Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 2012

Arizona v. United States

132 S. Ct. 2492 | 183 L. Ed. 2d 351 | 2012 U.S. LEXIS 4872 | 567 U.S. 387 | 80 U.S.L.W. 4539 | 23 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 437

Full access

Unlock the video and quiz

The written brief is free to read below. Subscribe to watch the video explainer and take the quiz.

Create an account Log in

Takeaway

In short, this case holds that federal immigration law can preempt state measures that create parallel registration crimes, criminalize unauthorized work, or authorize unilateral removability-based arrests, but it does not automatically bar state officers from communicating with federal authorities to verify immigration status during lawful encounters.

Background

In 2010, Arizona enacted S. B. 1070, the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, in response to concerns about unlawful immigration. The statute pursued an official policy of “attrition through enforcement.” Four provisions were challenged: §3, which made violation of federal alien-registration requirements a state misdemeanor; §5(C), which criminalized an unauthorized alien’s seeking or performing work in Arizona; §6, which authorized warrantless arrests based on probable cause that a person had committed a public offense making the person removable; and §2(B), which required officers, in specified circumstances, to make a reasonable attempt to verify the immigration status of a person lawfully stopped, detained, or arrested.

The United States sued Arizona, alleging that federal immigration law preempted the provisions. The District Court preliminarily enjoined all four provisions, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed the injunction as to §§3, 5(C), and 6, but reversed as to §2(B), concluding that it was premature to enjoin that provision before Arizona courts had construed it and before its actual operation could be assessed.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether §3, which made failure to comply with federal alien-registration requirements a state crime, was preempted.

Holding

Yes. Congress occupied the field of alien registration, so Arizona could not add its own criminal enforcement scheme.

Reasoning

Federal immigration authority rests on Congress’s naturalization power and the National Government’s sovereign authority over foreign affairs. Although States retain important police powers, the Supremacy Clause requires state law to yield where Congress has occupied an entire field or where state law conflicts with federal objectives.

Congress established a comprehensive and unified alien-registration system. Under Hines v. Davidowitz, such a system leaves no room for States to create supplementary or auxiliary registration rules, even if the state law largely tracks federal standards.

Section 3 did more than simply assist federal enforcement. It gave Arizona independent authority to prosecute violations of federal registration duties and imposed a state penalty structure that differed from federal law, including by excluding probation and pardon. Allowing each State to impose its own sanctions would disrupt Congress’s integrated national system and federal control over enforcement choices.

Issue #2

Whether §5(C), which made it a state crime for unauthorized aliens to seek or perform work, was preempted by federal immigration law.

Holding

Yes. Section 5(C) conflicted with Congress’s deliberately chosen employment-enforcement system.

Reasoning

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 created a comprehensive system for addressing unauthorized employment. It prohibits employers from knowingly hiring unauthorized workers, requires employment-eligibility verification, and imposes civil and criminal sanctions principally on employers.

Congress imposed certain civil immigration consequences on unauthorized employees, such as limits on adjustment of status and possible removal, and criminalized fraudulent efforts to obtain employment. But Congress did not make merely seeking or performing unauthorized work a federal crime.

The text, structure, and legislative history of IRCA showed that Congress deliberately declined to criminalize unauthorized employees. Arizona’s contrary choice therefore stood as an obstacle to the balance Congress struck between deterring unlawful employment, regulating employers, and avoiding criminal punishment of workers. IRCA’s express preemption clause concerning employer sanctions did not displace ordinary conflict-preemption principles outside that clause.

Issue #3

Whether §6, which authorized warrantless state arrests of persons believed to have committed a removable offense, was preempted.

Holding

Yes. Section 6 interfered with the federal removal system and the discretion Congress assigned to federal immigration officials.

Reasoning

Removability is generally a civil immigration matter, not a criminal offense. Federal law carefully specifies when federal immigration officers may arrest and detain an alien during the removal process, including the circumstances in which a warrant is required and the narrow circumstances permitting a warrantless arrest.

Section 6 gave state officers broader arrest authority than Congress gave trained federal immigration officers. It authorized an arrest based on possible removability without a federal warrant, without a likelihood of escape, and without federal input about whether detention was warranted in the individual case.

Congress permits state and local officers to perform certain immigration functions under formal agreements and permits cooperation with federal authorities. But cooperation does not include a State’s unilateral decision to arrest and detain persons based solely on possible removability. Such action could frustrate federal priorities, discretionary judgments, and foreign-relations concerns that require the Nation to speak with one voice.

Issue #4

Whether §2(B), which required immigration-status verification during certain lawful stops, detentions, and arrests, was properly preliminarily enjoined as preempted.

Holding

No. On the record before the Court, it was premature to enjoin §2(B); its validity depended on how Arizona courts construed and Arizona officers applied it.

Reasoning

Section 2(B) applies only after a lawful stop, detention, or arrest on some other legitimate basis. It also contains limitations: valid Arizona identification creates a presumption of lawful presence, race and national origin may not be considered except as constitutionally permitted, and the provision must be implemented consistently with federal immigration law and civil-rights protections.

Federal law encourages communication between state and federal officials about immigration status. Congress permits state officers to communicate with federal authorities about any person’s immigration status and requires federal officials to respond to status-verification requests. A routine requirement that officers contact federal immigration authorities therefore did not, by itself, conflict with federal law.

A different problem would arise if Arizona interpreted §2(B) to require officers to prolong an otherwise completed stop or to hold someone solely while awaiting immigration verification. That could raise Fourth Amendment concerns and conflict with the federal system by placing state officers in control of detention based on possible unlawful presence.

The statute had not yet taken effect, and Arizona courts had not definitively interpreted its timing and detention requirements. If construed to require status inquiries only during an already authorized detention, or after release, the provision could survive preemption. The Court therefore declined to assume that Arizona would apply the law in a conflicting manner, while preserving later as-applied constitutional and preemption challenges.

Dissents

Justice Scalia

Reasoning

Justice Scalia agreed that the Court should not uphold the preliminary injunction against §2(B), but otherwise concluded that none of the challenged provisions was preempted. In his view, Arizona retained an inherent sovereign power to exclude persons with no right to be present in its territory unless the Constitution or a valid federal statute clearly displaced that power.

He rejected the majority’s reliance on implied field preemption in immigration. Because excluding unlawfully present aliens concerns a core attribute of state sovereignty, he maintained that Congress must speak unequivocally before stripping States of that authority. Federal regulation alone, and especially executive choices not to enforce federal law aggressively, could not silently eliminate Arizona’s power.

On §3, he reasoned that Arizona merely adopted federal registration violations as state offenses and did not impose new registration requirements. On §5(C), he emphasized that IRCA expressly preempted certain sanctions against employers while saying nothing about state penalties against unauthorized employees; he viewed that omission as preserving state authority.

On §6, Justice Scalia argued that state officers could cooperate by arresting removable aliens, contacting federal officials, and then following federal direction. In his view, Arizona was entitled to enforce federal immigration restrictions more vigorously than the Executive Branch chose to do, so long as Arizona did not admit people federal law excluded or exclude people federal law admitted.

Justice Thomas

Reasoning

Justice Thomas agreed with Justice Scalia’s bottom-line conclusion that no challenged provision was preempted, but relied on a more strictly textual approach. He rejected obstacle preemption based on judicial assessments of congressional purposes and objectives, reasoning that the Supremacy Clause gives preemptive force to enacted federal law, not to inferred legislative purposes.

In his view, §2(B) was consistent with statutes expressly allowing state and local officials to communicate with federal authorities about immigration status and requiring federal officials to provide requested verification. Section 6 likewise did not conflict with any federal statute, and federal law expressly allowed state officers to cooperate in the apprehension and detention of unlawfully present aliens.

Justice Thomas regarded §3 as a permissible incorporation of federal registration standards, not an additional registration system. He also read IRCA’s express preemption clause, which addresses sanctions against employers, as leaving States free to impose criminal penalties on unauthorized employees.

Justice Alito

Reasoning

Justice Alito agreed with the Court that §2(B) was not preempted and that §3 was preempted under Hines. Section 2(B), he explained, did not expand Arizona officers’ authority to stop or arrest anyone; it required status inquiries only after a lawful stop, detention, or arrest under other law. Federal statutes permit such communication and require federal officials to respond to state requests for immigration-status information.

He also rejected the Government’s argument that §2(B) conflicted with the Executive Branch’s current enforcement priorities. Agency priorities are not federal law, he reasoned, and treating them as preemptive would give the Executive extraordinary power to invalidate state laws that are consistent with statutes and regulations. Any prolonged detention or discriminatory enforcement, moreover, could be addressed through ordinary constitutional challenges as the statute was applied.

Justice Alito disagreed that §5(C) was preempted. Employment regulation is traditionally an area of state police power, so he would require clear and manifest evidence that Congress meant to displace state authority. IRCA’s choice not to impose federal criminal penalties on unauthorized employees did not clearly establish that Congress also meant to forbid States from doing so; its express preemption of certain employer sanctions suggested the opposite inference was at least plausible.

He also would have upheld §6. The provision added only narrow categories of warrantless-arrest authority beyond Arizona law already in force, and federal law permits state and local cooperation in apprehending and detaining unlawfully present aliens. Because §6 could be applied in ways consistent with federal law, he concluded that the United States had not established the demanding showing necessary for a facial preemption challenge.