Source: https://openjurist.org/424/us/351
Timestamp: 2018-03-19 07:10:48
Document Index: 154354314

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2805', '§ 2805', '§ 1101', '§ 2805', '§ 2805', '§ 2805', '§ 2805', '§ 1324', '§ 2041', '§ 2051', '§ 2805', '§ 2805', '§ 2805', '§ 2805', 'art 1', 'art. 1', '§ 16209', '§ 2805', '§ 2805', '§ 2805', '§ 2805', '§ 160', '§ 1324', '§ 2805', '§ 1101']

424 US 351 Leonor Alberti Decanas and Miguel Canas,s, v. Anthony G. Bica and Juan Silva. | OpenJurist
424 U.S. 351 - Leonor Alberti Decanas and Miguel Canas,s, v. Anthony G. Bica and Juan Silva.
424 US 351 Leonor Alberti Decanas and Miguel Canas,s, v. Anthony G. Bica and Juan Silva.
96 S.Ct. 933
47 L.Ed.2d 43
Leonor Alberti DeCANAS and Miguel Canas, Petitioners,
Anthony G. BICA and Juan Silva.
California Labor Code Ann. § 2805(a) provides that "(n)o employer shall knowingly employ an alien who is not entitled to lawful residence in the United States if such employment would have an adverse effect on lawful resident workers."1 The question presented in this case is whether § 2805(a) is unconstitutional either because it is an attempt to regulate immigration and naturalization or because it is pre-empted under the Supremacy Clause, Art. VI, cl. 2, of the Constitution, by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 66 Stat. 163, as amended, 8 U.S.C. § 1101 et seq., the comprehensive federal statutory scheme for regulation of immigration and naturalization.
Petitioners, who are migrant farmworkers, brought this action pursuant to § 2805(c) against respondent farm labor contractors in California Superior Court. The complaint alleged that respondents had refused petitioners continued employment due to a surplus of labor resulting from respondents' knowing employment, in violation of § 2805(a), of aliens not lawfully admitted to residence in the United States. Petitioners sought reinstatement and a permanent injunction against respondents' willful employment of illegal aliens.2 The Superior Court, in an unreported opinion, dismissed the complaint, holding "that Labor Code 2805 is unconstitutional . . . (because) (i)t encroaches upon, and interferes with, a comprehensive regulatory scheme enacted by Congress in the exercise of its exclusive power over immigration . . . ." App. 17a. The California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, affirmed, 40 Cal.App.3d 976, 115 Cal.Rptr. 444 (1974). The Court of Appeal held that § 2805(a) is an attempt to regulate the conditions for admission of foreign nationals, and therefore unconstitutional because, "in the area of immigration and naturalization, congressional power is exclusive." Id., at 979, 115 Cal.Rptr., at 446.3 The Court of Appeal further indicated that state regulatory power over this subject matter was foreclosed when Congress, "as an incident of national sovereignty," enacted the INA as a comprehensive scheme governing all aspects of immigration and naturalization, including the employment of aliens, and "specifically and intentionally declined to add sanctions on employers to its control mechanism." Ibid.4 The Supreme Court of California denied review. We granted certiorari, 422 U.S. 1040, 95 S.Ct. 2654, 45 L.Ed.2d 692 (1975). We reverse.
Of course, even state regulation designed to protect vital state interests must give way to paramount federal legislation. But we will not presume that Congress, in enacting the INA, intended to oust state authority to regulate the employment relationship covered by § 2805(a) in a manner consistent with pertinent federal laws. Only a demonstration that complete ouster of state power including state power to promulgate laws not in conflict with federal laws was " 'the clear and manifest purpose of Congress' " would justify that conclusion. Florida Lime & Avocado Growers v. Paul, supra, at 146, 83 S.Ct., at 1219, quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230, 67 S.Ct. 1146, 1152, 91 L.Ed. 1447 (1947).5 Respondents have not made that demonstration. They fail to point out, and an independent review does not reveal, any specific indication in either the wording or the legislative history of the INA that Congress intended to preclude even harmonious state regulation touching on aliens in general, or the employment of illegal aliens in particular.6
Nor can such intent be derived from the scope and detail of the INA. The central concern of the INA is with the terms and conditions of admission to the country and the subsequent treatment of aliens lawfully in the country. The comprehensiveness of the INA scheme for regulation of immigration and naturalization, without more, cannot be said to draw in the employment of illegal aliens as "plainly within . . . (that) central aim of federal regulation." San Diego Unions v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 244, 79 S.Ct. 773, 779, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959).7 This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that comprehensiveness of legislation governing entry and stay of aliens was to be expected in light of the nature and complexity of the subject. As the Court said in another legislative context: "Given the complexity of the matter addressed by Congress . . ., a detailed statutory scheme was both likely and appropriate, completely apart from any questions of pre-emptive intent." New York Dept. of Social Services v. Dublino, 413 U.S. 405, 415, 93 S.Ct. 2507, 2514, 37 L.Ed.2d 688 (1973).8
It is true that a proviso to 8 U.S.C. § 1324, making it a felony to harbor illegal entrants, provides that "employment (including the usual and normal practices incident to employment) shall not be deemed to constitute harboring." But this is at best evidence of a peripheral concern with employment of illegal entrants,9 and San Diego Unions v. Garmon, supra, 359 U.S., at 243, 79 S.Ct., at 779, admonished that "due regard for the presuppositions of our embracing federal system, including the principle of diffusion of power not as a matter of doctrinaire localism but as a promoter of democracy, has required us not to find withdrawal from the States of power to regulate where the activity regulated was a merely peripheral concern of the (federal regulation) . . . ."
Finally, rather than evidence that Congress "has unmistakably . . . ordained" exclusivity of federal regulation in this field, there is evidence in the form of the 1974 amendments to the Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act, 88 Stat. 1652, 7 U.S.C. § 2041 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. IV), that Congress intends that States may, to the extent consistent with federal law, regulate the employment of illegal aliens. Section 2044(b) authorizes revocation of the certificate of registration of any farm labor contractor found to have employed "an alien not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or who has not been authorized by the Attorney General to accept employment." Section 2045(f) prohibits farm labor contractors from employing "an alien not lawfully admitted for permanent residence or who has not been authorized by the Attorney General to accept employment."10 Of particular significance to our inquiry is the further provision that "(t)his chapter and the provisions contained herein are intended to supplement State action and compliance with this chapter shall not excuse anyone from compliance with appropriate State law and regulation." 7 U.S.C. § 2051 (emphasis supplied). Although concerned only with agricultural employment, the Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act is thus persuasive evidence that the INA should not be taken as legislation by Congress expressing its judgment to have uniform federal regulations in matters affecting employment of illegal aliens and therefore barring state legislation such as § 2805(a).11
For example, § 2805(a) requires that to be employed an alien must be "entitled to lawful residence." In its application, does the statute prevent employment of aliens who, although "not entitled to lawful residence in the United States," may under federal law be permitted to work here? Petitioners conceded at oral argument that, on its face, § 2805(a) would apply to such aliens and thus unconstitutionally conflict with federal law. They point, however, to the limiting construction given § 2805(a) in administrative regulations promulgated by the California Director of Industrial Relations. California Administrative Code, Title 8, part 1, c. 8, art. 1, § 16209 (1972), defines an alien "entitled to lawful residence" as follows: "An alien entitled to lawful residence shall mean any non-citizen of the United States who is in possession of a Form I-151, Alien Registration Receipt Card, or any other document issued by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service which authorizes him to work." Dolores Canning Co. v. Howard, 40 Cal.App.3d 673, 677 n. 3, 115 Cal.Rptr. 435, 436 n. 3 (1974). Whether these regulations were before the Superior Court in this case does not appear, and the Court of Appeal found § 2805(a) unconstitutional without addressing whether it conflicts with federal law.12 Obviously it is for the California courts to decide the effect of these administrative regulations in construing § 2805(a), and thus to decide in the first instance whether and to what extent, see n. 5, supra, § 2805 as construed would conflict with the INA or other federal laws or regulations. It suffices that this Court decide at this time that the Court of Appeal erred in holding that Congress in the INA precluded any state authority to regulate the employment of illegal aliens.
In finding § 2805 pre-empted by the INA, the Court of Appeal cited Guss v. Utah Labor Board, 353 U.S. 1, 77 S.Ct. 598, 1 L.Ed.2d 601 (1957), and San Diego Unions v. Garmon, 353 U.S. 26, 77 S.Ct. 607, 1 L.Ed.2d 618 (1957), and 359 U.S. 236, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959) as controlling authority. Reliance upon those decisions was misplaced. Those decisions involved labor management disputes over conduct expressly committed to the National Labor Relations Board to regulate, but concerning which the Board had declined to assert jurisdiction; the Board had not ceded jurisdiction of such regulation to the States, as it was empowered to do. 353 U.S., at 6-9, 77 S.Ct., at 600-602. This Court rejected the argument that the inaction of the NLRB left the States free to regulate the conduct. Section 10(a) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 160(a), expressly excluded state regulation of the disputed conduct unless the Board entered into an agreement with the State ceding regulatory authority. The Court held in that circumstance that "(t)o leave the States free to regulate conduct so plainly within the central aim of federal regulation involves too great a danger of conflict between power asserted by Congress and requirements imposed by state law." San Diego Unions v. Garmon, 359 U.S., at 244, 79 S.Ct., at 779. Guss and Garmon recognize, therefore, that in areas that Congress decides require national uniformity of regulation, Congress may exercise power to exclude any state regulation, even if harmonious. But nothing remotely resembling the NLRA scheme is to be found in the INA.
A construction of the proviso as not immunizing an employer who knowingly employs illegal aliens may be possible, and we imply no view upon the question. As will appear infra, other federal law that criminalizes knowing employment of illegal aliens in the agricultural field sanctions "appropriate" state laws criminalizing the same conduct. Accordingly, neither the proviso to 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a) nor Congress' failure to enact general laws criminalizing knowing employment of illegal aliens justifies an inference of congressional intent to pre-empt all state regulation in the employment area. Indeed, Congress' failure to enact such general sanctions reinforces the inference that may be drawn from other congressional action that Congress believes this problem does not yet require uniform national rules and is appropriately addressed by the States as a local matter. The cited statutory provisions would, in any event, be relevant on remand in the analysis of actual or potential conflicts between § 2805 and federal law. See also 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(15)(H), 1182(a)(14), 1321-1330.