Federal Judge Halts Oklahoma’s New Immigration Law
As reported by The New York Times, The Associated Press, and Oklahoma Voice, U.S. District Judge Bernard Jones on Friday suspended enforcement of Oklahoma’s impermissible occupation law until litigation questioning the law’s constitutionality is resolved.
Addressing each cause of action individually in his 31-page order, Jones made clear that none of the defenses raised by the state were likely to succeed because immigration is controlled by federal law, which the U.S. Constitution says cannot be supplanted by state law.
Although he cited a litany of decisions upholding the idea that only federal law may control immigration, Jones relied heavily on the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in Arizona v. United States, which addressed a similar state law. Arizona primarily attempted to outlaw failure to register properly, while Oklahoma’s law would outlaw entering or being found in the state without lawful immigration status.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March affirmed the Western District of Texas’ injunction, enjoining the state from enforcing a law very similar to Oklahoma’s.
“In the same way Arizona S.B. 1070 added a state-law penalty for conduct proscribed by federal law, S.B. 4 criminalizes behavior already prohibited by the INA,” the appellate court found. “Particularly applicable in the present case, the Supreme Court held in Arizona that permitting the State to impose its own penalties for the federal offenses here would conflict with the careful framework Congress adopted. That is just as true regarding the Texas laws regarding entry and removal.”
Oklahoma argued, among other things, that the state law was valid under the Constitution’s State War Clause because the state retains an inherent, sovereign power of self-defense against invasion.
Oklahoma ranks only 20th among states for undocumented immigrants with an estimated 85,000, approximately 2.1% of the state’s population. That’s a decrease of 15,000 from 2013 to 2021.
“The Western District of Texas performed an extensive analysis of the historical and constitutional context of the State War Clause, concluding in detail that the surge in unauthorized immigration did not qualify as an ‘invasion’ under the Constitution and that S.B. 4 was not a wartime measure,” Jones wrote.
Jones also noted that granting the preliminary injunction required a likelihood of success for the plaintiffs on the merits of the case.
Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito each dissented in part in the Arizona decision. Justice Kagan did not participate. Antonin Scalia was replaced by Neil Gorsuch; Thomas, Alito and Kagan remain on the Supreme Court.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond vowed to appeal.
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Happy 25th Anniversary to the Bricktown canal
Ciao for now,
Ted Streuli
Executive Director, Oklahoma Watch
tstreuli@oklahomawatch.org
