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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Law - Article titled "What states can and should do to reduce illegal immigration"

Updating this ILB entry from Sept. 18th, headed "Courts - 9th Circuit upholds Arizona immigration law imposing employer sanctions," a law professor, Kris W. Kobach (University of Missouri at Kansas City - School of Law) has written a law journal article, "Reinforcing the Rule of Law: What States Can and Should Do to Reduce Illegal Immigration" (Georgetown Immigration Law Review, Vol. 22, 2008). It is available via SSRN. Prof. Kobach indicates that he served as "Attorney General Ashcroft’s chief adviser on immigration law and border security" and is currently "counsel advising the state of Arizona in the defense of illegal-immigration-related statutes and ordinances."

Particular interesting is the discussion beginning at p. 7 of the article. A quote:

What follows is a summary of eight areas in which states or cities can constitutionally act in the field of immigration. Those eight areas are:
A. Denying public benefits to illegal aliens;
B. Denying resident tuition rates to illegal aliens;
C. Prohibiting the employment of unauthorized aliens;
D. Enacting state-level crimes that mirror federal immigration crimes;
E. Enacting state-level crimes against identity theft;
F. Providing state and local law enforcement assistance to ICE;
G. Presuming illegal aliens to be flight risks for bail purposes;
H. Denying driver licenses to illegal aliens.
In all of these areas, there are three important restrictions that must be built into any state statute if it is to conform to the requirements of federal law and avoid preemption: (1) the statute must not attempt to create any new categories of aliens not recognized by federal law; (2) the statute must use terms consistent with federal law; and (3) the statute must not attempt to authorize state or local officials to independently determine an alien’s immigration status, without verification by the federal government.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 25, 2008 08:28 AM
Posted to General Law Related