by Jeff Golimowski CNSNews: If you can get past the border guards and into the United States, you're no longer violating the law, according to a Kansas Court of Appeals decision. The ruling comes after an illegal immigrant, Nicholas Martinez, was sentenced to a year in jail after pleading guilty to possession of cocaine and endangering a child. . . . Under Kansas law, the charges (and plea bargain) would have landed Martinez on probation. But the judge in the case said the defendant couldn't be put on probation because of his immigration status. "Mr. Martinez is illegally in the country and is in violation of the probation rules right from the start if I place him on probation," . . . quoted Judge Hannelore Kitts . . .. "He has to comply with all the conditions of the probation and he can't do that because he's in violation of the law . . ." . . . But on appeal, a three-judge panel threw out the sentence, based on an apparent contradiction in U.S. law. While it is illegal to enter the country without the proper documents and permissions, it is not necessarily illegal to be in the country. . . . the court explained that Congress had implicitly created the distinction: "While Congress has criminalized the illegal entry into this country, it has not made the continued presence of an illegal alien in the United States a crime unless the illegal alien has previously been deported," . . . Because the judge hadn't determined whether Martinez had been deported previously, the appeals court ruled she had no legal basis to deny probation, since simply being in the country isn't necessarily a crime. . . . [Read More]
Tags: crime, illegal aliens, illegal immigration, Kansas To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
0 comments:
Post a Comment