Judge OKs sanctuary state law

The state of California can continue to bar local authorities from cooperating with U.S. immigration enforcement officials, a federal judge ruled Thursday on a motion for preliminary injunction, wading into the national debate over ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions.

U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez of the Eastern District in Sacramento also declined to enjoin Assembly Bill 103, which orders California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to inspect immigration holding facilities across the state. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has roughly 20 contracts with local governments across the state to detain immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

But Mendez struck provisions of a separate law, Assembly Bill 450, that forbids employers from cooperating with immigration enforcement officials who do not have a warrant.

And he had a warning for the litigants in his order: “If there is going to be a longterm solution to the problems our country faces with respect to immigration policy, it can only come from our legislative and executive branches. It cannot and will not come from piecemeal opinions issued by the judicial branch.”

Both sides are likely to appeal the decision while the case continues to trial before Mendez, according to Christopher Hajec, litigation director at the nonprofit Immigration Reform Law Institute who filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the federal government.

Nevertheless, the ruling was a sweet victory especially for Attorney General Xavier Becerra who has waged a pitched battle against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policy. Becerra had tried to get the case moved to the Northern District in San Francisco, and away from Mendez, presumably because he feared the Republican-appointed judge would rule against him.

Mendez’s decisions appeared to allay those fears. In upholding Senate Bill 54, which severely limits when state and local officials can assist federal immigration enforcement officers, the judge wrote that “refusing to help is not the same as impeding.”

“If such were the rule, obstacle preemption could be used to commandeer state resources and subvert Tenth Amendment principles,” Mendez wrote.

Becerra was quick to ballyhoo the decision.

“Today the federal court issued a strong ruling against federal government overreach in USA v. CA,” Becerra said in a statement. “The Constitution gives the people of California, not the Trump administration, the power to decide how we will provide for our public safety and general welfare. California’s laws work in concert — not conflict — with federal law.”

Becerra has gone back and forth with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in court and in the press over the laws that, according to Sessions, are aimed at impeding federal immigration enforcement.

And on Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice was quick to paint the decision in its favor as a significant victory.

“When they passed SB 54, AB 103, and AB 450, California’s political leadership clearly intended to obstruct federal immigration authorities in their state,” DOJ spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement. “The preliminary injunction of AB 450 is a major victory for private employers in California who are no longer prevented from cooperating with legitimate enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.”

All three laws came into effect this year as a bulwark against increased immigration enforcement by the Trump administration and a promise by the administration to deport people who entered the U.S. without permission regardless of their crimes.

The laws were not without their critics however, including the The National Sheriffs’ Association and the California State Sheriffs’ association which opposed SB 54 and have said it unfairly limited their ability to cooperate with federal partners.

Sessions sued California in March and asked Mendez to strike down all three laws on federal preemption and other grounds.

Since then multiple cities have sided with the administration over the suit, requesting to join the action and in some cases filing friend-of-the court briefs. The Los Alamitos City Council was the first to publicly oppose the “sanctuary” law and was followed by the Orange County Board of Supervisors, the the San Diego City Council and others.

Some of those concerns have now been validated by Mendez’s order enjoining parts of AB 450.

The law was “troubling due to the precarious situation in which it places employers,” by requiring them to demand judicial warrants from federal immigration agents before giving them access to nonpublic areas of a worksite, Mendez wrote. U.S. v. California, 18-CV00490, (E.D. Cal., filed march 6, 2018).

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys previously argued the law impeded federal agents from finding unlawfully employed immigrants and infringed on a federal area of responsibility.

Mendez seemed to agree with them at oral argument, saying “The state really puts the employer between a rock and a hard place.”

The order stops the state from enforcing the provisions of the law that disallow employers from consenting to a search and from fining employers up to $10,000.

Regarding the “sanctuary” state law, DOJ attorneys have said in briefs and at oral argument that SB 54 conflicts with 8 USC 1373, a federal law that prohibits state and local law enforcement from stopping the sending of immigration information to federal authorities.

The law has been at the center of much of the federal government’s arguments against so-called sanctuary policies nationwide and Mendez wrote that there was no conflict between the state and the federal law.

He declined to weigh in on the constitutionality of 8 USC 1373.

In allowing SB 54 to stand, Mendez sided with the state’s argument that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing states to permit gambling allowed it to go ahead. Murphy v. NCAA 16-476.

“The decision clarified that the court’s anticommandeering precedent extends to prohibitions on state legislative action,” Mendez wrote. “Section 1373 does just what Murphy proscribes, it tells states they may not prohibit (i.e., through legislation,) the sharing of information regarding immigration status.”

Mendez’s order is in line with other statements he made at oral arguments last month.

“You can’t mandate cooperation,” he told DOJ attorneys, seeming to side with the state’s anti-commandeering arguments that its law enforcement could not be made to assist in federal immigration enforcement.

In declining to enjoin AB 103 Mendez said it did not infringe on the federal government’s exclusive authority over immigration.

“The court finds no indication … that Congress intended for states to have no oversight over detention facilities operating within their borders,” he added.

“California is under no obligation to assist Trump tear families apart,” California State Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, and the author of SB 54 said in an emailed statement. “We cannot stop his mean-spirited immigration policies, but we don’t have to help him, and we won’t,” said de Leon, who is also a candidate for U.S. Senate.