Opinion ID: 1057415
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Individual Standing of Luz Santiago

Text: Luz Santiago is a pastor of a church in Mesa, Arizona, whose congregation is eighty percent unauthorized aliens.4 She “provides transportation and shelter to members of her congregation,” including those who are unauthorized aliens, on a daily basis. In particular, she alleges that she often drives congregants to school, court, and doctor’s appointments. Importantly, she “provides shelter to persons who seek sanctuary in her church.” In light of these activities, Santiago alleges that she fears prosecution under § 13-2929. In denying Arizona’s motion to dismiss, the 4 The facts about Santiago’s congregation and her activities within the church are drawn from the allegations in the complaint. Arizona does not contest the validity of any of Santiago’s factual allegations. 14 VALLE DEL SOL V. WHITING district court concluded that “Santiago’s allegations are sufficient to demonstrate a reasonable likelihood that [Ariz. Rev. Stat.] § 13-2929 could be enforced against her.” We agree and therefore hold that Santiago has standing to challenge § 13-2929. It is well-established that, although a plaintiff “must demonstrate a realistic danger of sustaining a direct injury as a result of a statute’s operation or enforcement,” a plaintiff “does not have to await the consummation of threatened injury to obtain preventive relief.” Babbitt v. United Farm Workers, 444 U.S. 289, 298 (1979) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, Santiago need not await prosecution to challenge § 13-2929. Id. (“[I]t is not necessary that [the plaintiff] first expose himself to actual arrest or a prosecution to be entitled to challenge [the] statute that he claims deters the exercise of his constitutional rights.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). “[I]t is ‘sufficient for standing purposes that the plaintiff intends to engage in a ‘course of conduct arguably affected with a constitutional interest’ and that there is a credible threat that the provision will be invoked against the plaintiff.’” Ariz. Right to Life Political Action Comm. v. Bayless, 320 F.3d 1002, 1006 (9th Cir. 2003) (quoting LSO, Ltd. v. Stroh, 205 F.3d 1146, 1154–55 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting Babbitt, 442 U.S. at 298)). Santiago has established a credible threat of prosecution under this statute, which she challenges on constitutional grounds.5 She alleges that she provides, and plans to continue 5 Arizona argues that Santiago does not have standing because she has not been prosecuted, or directly threatened with prosecution, by authorities in the past two years. But as discussed above, plaintiffs do not have to await prosecution to challenge unconstitutional statutes. In Thomas v. VALLE DEL SOL V. WHITING 15 to provide, shelter and transportation to her congregants, most of whom are unauthorized aliens, on a daily basis. Her actions, therefore, “fall within the plain language of [§ 132929’s] prohibitions on transporting [and] harboring . . . undocumented immigrants.” Ga. Latino Alliance for Human Rights v. Gov. of Georgia, 691 F.3d 1250, 1258 (11th Cir. 2012) (holding that an immigration attorney providing services to unauthorized aliens had individual standing to bring a pre-enforcement challenge to a practically identical provision in Georgia) [hereinafter GLAHR]. Because the injury alleged—a credible threat of prosecution under § 132929—is clearly traceable to § 13-2929, and can be redressed through an injunction enjoining enforcement of that provision, Santiago has standing to challenge it. Id. at 1260 (“Each injury is directly traceable to the passage of H.B. 87 [the cognate Georgia law] and would be redressed by enjoining each provision.”). Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, we held that we consider, as one of the factors in “evaluating the genuineness of a claimed threat of prosecution,” “whether the prosecuting authorities have communicated a specific warning or threat to initiate proceedings.” 220 F.3d 1134, 1139 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc). But we have never held that a specific threat is necessary to demonstrate standing. See Cal. Pro-Life Council, Inc. v. Getman, 328 F.3d 1088, 1094 (9th Cir. 2003) (“The district court’s decision implied that absent a threat or at least a warning that California might prosecute CPLC for its publications, CPLC could not possibly have suffered an injury-in-fact sufficient to give it standing. . . . Our ruling in Thomas did not purport to overrule years of Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court precedent recognizing the validity of pre-enforcement challenges to statutes infringing upon constitutional rights.”); see also Virginia v. Am. Booksellers Ass’n, 484 U.S. 383, 393 (1988) (“The State has not suggested that the newly enacted law will not be enforced, and we see no reason to assume otherwise.”); Babbit, 442 U.S. at 302 (finding standing where the plaintiff’s “fear of criminal prosecution . . . is not imaginary or wholly speculative” even though the penalty “has not yet been applied and may never be applied”). 16 VALLE DEL SOL V. WHITING Arizona argues that Santiago has not established a credible threat of prosecution for two reasons. First, Arizona argues that § 13-2929 only punishes the transportation or harboring of unauthorized aliens where the individual is committing some other predicate criminal offense, and Santiago has not alleged an intent to commit any other criminal offense. For the reasons discussed below, infra at section II, we do not believe that the text of the statute that supposedly imposes this requirement—“in violation of a criminal offense”—has any substantive content that would make prosecution of Santiago any less likely. For the purposes of our standing analysis, however, we use the interpretation asserted by Arizona because it appears to be the interpretation that Arizona law enforcement, which is charged with enforcing the law, has adopted.6 If Santiago has alleged a likelihood of violating § 13-2929 as interpreted by Arizona law enforcement, then she has alleged a credible threat of prosecution. Thus, even assuming the statute includes a predicate criminal offense requirement, Santiago has still alleged a credible threat of prosecution. First, in violating § 13-2929, Santiago will likely also be violating the federal harboring statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1324, which also criminalizes the harboring and transporting of unauthorized aliens with 6 See Arizona Peace Officer Standards & Training Board, Support Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act Training Course 29 (“[B]efore I go to the first section let me just tell you that all three sections of the statute have a preliminary requirement. The person who is the suspect in the case, who you are focused on, has to be in violation of a criminal law at the time that they commit one of these three additional offenses [listed in Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-2929].”). VALLE DEL SOL V. WHITING 17 practically identical provisions.7 Notably, Arizona does not contend that a violation of the federal harboring statute would not satisfy the predicate criminal offense element. Second, the breadth of the supposed predicate criminal offense provision, which includes a violation of any federal or state statute, defeats any claim that the provision narrows the scope of the law sufficiently to deprive Santiago of standing. In GLAHR, the Eleventh Circuit addressed an identical provision in a similar statute and found the predicate criminal provision too broad to have any constitutionally significant effect on the likelihood of prosecution: “We do not agree with the State officers that the probability of an officer’s finding of probable cause for any violation of state or federal law is comparable to the likelihood of the ‘sequence of individually improbable events’ held to be speculative in Lyons.” 691 F.3d at 1259 (quoting Fla. State Conference of the NAACP v. Browning, 522 F.3d 1153, 1162 (11th Cir. 2008)). We agree with the Eleventh Circuit. Second, Arizona argues that Santiago has not alleged an intent to violate § 13-2929 (or 8 U.S.C. § 1324 for purposes of the predicate criminal offense element) because she has not alleged an “inten[t] to assist [any] alien in violating the federal immigration laws.” Arizona contends that the text in § 13-2929 (which mirrors 8 U.S.C. § 1324) that criminalizes transporting an unauthorized alien “in furtherance of the illegal presence of the alien in the United States” and the harboring of an unauthorized alien “from detection” clearly imposes a requirement that the individual actually intend to help the alien violate the federal immigration laws. We disagree. 7 Section 1324 only differs from § 13-2929 in two ways, discussed infra, neither of which would apply Santiago’s alleged activities. 18 VALLE DEL SOL V. WHITING Section 13-2929 does not clearly include an intent requirement with respect to the “furtherance of illegal presence” or shielding “from detection” elements of the crime. The statute could be read to prohibit providing shelter that shields an alien from detection by immigration officials or transporting an alien in a manner that furthers his illegal presence regardless of the individual’s intent. This is a reasonable reading of the statute since the statute includes a knowledge requirement with respect to the alien’s immigration status. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-2929(A) (criminalizing these acts only if the person “knows or recklessly disregards the fact that the alien has come to, has entered or remains in the United States in violation of the law”). The Arizona legislature clearly knew how to include a scienter requirement but chose not to phrase the statute to impose a “purposefully” mens rea requirement with respect to the “in furtherance of the illegal presence” or “from detection” elements.8 Thus, an individual who knowingly or recklessly provides transportation and shelter to unauthorized aliens, as Santiago does, can allege a credible threat of prosecution under § 13-2929 without alleging a specific intent to assist an unauthorized alien in violating the federal immigration laws.9 8 Although Arizona opines that the statute will be interpreted to impose such a requirement, there is no evidence that this is anything more than a litigation position. Arizona has not produced any evidence that Arizona law enforcement or Arizona courts have interpreted or will interpret the provision in this manner. 9 Arizona attempts to bolster its intent argument by referencing cases where federal courts have interpreted the text of 8 U.S.C. § 1324 to require an intent to assist aliens in violating the federal immigration laws. See United States v. You, 382 F.3d 958, 966 (9th Cir. 2004) (approving a jury instruction that requires the jury to find that the defendant acted with VALLE DEL SOL V. WHITING 19 In any event, even if the statute does include an intent requirement, Santiago’s statement that she “provides shelter to persons who seek sanctuary in her church” would be sufficient to allege that she intends to shield those persons from detection.10 For the foregoing reasons, Santiago has standing to challenge § 13-2929. “the purpose of avoiding [the aliens’] detection by immigration authorities”). The Arizona state courts are not, however, bound by federal interpretations of federal law when interpreting their own state harboring provision. Nor is the federal interpretation adopted in You entirely stable. In United States v. Costello, the federal government argued that “harboring” under 8 U.S.C. § 1324 should be defined broadly to include a defendant who has allowed her boyfriend, an unauthorized alien, to live with her. 666 F.3d 1040 (7th Cir. 2012). The government argued that “harboring” simply meant “to house a person.” Id. at 1043. While the Seventh Circuit ultimately determined that the statute should require more, it cited to several other cases that have defined harboring more broadly to include simple sheltering. Id. at 1049–50 (citing United States v. Acosta de Evans, 531 F.2d 428, 430 (9th Cir. 1976) (“We believe that [the purpose of the statute] is best effectuated by construing ‘harbor’ to mean ‘afford shelter to’ and so hold.”); United States v. Kim, 193 F.3d 567, 573–74 (2d Cir. 1999)). Given the foregoing, there is a reasonable probability that Arizona law enforcement and courts will interpret both the federal and state statutes broadly and find that an individual violates § 13-2929 whenever she knowingly or recklessly affords shelter to or transports an unauthorized alien. 10 Sanctuary is commonly defined as a “place of refuge or asylum.” Sanctuary, T he American Heritage Dictionary, http://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=sanctuary (last visited Sept. 21, 2013). 20 VALLE DEL SOL V. WHITING