Arizona Immigration Law in the Supreme Court: Employers Who Knowingly Hire Illegal Aliens

Hans von Spakovsky / December 09, 2010

The oral arguments in the Supreme Court on Wednesday in U.S. Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting were an interesting mix of tap dancing, political correctness, and duplicity. In Whiting, the Chamber of Commerce sued the state of Arizona over its 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act, which (1) authorizes the suspension and revocation of the business license of an employer that knowingly or intentionally employs unauthorized aliens, and (2) requires all employers to use the federal E-Verify program to confirm that the people they hire are legally authorized workers.

The Chamber claims that Arizona’s law is preempted by federal immigration law, but the lower courts disagreed—even the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the most liberal federal appeals court in the nation—upheld the law. In fact, Congress did preempt all state “civil or criminal sanctions” against employers who hire illegal aliens when it imposed federal employer sanctions in 1986 through the Immigration Reform and Control Act. However, that law has a specific exemption for state “licensing and similar laws” (8 U.S.C. 1324a (h) (2)). As Arizona Solicitor General Mary O’Grady argued, Arizona’s statute falls squarely within the “licensing and similar laws” exemption since it suspends or revokes the business license of employers violating the law. (more…)