Federal law prohibits the act of encouraging or inducing unlawful immigration for private financial gain. Later this month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case, United States v. Hansen, which asks whether that law should be struck down as an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech.
The law deserves to die on First Amendment grounds. As the Rutherford Institute and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression observe in an amicus brief they filed in the case, "expressing disagreement with laws through advocacy of their violation…is part of a deeply rooted American tradition." That tradition includes both the abolitionists who urged defiance of proslavery statutes in the 19th century and the civil rights activists who championed nonviolent resistance to Jim Crow in the 20th century. "Criminalizing mere encouragement of unlawful conduct," the brief points out, "would chill speech essential to movements advocating political and social change."
