Illegals Practice Law in New Mexico
A blue state’s courts roll out the red carpet for illegal aliens.
New Mexico has become the latest state to welcome illegal aliens as attorneys.
In other words, those who are breaking U.S. law by their presence in the country, will now be allowed to practice law in the Land of Enchantment. These illegal-alien lawyers will now be allowed to try to prevent their fellow illegal aliens from being deported.
A lawyer is an officer of the court and should at a minimum not be a lawbreaker.
The new policy helps to blur the line between illegal aliens, lawfully present aliens, and U.S. citizens, which has long be a goal of the open-borders Left. The Left wants to devalue and abolish citizenship and what it means to be American, and confer all the benefits of being legal on people who are illegal – and it is succeeding.
The Left deliberately obscures the distinction between illegal aliens and people who immigrated lawfully to the United States. It is part of the leftist war not only on American values but on the English language.
The Left aims to make the hordes of illegal aliens their various so-called immigration reforms have unleashed on their fellow Americans over the years seem normal and acceptable. This is also why the Left describes just about everyone touched by the nation’s immigration laws as an “immigrant” – whether they’re illegal aliens or legal permanent residents. Smearing anyone who believes in the rule of law as anti-immigrant over and over again makes people defensive and wears down the opposition. It’s a kind of brainwashing.
Leftists are also fond of invoking the magic of euphemism to make the social problems they create go away. Leftists claim the perfectly good legal phrase “illegal alien” is somehow sinister and dehumanizing. As of last year, California and Colorado had banned the phrase “illegal alien” in state laws. Democrats in Congress have tried to ban “alien” and “illegal alien,” replacing them with “foreign national” and “undocumented foreign national.” The Thought Police in the Biden-Harris regime ordered U.S. immigration enforcement agencies in April 2021 to refrain from using “alien” and “illegal alien.”
Although left-wingers are fond of saying conservatives speak in code –former Congressman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) famously said tax cuts were racist dog whistles (“It’s not ‘spic’ or ‘n*****’ anymore. They say, ‘Let’s cut taxes”)– leftists really do speak in code. They use code to advance their agenda while concealing what they are actually trying to do.
This makes reading the reports indoctrinated policy wonks write difficult to read because when they write about “immigrants” it is unclear if they actually mean lawfully present immigrants or if they are using the word as a euphemism for illegal aliens.
The unanimous decision by the all-Democrat Supreme Court of the State of New Mexico, which came August 19 in the form of a new set of rules governing admission to the bar (pdf), is self-contradictory but it is clearer than most reports by leftist scribes.
The court made a policy decision, finding that going forward a lack of U.S. citizenship or immigration status may not be used to deny a law license to individuals in possession of a law degree and otherwise eligible to join the New Mexico Bar Association. The court order concurred with changes recommended by the Board of Bar Examiners and the Code of Professional Conduct Committee.
“The change in the licensure rule is grounded in the fundamental principle of fairness, and is consistent with New Mexico’s historical values of inclusion and diversity in its culture,” Chief Justice C. Shannon Bacon, a Democrat, said in a statement.
“New Mexico is aligned with at least eight other states that allow attorney licensure for some immigrants, and the American Bar Association has endorsed the principle of permitting attorneys to practice law regardless of immigration status,” Bacon said.
In my research, I found only six other states that allow illegals to practice law. They are California, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, New York, and Wyoming.
I asked Barry Massey, Public Information Officer for the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts, to explain Bacon’s remarks.
“Our reference was to states that provide or have improved attorney licenses for immigrant populations, such as DACA recipients, legal immigrants and/or unauthorized immigrants,” Massey said by email. (DACA is then-President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration amnesty program that shields young people who came to the United States illegally from being deported.)
“In addition to those you listed, the 8 includes: Maine, which repealed a residency provision for applicants and a character reference requirement for foreign-trained applicants [and] Nevada, which prohibited the denial of an occupational or professional license based solely on the applicant’s citizenship or immigration status,” Massey said.
The New Mexico document states that a “License to practice law shall not be denied based solely on the applicant’s citizenship or immigration status.”
At the same time, the “Character and fitness standards and investigation” section that a law license applicant “bears the burden of proving good character in support of the application.”
“The revelation of discovery of any of the following may be treated as cause for further inquiry before the Board of Bar Examiners determines whether the applicant possesses the character and fitness to practice law…”
Two categories of problematic behavior are “unlawful conduct” and “acts involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.”
Of course, illegal aliens by definition are guilty of unlawful conduct and it is hard to imagine them going about their daily business without committing acts involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.
In theory, the problematic behavior parts of the New Mexico ruling could still prevent an illegal aliens from being given to practice law, but don’t count on it.
Presumably, since the woke state chief justice, Democrat C. Shannon Bacon, and her fellow justices are hellbent on letting illegal aliens practice law, illegal or unethical conduct flowing out of an illegal alien’s everyday acts aimed at escaping detection by authorities or at falsely appearing to be a legal alien, such as stealing Social Security numbers or other documents or impersonating other people, won’t prevent him or her from being admitted to the bar.
Meanwhile, social justice warrior Jazmin Irazoqui-Ruiz of the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center told the Las Cruces Sun News that she was thrilled at the new rules. A beneficiary of the DACA program, she became an attorney in the state in 2017 under special rules.
The new attorney admission rules were a “great victory” that will safeguard her attorney status even if the Supreme Court eventually invalidates DACA. “I personally dedicated my career to doing exactly what this type of policy change does: Removing barriers to economic mobility and stability for immigrant families across our state,” she said.
“Having a diverse bar is important because we want our clients to see themselves represented in those who take their cases and advocate for them,” she said.
New Mexico Republicans denounced the ruling.
“New Mexico’s high court has become authoritarian and appears to be operating outside the limits of its power,” said state GOP chairman Steve Pearce.
“This latest rule will open our borders even more, and the Court seems to relish making arbitrary decisions without thinking about consequences. This Court has gotten out of control, and it believes it can do whatever it wants.”
Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, told me the Supreme Court of the State of New Mexico’s decision struck him as more “political” than “legal.”
“It strikes me as interesting that the Chief Justice issued a statement,” Levey told me for another article. “Normally, the majority opinion would speak for itself.”
The decision is “really about policy—our state has values of inclusion and diversity.”
The ruling is based “on policy, which is the definition of judicial activism. Judicial activism is when you come up with an outcome-oriented decision based on the policies preferred by the judge or judges, rather than the law,” he said.
It is “bizarre” that in New Mexico “you can be here illegally, subject to arrest and deportation, and yet at the same time, you could be representing as a lawyer another illegal alien who’s facing the same thing.”
California Court Green-Lights Newsom’s Illegal Alien Giveaway Program
Executive and judicial abuse on display.
May 8, 2020
Joseph Klein
Judicial Watch announced Tuesday that it filed an application for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against California Governor Gavin Newsom and his Director of the California Department of Social Services Kim Johnson. Judicial Watch requested the TRO to prevent the governor’s imminent spending of $79.8 million dollars of California taxpayers’ money for direct cash benefits to illegal aliens present in California. This action followed a lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of California County of Los Angeles by Judicial Watch on behalf of two California taxpayers late last month. “Governor Newsom has no legal authority on his own to spend state taxpayer money for cash payments to illegal aliens,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The coronavirus challenge doesn’t give politicians a pass to violate the law. If California politicians want to give cash payments to illegal aliens, they must be accountable and transparent, and, as federal law requires, pass a law to do so.”
Judicial Watch said that its TRO application was urgent because the illegal aliens are now able to immediately apply for the cash benefits without a judicial hearing first as to whether Governor Newsom possessed the necessary explicit authority from the California legislature to provide such benefits. “Without a restraining order, those funds will be spent, and there is no way of recovering them after they are distributed,” Judicial Watch’s TRO application said. Not surprisingly, however, the California court sided with Governor Newsom and the illegal aliens, denying Judicial Watch’s request for the TRO.
According to Judicial Watch, “Though the court found that Judicia[l] Watch was likely to succeed on the merits (that Governor Newsom had no authority under law to spend the money), the court found that there was a public interest in sending tax money to the illegal aliens during the coronavirus crisis.” In other words, the California state judge ignored the law and legislated from the bench to help Newsom accomplish a fait accompli.
Newsom was two for two in the California courts on May 5th. A federal judge upheld his ban on church assemblies in the interest of public health during the coronavirus pandemic, throwing aside First Amendment protections of freedom of religious expression and the right to assemble. “Constitutional rights cannot be suspended by a virus,” the church’s attorney, Dean Broyles, said. Evidently, in California they can be suspended along with legal constraints on Newsom’s spending authority.
Governor Newsom rolled out his cash giveaway executive initiative, known as the “Disaster Relief Fund” or the “Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants Project" (DRAIP), for illegal aliens on April 15th. His office issued a statement in which it anticipated that approximately “150,000 undocumented adult Californians will receive a one-time cash benefit of $500 per adult with a cap of $1,000 per household to deal with the specific needs arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.” The governor and his social services director also plan to spend an estimated $4.8 million of taxpayer funds overseeing and administering the distribution of those cash benefits.
California became the first state to offer such direct disaster assistance in the wake of the pandemic to illegal aliens. Philanthropic partners, including the Latino Community Foundation, will be distributing the funds through their networks and are raising additional funds on their own for dispersal to illegal aliens. But Judicial Watch is only concerned with the unauthorized giveaway of taxpayers’ money.
As of February 2020, California had $17.5 billion in reserves for economic uncertainties, according to a Legislative Analyst’s Office report issued in April. But the coronavirus pandemic threatens to not only drain this reserve but hurl California into a gaping financial hole amidst a severe recession. Newsom recognized the financial crisis he was facing. “This year I will be doing a May revise looking at tens of billions of dollars in deficit,” Newsom said last Friday during his daily coronavirus response briefing. “We just went tens of billions in surplus in just weeks to deficits.” Newsom wants a federal bailout even though he is squandering the hard-earned money of his state’s taxpayers on a cash giveaway to illegal aliens. The federal individual cash payments program under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, as well as the expanded unemployment provisions that increase benefits by $600, exclude illegal aliens as beneficiaries.
Under federal immigration law, 8 U.S.C. § 1621(a), a state “may provide that an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States is eligible for any State or local public benefit … only through the enactment of a State law … which affirmatively provides for such eligibility. (Emphasis added) Judicial Watch’s complaint alleged that the California state legislature has not enacted any law that affirmatively provides that such unlawfully present aliens are eligible for the millions of dollars of cash public benefits announced by Newsom.
Newsom is likely to argue that he has adequate legislative authority to make direct state payments to illegal aliens under the broad emergency powers that the legislature granted him in March to deal with the coronavirus pandemic crisis. But it makes little sense to assume that such emergency powers were meant to entitle the governor to spend as much money as he wishes on illegal aliens while California’s legal residents are suffering en masse. As state Senator John Moorlach, a Republican from Costa Mesa, said, “I see the state of California and its budget as a house of cards and with this coronavirus-induced recession. I’m just trying to figure out where the money would come from. I would say helping undocumented would be a luxury item.”
The Democrat-dominated California state legislature may well come to Newsom’s rescue upon its return from recess. Democrat leaders in both chambers have already indicated that a relief package for illegal aliens is under active consideration. Their passage of the authorizing legislation necessary to cover his new spending on illegal aliens retroactively is highly likely. California already provides taxpayer-funded health benefits to low-income illegal immigrant adults 25 and younger. California is also a sanctuary state.
Governor Newsom on more than one occasion has referred to California as a “nation state.” At times, particularly with respect to California’s non-compliance with federal immigration laws, California acts as if it were already an independent sovereign nation state. While there are some U.S. citizens who would be more than happy to see the ultraliberal state secede from the union, for now California is still part of the United States of America and does not have the power to nullify federal laws. Governor Newsom should also address the rising resistance to his draconian stay-at-home orders from California citizens rather than go about channeling scarce state funds to illegal aliens.
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