Ninth Circuit Rebuffs Government's Challenge to California's Sanctuary Laws

Steven D. Schwinn, John Marshall Law School

The Ninth Circuit ruled yesterday that the federal government was unlikely to succeed in its challenge to certain California "sanctuary" laws that protect undocumented immigrants from federal immigration enforcement. The ruling denies the government's motion for a preliminary injunction against these laws. At the same time, the court remanded one particular provision to the lower court for further consideration.

The ruling, while preliminary, is yet another blow to the federal government's efforts to clamp down on sanctuary jurisdictions.

The case, United States v. California, tested three of California's "sanctuary" provisions. The federal government argued that they violated the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity (which prohibits state governments from regulating the federal government) and that federal law preempted them. 

The first, AB 450, prohibits public and private employers in the state from providing consent to an immigration enforcement agent to enter any nonpublic area of their property and to review their employment records without a subpoena or warrant. It also requires employers to provide employees with a notice of inspection by an immigration agency within 72 hours of receiving the notice. The court rejected the government's intergovernmental immunity claim, because "AB 450 is directed at the conduct of employers, not the United States or its agents, and no federal activity is regulated." It rejected the obstacle-preemption argument, because the provision regulates the relationship between employers and their employees, not between federal immigration authorities and the employees they regulate, and therefore it "imposes no additional or contrary obligations that undermine or disrupt the activities of federal immigration authorities." 

The second, AB 103, requires the California attorney general to inspect "county, local, or private" detention facilities where immigrants are housed and to review the conditions of confinement, including the "standard of care and due process provided to" detainees, and "the circumstances around their apprehension and transfer to the facility." The court ruled that the government was unlikely to succeed on its intergovernmental immunity argument as to the provision's burdens that duplicated preexisting inspection requirements, including the due process provision. But it ruled that the government was likely to succeed as to the provision's excessive burdens that fell uniquely on the federal government (the requirement that the state ag examine the circumstances surrounding the apprehension and transfer of immigration detainees). The court ruled that the government was not likely to succeed on the merits of its preemption claim, because "California possesses the general authority to ensure the health and welfare of inmates and detainees in facilities within its borders," and the government failed to show that Congress intended to supersede this authority.

The final provision, SB 54, restricts law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in immigration enforcement. The court held that the federal government's preemption claim runs headlong into the Tenth Amendment's anti-commandeering principle. That's because the federal government can't force the state or its officers into participating in federal immigration enforcement, even if "SB 54 may well frustrate the federal government's enforcement efforts." The court rejected the federal government's intergovernmental immunity argument, because accepting that claim "would imply that California cannot choose to discriminate against federal immigration authorities by refusing to assist their enforcement efforts--a result that would be inconsistent with the Tenth Amendment and the anticommandeering rule." Finally, the court ruled that SB 54 does not directly conflict with 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1373, which prohibits state and local governments from prohibiting their officers from communicating with federal immigration officials about the immigration status of any person.