On Tuesday, the Justice Department sued California claiming parts of three new state laws intended to protect immigrants violate the United States Constitution. This next step in the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement practices isn’t a surprise. On the contrary, the ongoing dispute between federal officials and the country’s most populous and economically productive state has been leading in this direction for at least fourteen months. Now that the complaint has been filed, the irony of the Trump administration’s main legal claim is remarkable. The thrust of the Justice [...]
Colorado Supreme Court nixes anti-smuggling crime
In a long due decision, a divided Colorado Supreme Court held the state’s human smuggling crime unconstitutional. The court’s decision in Fuentes-Espinoza v. People, No. 13SC128 (Colo. October 10, 2017), returns public attention to 2006 when the state legislature enacted a host of anti-migrant legislation. In Fuentes-Espinoza, the court concluded that the state legislator overstepped its authority that year when it criminalized conduct already regulated by federal immigration law. The U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause commands that state law must give way anytime it affects the same [...]