Arizona's immigration law survives US Supreme Court review

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ET AL. v. WHITING ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 09–115. Argued December 8, 2010—Decided May 26, 2011

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) makes it “unlawfulfor a person or other entity . . . to hire, or to recruit or refer for a fee,for employment in the United States an alien knowing the alien is anunauthorized alien.” 8 U. S. C. §1324a(a)(1)(A). Employers that violate that prohibition may be subjected to federal civil and criminal sanctions. IRCA also restricts the ability of States to combat em-ployment of unauthorized workers; the Act expressly preempts “any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar laws) upon those who employ, or re-cruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens.” §1324a(h)(2). IRCA also requires employers to take steps to verify an employee’seligibility for employment. In an attempt to improve that verificationprocess in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsi-bility Act (IIRIRA), Congress created E-Verify—an internet-basedsystem employers can use to check the work authorization status ofemployees.Against this statutory background, several States have recently enacted laws attempting to impose sanctions for the employment ofunauthorized aliens through, among other things, “licensing and similar laws.” Arizona is one of them. The Legal Arizona Workers Act provides that the licenses of state employers that knowingly orintentionally employ unauthorized aliens may be, and in certain cir-cumstances must be, suspended or revoked. That law also requires that all Arizona employers use E-Verify. The Chamber of Commerce of the United States and various busi-ness and civil rights organizations (collectively Chamber) filed this
federal preenforcement suit against those charged with administer-ing the Arizona law, arguing that the state law’s license suspension and revocation provisions were both expressly and impliedly pre-empted by federal immigration law, and that the mandatory use of E-Verify was impliedly preempted. The District Court found that the plain language of IRCA’s preemption clause did not invalidate the Arizona law because the law did no more than impose licensing con-ditions on businesses operating within the State. Nor was the state law preempted with respect to E-Verify, the court concluded, because although Congress had made the program voluntary at the national level, it had expressed no intent to prevent States from mandating participation. The Ninth Circuit affirmed.
Held: The judgment is affirmed. 558 F. 3d 856, affirmed.