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A group of illegal immigrants is suing the state of Oregon to overturn a voter-approved initiative that denied them driver’s licenses.

The lawsuit, brought by five illegal immigrants, comes after Oregonians passed Measure 88 last year with a strong two-thirds majority. Thirty-five of Oregon’s 36 counties voted against licenses for undocumented residents, as did every congressional district in the state, most of which are represented by Democrats.

But the lawsuit alleges Measure 88 is unconstitutional because it "arbitrarily" denies driving privileges based on membership in a "disfavored minority group." It alleges Oregon voters were motivated by "animus toward persons from Mexico and Central America."

Gustavo Recarde, who has worked construction and odd jobs in Portland and several states since sneaking into the United States in 1988, said a driver's license would help him feel more comfortable here and open doors.

"If an illegal [can] get a driver's license, it would be better because there's more opportunities to find a job as a driver," said Recarde, who is not part of the lawsuit. He said he believes race played a role in the vote.

But Cynthia Kendoll, president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, said it's not the responsibility of Oregonians to make illegal immigrants comfortable or able to drive to jobs they don't legally have.

"They came here by choice, they weren't brought here against their will, and with those choices come hardships," she said.

Measure 88 was a public vote and a reaction to a law passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2013 and signed by then-Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, that would have given "driver's cards" to those who cannot prove they are in the U.S. legally.

The campaign to deny licenses won big despite being outspent 10-to-one.

"People were not swayed by their arguments that they deserve to have a driver's card so they could more easily get to their jobs," Kendoll said. "They're not supposed to be working here."

Kendoll said Oregonians were motivated by national security and drug-smuggling by Mexican cartels, not race. Those without papers have not gone through immigration checks, she said, and licenses make it easier to transport narcotics up and down the West Coast.

Norman Williams, associate dean for academic affairs at the Willamette University College of Law in Salem, said the plaintiffs’ best argument is under the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause – and to claim Oregon has no rational basis for depriving undocumented Latin Americans of the ability to drive on Oregon's roads.

"The U.S. Supreme Court has been clear that neither legislators nor voters may target a minority group because of their race or ethnicity," he said.

The plaintiffs -- five illegal immigrants identified only by their initials -- don't have to prove every Oregon voter was racially motivated, he said.

"They do have to establish there were enough voters who voted 'no' who were prompted to do so because of racial concerns, that could have tipped the balance," he said.

Still, Williams said they face an uphill battle.

"Federal judges are very hesitant to strike down state statutes on constitutional grounds," he said.

  Read more about Illegal immigrants sue Oregon over ballot measure denying licenses

NEW ORLEANS –  President Obama's plan to protect from deportation an estimated 5 million people living in the United States illegally suffered another setback Monday in a ruling from a New Orleans-based federal appeals court.

In a 2-1 ruling, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas-based federal judge's injunction blocking the administration's immigration initiative.

...Twenty-six states challenged the plan in court.

The administration argued that the executive branch was within its rights...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was praised the ruling.

"President Obama should abandon his lawless executive amnesty program and start enforcing the law today," Abbott said in a news release.

The ruling further dims prospects of implementation of the executive action before Obama leaves office in 2017...

...The other major part, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, would extend deportation protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for years.

The 70-page majority opinion by Judge Jerry Smith, joined by Jennifer Walker Elrod, rejected administration arguments that the district judge abused his discretion with a nationwide order and that the states lacked standing to challenge Obama's executive orders.

They acknowledged an argument that an adverse ruling would discourage potential beneficiaries of the plan from cooperating with law enforcement authorities or paying taxes...

In a 53-page dissent, Judge Carolyn Dineen King said the administration was within the law, casting the decision to defer action on some deportations as "quintessential exercises of prosecutorial discretion," and noting that the Department of Homeland Security has limited resources.

"Although there are approximately 11.3 million removable aliens in this country today, for the last several years Congress has provided the Department of Homeland Security with only enough resources to remove approximately 400,000 of those aliens per year," King wrote. Read more about Appeals court rules against Obama immigration plan

SALEM — A group of Mexican immigrants is suing to reverse a decision by Oregon voters on a 2014 ballot measure that prevents undocumented immigrants from getting Oregon driver cards.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Eugene, the plaintiffs said the outcome of Measure 88 is unconstitutional because it "arbitrarily" denies driving privileges "to Plaintiffs and others based on their membership in a disfavored minority group."

The plaintiffs also say the referendum was "motivated in substantial part by animus toward persons from Mexico and Central America,"...

The lawsuit comes nearly a year after Oregon voters resoundingly defeated Measure 88,...

"It was an overwhelming rejection of giving drivers' licenses to illegal aliens," said Jim Ludwick, communications director for Oregonians for Immigration Reform. "but somehow that doesn't apply to people who are here illegally and think the law doesn't apply to them." 

The measure was a reaction to Senate Bill 833, which passed in the 2013 legislative session with support from Democrats and a few moderate and rural Republicans. Then-Gov. John Kitzhaber signed the bill at a May Day rally on the Capitol steps before a raucous crowd of 2,000 people.

But the law never took effect as opponents quickly organized a campaign to refer it to the ballot.

Since 2008, Oregon has required applicants for a driver's license or permit to provide proof of citizenship...

"It's reached a crisis point for families because they don't have a solution,"...

The five Mexican immigrants, identified only by their initials in court documents, are joined by two Latino nonprofits, Familias En Acción and Los Niños Cuentan, as plaintiffs in the case....

Kristina Edmunson, a spokeswoman for Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, said the state is reviewing the case but declined to comment further.

— Ian K. Kullgren

  Read more about Oregon driver cards: Immigrants sue to reverse Measure 88 defeat

“Almost 1 in 10 adults of working age in the U.S. have limited proficiency in English, more than 2.5 times as many as in 1980.”   — 2014 report by the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institute

The study from the Washington-based Brookings Institute showing that workers’ English skills are steadily declining is a shocker, especially since immigrant workers and their children will account for most of the growth in our nation’s labor force in coming decades....investing in English instruction “is critical to maintaining a skilled workforce.”

In a recent analysis by the American Community Survey, a huge surge was recorded in those who speak Chinese, Spanish, Arabic and Urdu, Pakistan’s national language. Consider that alarming trend, and then reflect on the latest Center for Immigration Studies report, released in early October.  ...63.2 million U.S. residents — native-born, legal immigrants and illegal immigrants — now speak a language other than English at home...

No wonder Donald Trump and several other presidential candidates are addressing the issue of English. ...a recent Rasmussen poll found that approximately 84 percent of likely voters agree that English should be designated by Congress as the official language of our government operations.

With President Obama’s executive “deferral” order that essentially grants amnesty to millions of illegal aliens — which means giving them work permits and photo IDs — the problem of limited English or non-English speakers going into the workforce is only going to get worse. The order will serve as a magnet to draw a new wave of illegal immigration. 

...(To cite just one example, the school system in DeKalb County, Ga., says approximately 150 different languages are spoken among its students. Translators, obviously, have to be hired.)

...an executive order signed by President Bill Clinton (E.O. 13166) requires federal agencies and funds recipients to provide translations and interpreters for non-English speakers in their native language — at taxpayer expense...

The predictable result? There are a growing number of accidents on our highways attributable to the fact that all too many immigrants, both legal and illegal, don’t understand traffic signs in English...

... The Texas city of El Cenizo changed its official language from English to Spanish. Miami-Dade County in Florida operates with both official English and Spanish. How long is it going to be before activists start demanding simultaneous translations of all proceedings in Spanish in some state legislatures or even in the U.S. Congress? Accommodating such a demand would naturally lead to calls for the same treatment by other linguistic groups...

The United States is one of the few countries in the world without an official language. Sixty-five countries located mostly in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean have already designated English their official language. Why shouldn’t we?

Thirty-one states have enacted English as the official language of government laws. That’s a wonderful trend, but a statute is needed at the federal level. That’s why Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa has reintroduced the bipartisan English Language Unity Act, which would make English the official language of the federal government. H.R. 997 has already garnered 63 co-sponsors.

It would be a welcome and effective pushback to the steady decline of Americans’ English skills if the new Congress — reflecting the will of the vast majority of Americans — finally voted to make English our official language for all governmental operations.

• Robert Vandervoort is the executive director of ProEnglish. Read more about Toward making English the official tongue

Good news, recent alien college graduate! Thanks to President Obama's executive actions and an incentive program launched by the Department of Homeland Security, employers are much more likely to hire you before they would a native college grad. It falls under the department's Optional Practical Training program, which currently gives recent alien graduates a one-year work permit and employers a cash bonus. The new rule not only adds a generous extension, it will also offer a bigger cash payout to employers who hire them.

As the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) notes, an illegal alien who majored in any of the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields will get an additional 17 months of permitted work, expanding their initial year guarantee to over two years. DHS has also upped the incentive for U.S. employers to hire non-citizens by offering them an increase from $10,000 to at least $12,000 to hire an alien STEM graduate.

CIS' David North writes:

I searched the proposed rule that appears in today's Federal Register for references to payroll taxes (FICA, the Federal Insurance Contributions Act) and found none. I guess DHS does not want us to know about the generous tax break that both employers and aliens get from this program. I find it intellectually dishonest not to mention this tax break in a long, extremely detailed document on this subject.

All of this leads North to the most plausible conclusion: this is no "training" program as DHS designates, but "just one more foreign worker program that has nothing to do with students" and one that favors "aliens rather than citizens."

  Read more about DHS Offering Employers Cash If They Hire Alien College Grads Over Citizens

HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - The mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania on Wednesday said the city will seek a ten-year payment plan after being ordered by a court to pay $1.4 million to lawyers who sued the city over a 2006 ordinance targeting illegal immigrants.

Mayor Joseph Yannuzzi said that if agreed to by the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiff lawyers, the payment plan would allow the city of 25,340 to avoid the tax hikes and layoffs it would otherwise need in order to pay the legal fees.

"We lost, so we had to pay. But it was not a wasted cause. We thought we were right," Yannuzzi said. U.S. District Judge James Munley issued his ruling about the fees late on Tuesday.

In 2006, Hazleton's City Council, at the prodding of then-mayor Lou Barletta, passed an ordinance barring local businesses from hiring illegal immigrants and landlords from renting housing to them. Barletta is now a U.S. Representative.

The ACLU and others sued. The subsequent court battle lasted eight years, with appeals going twice to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The city was unable to get past rulings that immigration control was a matter for the federal government.

ACLU lawyers originally asked for $2.8 million in legal fees. But Judge Munley cut that amount by half because the lawyers did not prevail on all their claims.

Munley rejected a 14-year payment plan proposed by Hazleton's lawyer, Kris Kobach, a national activist against illegal immigration who is also the Republican Secretary of State of Kansas. Kobach did not respond to a request for comment.

Omar Jadwat, one of the ACLU lawyers, said the lawyers are committed to finding a payment plan for Hazleton "that works."

Yannuzzi said he did not believe the city would appeal. The court set a Jan. 15 deadline to work out a payment agreement.

  Read more about Pennsylvania city must pay $1.4 million legal fees in immigration fight