and induce are terms of art that can refer narrowly to soliciting or aiding and abetting unlawful activity, he said. They do not extend to abstract or general comments about immigration, he said. In prosecutions, the government must show the defendant intended to violate the law.

If someone is prosecuted for giving friendly advice about immigration, the defendant should invoke the 1st Amendment as a defense, he said.

He urged the court not to strike down the encourage or induce provision based on absurd hypotheticals or because of the fear it could be potentially misused in future cases.

Several of the justices also noted that Hansen may be entitled to win a retrial for part of his case because the jury instructions were flawed.

The case was United States vs. Hansen, and a written opinion is expected by late June.

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Is it a crime to 'encourage' illegal immigration? - Los Angeles Times

By Andrew Chung and John Kruzel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared inclined to uphold a federal law that made it a crime to encourage illegal immigration, signaling agreement with President Joe Biden's administration that the measure does not violate constitutional free speech protections.

The justices heard arguments in the administration's appeal of a lower court's decision in a case from California to strike down the decades-old provision, part of a larger immigration statute, as overly broad because it may criminalize legitimate speech protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

The case involves a man named Helaman Hansen who deceived immigrants through a phony "adult adoption" program and was convicted in 2017 of violating that law and others.

In invalidating the law, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Hansen's conviction for violating the provision, which bars inducing or encouraging noncitizens "to come to, enter or reside" in the United States illegally, including for financial gain. The 9th Circuit upheld Hansen's convictions on mail and wire fraud charges.

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its conservative justices appeared to agree with Biden's administration that the law does not cover certain hypothetical scenarios that concerned the 9th Circuit, such as simply encouraging immigrants in the country illegally to remain in the United States or advising them about available social services.

The law targets only facilitating or soliciting unlawful conduct, not "general advocacy," the administration argued.

Federal prosecutors accused Hansen of deceiving immigrants in the United States illegally by promising them between 2012 and 2016 that they could gain American citizenship through an "adult adoption" program operated by his Sacramento-based business, Americans Helping America Chamber of Commerce.

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The prosecution said Hansen persuaded at least 471 people to join his program, charging each of them up to $10,000 even though he "knew that the adult adoptions that he touted would not lead to U.S. citizenship." Hansen and his program collected more than $1.8 million through the scheme, authorities said.

"He's victimized these people, and it may be a poster child for a situation in which the underlying offense might be modest but you might want to criminalize it because he's taking advantage of very vulnerable people," conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch told Esha Bhandari, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union representing Hansen.

Hansen was sentenced to 20 years behind bars but is out of prison while his appeal is pending.

Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett voiced doubts about concerns raised by various free speech, libertarian and press advocacy groups that the law threatens attorneys, doctors, scholars and anyone else who speaks in support of immigration.

"The statute's been on the books for a long time and there's an absence of prosecutions. There's also an absence of demonstrated chilling effect," Barrett said.

The court's liberal justices appeared to agree with the 9th Circuit's ruling. Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Justice Department lawyer Brian Fletcher that the administration's narrow view of the law's real-life applications means it wants the high court to "rewrite the statute."

"We're criminalizing words related to immigration," Sotomayor told Fletcher.

The 9th Circuit decision applies in the group of western states over which it has jurisdiction including Arizona and California, which border Mexico. The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction of a group of other states, also ruled against the law in a separate case.

Biden's administration urged the justices to restore an "important tool for combating activities that exacerbate unlawful immigration," particularly because of the high volume of immigration-related litigation and criminal prosecutions that occur in the states covered by the 9th Circuit.

A ruling is due by the end of June.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung and John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)

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US Supreme Court inclined to allow law against encouraging illegal immigration - Yahoo News

A piece of legislation recognized as an anti-illegal immigration bill is making its way through the Florida Legislature and looks likely to pass.

SB 1718 proposes harsh punishments not just for undocumented migrants who are in the state, but for anyone who hires or helps them. That could have a dramatic effect on South Florida, economically, in agriculture and tourism; and socially, in hospitals and universities.

The bill proposes completely cutting funds to community ID programs, like the one Miami-Dade County has in place, asking for one's immigration status on hospital admission and registration forms, and criminalizing knowingly and willingly transporting undocumented migrants in or within the state, among other things.

On the South Florida Roundup, WLRN spoke to Tessa Petit, the co-executive director for the Florida Immigration Coalition, about the bill and its components.

This bill will impact everyone in the state of Florida as we look at it," Petit said. "People tend to think that it's only going to impact immigrants, but it goes further.

Florida District 11 Senator Blaise Ingoglia introduced the bill, which Gov. Ron DeSantis supports.

Ingoglia told the Senate Rules Committee he wants to get other states to adopt similar legislation so that the federal government does something about illegal immigration and the crisis on the U.S. southern border.

If we can get Florida and Texas to pass comprehensive statewide anti-illegal immigration reform in the states; if we have Florida and Texas, the second and third largest states in the union, the federal government will react, he said.

Petit said that policies like SB 1718 are targeting undocumented migrants that are already in the United States and exacerbating fear in the community. One of the more controversial points of this bill is the component that would get someone in legal trouble for giving an undocumented immigrant a ride.

This is going to put a strain on our judicial system. This is going to cost the state a fortune, she said. But more than likely, the worst part is that it is going to put an emotional and social strain on our community and divide us.

Another part of the bill would require some hospitals to collect information on patients immigration status when theyre being admitted. The bill states they would not share that private information but just provide numbers and the medical costs for the state.

In this case, Petit said undocumented people will not seek medical care because of the level of fear that is already prevalent in the immigrant community.

Children are not going to access care. Parents are not going to access care. And that level of fear and that level of division in our communities is just going to exacerbate the tensions that all of the other bills are already putting on us in the state, she said.

Senate Bill 1718 has at least one more committee stop before going to the floor for a vote.

On the South Florida Roundup, we also spoke about the spring break violence in South Beach and the continuously worsening gang violence in Haiti.

Listen to the full episode above.

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Florida's 'anti-illegal immigration bill' targets more than just undocumented migrants - WLRN

All 15 Democrats on a House committee boycotted last weeks field hearing on the crisis at our southern border, aptly held in Texas for the express purpose of focusing lawmakersand nationalattention on out-of-control illegal immigration.

Worse, the March 15 hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee in Pharr, Texas, marked the second time in less than a month that House Democrats irresponsibly refused to attend an immigration-related hearing held on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Three weeks earlier, on Feb. 24, all 19 Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee likewise skipped a similar hearing in Yuma, Arizona.

Equally irresponsibly, both hearings also went largely unreported by the mainstream media.

House Democrats knee-jerk refusal to participate in those hearings was nothing short of a dereliction of duty, especially considering it involved an issue of such transcendent importance as our national sovereignty.

>>>Five Takeaways From Biden Border Patrol Chiefs Revealing Testimony

The Republican majority on the committee somewhat provocativelybut not inaccuratelydubbed the hearing Failure by Design: Examining Secretary Mayorkas Border Crisis. That would be Alejandro Mayorkas, President Bidens hapless secretary of homeland security.

Overwhelming evidencenamely, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants a month streaming across the borderto the contrary notwithstanding, Mr. Mayorkas continues to insist that the border is secure, and that the Department of Homeland Security has operation control of it.

The committees announcement of the hearing described its purpose as outlining how the crisis at the Southwest border is a direct result of Secretary Mayorkas failure to enforce the laws of our country.

That pointed criticism of Mr. Mayorkas apparently intentional failure (for which he deserves to be impeached and removed from office) might have given the Democrats the cover they needed to boycott the hearing. But it was unarguably accurate, and to borrow the memorable line from Jack Nicholsons Marine character, Col. Nathan R. Jessup, in the 1992 film A Few Good Men, it appears that Democrats cant handle the truth.

At last weeks hearing, the AWOL Democrats missed out on a chance to hear the unvarnished truth about the border crisis from those on the front lines of the invasion: U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz; Kinney County, Texas, Sheriff Brad Coe; National Border Patrol Council Vice President Chris Cabrera; and Col. Steven C. McCraw, director of Texas Department of Public Safety.

The Democrats indefensible absence raises an uncomfortable question: Is it because of reflexive allegiance to the Biden administration and, by extension, to Mr. Mayorkas, that Democrats are willing to turn a blind eye to the border crisis? What better place to see the true nature of the problem for themselves? Isnt that the whole point of congressional fact-finding trips?

As pre-Shakespearean poet-playwright John Heywood observed more than 475 years ago: There are none so blind as those who will not see.

As such, Democrats should change their partys symbol from the donkeynowadays more like the proverbial Missouri mule, albeit even more obdurateto either an ostrich with its head buried in the sand or to the See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil monkeys.

That prompts us to ask: When will someoneanyonein the GOP pointedly demand answers from Democrats to these questions about the ongoing flood of illegal immigration: How many is too many? Is it 10 million, 25 million, 50 million? Indeed, were left to wonder: At what point will Democrats finally say: No mas!?

In that same vein, when will that ubiquitous estimate of 11 million illegal immigrants in the country that has been accepted as fact for close to 20 years be subjected to fresh examination and updated?

The Office of Immigration Statistics at DHS asserted in December 2018 that as of Jan. 1, 2015, there were 11.96 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. A Pew Research Center estimate in 2017 put the total number of illegals in the country at 10.5 million.

>>>Impeachable High Crimes and Misdemeanors: Not Limited to Criminal Offenses

But those numbers were roughly the same as what both DHS and Pews Hispanic Center were citing 10-plus years earlier, in 2005. Does anyone really believe there was no net increase in immigration in the interim?

In fact, many argued the actual number of illegals in the U.S. was far more than 11 million even thenand that was long before Mr. Biden and Mr. Mayorkas effectively threw open the floodgates in Jan. 2021.

The conservative One America News Network in July 2019extrapolating from data from several sources, including the DHS itselfestimated the total illegal aliens in U.S. at 26.43 million. Conservative firebrand author Ann Coulter, in her 2015 book Adios, America, estimated the number at closer to 30 million.

As a practical matter, however, the actual number of illegal aliens in the country is not only unknown, but unknowable, so any rational congressional debate about illegal immigration and what to do about it must begin with an honest assessment of the true size and scope of the problem.

The GOP majority in the House also needs to task the Government Accountability Office (or some other federal agency capable of quantifying it) with estimating not only the number of illegal immigrants in the country, but also calculating how muchsurely in the tens of billions of dollars annuallytheir presence in the country is costing the states and the federal government in the cost of education, health care, incarceration and more.

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Democrats' Boycotting Hearings on Illegal Immigration Indefensible - Heritage.org