Obama asks SCOTUS to toss out Az employer sanctions law
Dylan Smith TucsonSentinel.com
The Obama administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to toss out Arizona's law that punishes businesses that employ illegal immigrants.
The Justice Department says the employer sanctions law is preempted by federal laws, and that lower court rulings in favor of the Arizona statute should be reversed.
The Legal Arizona Workers Act requires employers to verify the employment eligibility of workers via the federal E-Verify database.
Arizona's law's effect is to "disrupt a careful balance that Congress struck nearly 25 years ago between two interests of the highest importance: ensuring that employers do not undermine enforcement of immigration laws by hiring unauthorized workers, while also ensuring that employers not discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities legally in the country," according to a brief filed by the administration.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 precludes states from penalizing companies for hiring illegal immigrants. But the law allows states to have "licensing or similar laws."
"The Arizona statute is not at bottom a 'licensing or similar law,' " Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal wrote in the brief. "It is instead a statute that prohibits the hiring of unauthorized aliens and uses suspension and revocation of all state-issued licenses as its ultimate sanction."
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/...0_supremecourt
i can see obama's position if this is in fact preempted, however, without more information of the laws in question, i can't say for sure it is. in the spirit, on its face, it does not look like it should be preempted. IMO, this shows we need a major overhaul of federal immigration law, it needs to be clear what states can do to enforce federal immigration law becuase it is clear as day the federal governmetn has failed for decades....
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