United States v. California

921 F. 3d 865 (9th Cir. 2019)

Purchase the Printed Copy at bsmsphd.com

Nature of the Case

To access this section all you need to do is click here and register.

Facts

D enacted three laws expressly designed to ensure that P knew D was not going to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. AB 450 requires employers to alert employees before federal immigration inspections. If an employer receives 'the written immigration agency notice that provides the results of the inspection,' then she must provide a copy to each 'employee identified by the immigration agency inspection results to be an employee who may lack work authorization' and each 'employee whose work authorization documents have been identified by the immigration agency inspection to have deficiencies.' AB 450 prohibits 'public and private employers' from 'providing voluntary consent to an immigration enforcement agent to enter any nonpublic areas of a place of labor,' unless 'the immigration enforcement agent provides a judicial warrant.' It prohibits employers from 'providing voluntary consent to an immigration enforcement agent to access, review, or obtain the employer's employee records without a subpoena or judicial warrant.' It also limits employers' ability to 'reverify the employment eligibility of a current employee at a time or in a manner not required by' the IRCA. AB 103 imposes inspection requirements on facilities that house civil immigration detainees. It requires the California Attorney General to review 'the conditions of confinement,' 'the standard of care and due process provided,' and 'the circumstances around [the] apprehension' of civil immigration detainees, and then prepare 'a comprehensive report outlining the findings of the review.' SB 54, limits the cooperation between state and local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. It prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies from 'inquiring into an individual's immigration status'; 'detaining an individual on the basis of a hold request'; 'providing information regarding a person's release date or' other 'personal information,' such as 'the individual's home address or work address'; and 'assisting immigration authorities' in certain activities. P challenged all three laws under the Supremacy Clause and moved to enjoin their enforcement. The district court concluded that P was unlikely to succeed on the merits of many of its claims, and so denied in large part the motion for a preliminary injunction. It held P was likely to succeed on the merits as to two provisions of AB 450-specifically, the restriction on employers' voluntary consent to immigration enforcement officers, which the court concluded 'impermissibly discriminates against those who choose to deal with the Federal Government,' and AB 450's re-verification provision, which it determined was likely preempted. If found P would fail over the employee-notice provisions, reasoning, 'Given IRCA's focus on employers, the Court finds no indication-express or implied-that Congress intended for employees to be kept in the dark.' The notice provisions did not 'violate the intergovernmental immunity doctrine,' because 'an employer is not punished for its choice to work with the Federal Government but for its failure to communicate with its employees.' It found that AB 103 was not invalid under the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity because 'the burden placed upon the facilities is minimal,' and 'even if AB 103 treats federal contractors differently than the State treats other detention facilities,' P had not demonstrated that D 'treats other facilities better than those contractors.' It found that D's 'decision not to assist federal immigration enforcement in its endeavors is not an 'obstacle' to that enforcement effort' because 'refusing to help is not the same as impeding,' and thus the doctrine of obstacle preemption did not render the provisions unlawful. It found that 'Tenth Amendment and anticommandeering principles counsel against preemption,' and that 8 U.S.C. § 1373, which governs the exchange of 'information regarding immigration status,' did not change this conclusion because the 'plain meaning of Section 1373 limits its reach to information strictly pertaining to immigration status (i.e. what one's immigration status is) and does not include information like release dates and addresses.' P appealed.