Supreme Court hears arguments on immigrant hiring law

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Supreme Court hears arguments on immigrant hiring law
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court Wednesday seemed split but leaning in favor of an Arizona law that severely penalizes employers that hire illegal immigrants.

Some justices voiced concern that Arizona was infringing on federal power while others said the state was compelled to act by the enormity of the illegal immigration problem.

"Arizona and other states are in serious trouble financially and for other reasons because of unrestrained illegal immigration," said Justice Antonin Scalia.

Scalia, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel Alito appeared most sympathetic to Arizona's law regulating employers and illegal immigrants. Their fellow conservative, Justice Clarence Thomas, followed his custom in not speaking during the hourlong oral argument.

Some Democratic-appointed justices, though, suggested the three-year-old Arizona law intruded on federal turf or could lead to anti-Hispanic discrimination. The skeptics focused on whether a 1986 federal immigration law pre-empted individual state action.

"The enforcement of the immigration laws should be uniform; Congress stated that as an overarching principle," said attorney Carter G. Phillips, arguing on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber joined the American Civil Liberties Union and immigrants rights groups in challenging the Legal Arizona Workers Act of 2007. By happenstance, the oral argument Wednesday occurred shortly before members of Congress were to vote on unrelated immigrant legalization plans.

Justice Elena Kagan recused herself, and her absence increases the chances the law will be upheld. Kagan was President Barack Obama's solicitor general, and her successor has sided with opponents of the Arizona law. In the event of a 4-to-4 tie among the eight other justices, the lower court's decision will be upheld and the law will remain on the books.

The Arizona law considered by the Supreme Court deals only with enforcement.

The state law contains two main parts. The Supreme Court could end up keeping one and getting rid of the other.
The law, in part, requires Arizona employers to determine worker eligibility through an Internet-based system called E-Verify.

Through E-Verify, employers can quickly match a job applicant's information with Social Security and Department of Homeland Security databases. About 103,000 employers nationwide were registered to use the program last year.

Congress created E-Verify as a voluntary program, under a different name, in 1996, and it remains largely voluntary save for federal contractors.

"This is a federal resource, and the federal government has said, 'We want this to be voluntary,' " Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted. "How can Arizona set the rules on a federal resource?"

Justice Anthony Kennedy added that the Arizona's mandate to use E-Verify "seems almost a classic example of a state doing something that is inconsistent with a federal requirement."

In addition to the E-Verify requirement, the Arizona law imposes strict penalties on employers that "knowingly or intentionally" hire an illegal immigrant. Guilty employers can have their business licenses suspended or permanently revoked.

Three employers have faced suspension or termination of their business license, under the law

"You can effectively have the death penalty for business," Phillips argued.

Much of the debate, and the court's ultimate decision, will come down to an interpretation of what Congress meant in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.

That law made it illegal to hire illegal immigrants. The so-called employer sanctions law also explicitly pre-empted any state or local employer sanction laws "other than through licensing or similar laws."

Roberts showed sympathy for Arizona's argument by stressing that this clause "is not a real reservation" by Congress of this power.

"They took away our authority to impose civil monetary and criminal sanctions, but preserved our authority to impose (licensing) sanctions under this law," Arizona Solicitor General Mary O'Grady said.

Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer was in the chamber to observe the argument.

A separate law that Brewer signed earlier this year, SB1070, requires police to check an individual's immigration status when there is a "reasonable suspicion" that the person is an illegal immigrant. This requirement applies when police have stopped or arrested the person for another, legitimate reason.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard a challenge last month to SB1070, which could likewise end up at the Supreme Court.
http://media.www.ecollegetimes.com/m...56-page2.shtml

High court weighs Arizona employer sanctions law
The Supreme Court appeared likely Wednesday to sustain an Arizona law that threatens to take away the licenses of businesses that knowingly hire workers who are in the United States illegally.
The justices heard arguments in a case that plunges the court into the nation’s contentious debate over immigration, generally the province of the federal government.
But Arizona argued — and Justice Antonin Scalia strongly agreed — that the federal government has not meaningfully enforced immigration law, forcing the state to act. “That’s the whole problem,” Scalia said.
Business interests and civil liberties groups are challenging the law, backed by the Obama administration.
The measure was signed into law in 2007 by Democrat Janet Napolitano, then the governor of Arizona and now the administration’s Homeland Security secretary. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, Napolitano’s successor, was at the court Wednesday to show her support for the law.
The outcome also might signal how the court will deal generally with state efforts to combat illegal immigration. A federal judge acting on a challenge by the administration already has blocked key components of a second, more controversial Arizona immigration enforcement law, known as SB1070.
Wednesday’s case concerned the employer sanctions law that prosecutors have used just three times in three years. It was intended to diminish Arizona’s role as the nation’s hub for immigrant smuggling by requiring employers to verify the eligibility of new workers through a federal database. Employers convicted of violating the law can have their business licenses suspended or revoked.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco previously upheld the law.
Carter Phillips, the Washington-based lawyer who argued for the challengers, said that a 1986 federal law prohibits states from taking action against employers unless they already have been convicted of violating the federal law. Congress had in mind an “exclusive federal enforcement scheme,” Phillips said.
The court’s liberal-leaning justices appeared open to Phillips’ argument, but Scalia and the other conservatives peppered Phillips and the Justice Department’s Neal Katyal with skeptical questions.
Chief Justice John Roberts said the federal law includes a provision that appears to allow states to take action regarding immigration through licensing and similar laws.
“You don’t disagree that whether a business hires illegal workers is related to its ability to do business,” Roberts asked Katyal, the Obama administration’s acting solicitor general.
Katyal replied that the language Roberts referred to is a narrow exception that cannot be used to create a gaping hole in the federal law.
Mary O’Grady, the Arizona state solicitor general, faced aggressive questioning from Justice Stephen Breyer, who said he was concerned that Arizona and other states were upsetting a balance struck by Congress in the 1986 law.
On the one hand, Congress wanted to dissuade employers from hiring illegal workers, he said. On the other hand, lawmakers wanted to be sure that people who are in the United States legally are not discriminated against because they may speak with an accent or look like they might be immigrants.
“Under Arizona law, every incentive is to call a close question against hiring this person,” he said.
In response, O’Grady said the state law is consistent with federal law, which she said “preserved significant state authority” to act.
Justice Elena Kagan is not participating in the case because she worked on it while serving as Obama’s solicitor general. Even if the court were to split 4-4, Arizona would win because it prevailed in the federal appeals court. Tie votes at the Supreme Court leave in place the lower court ruling, but do not set a national rule on an issue.
A decision is expected by summer.
http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2010/...sanctions-law/