Supreme Court Upholds Arizona’s E-Verify Requirement for Employers

The United States Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s law requiring employers in the state to use the federal government’s E-Verify system to confirm the eligibility of employees to work in the United States.

The Court said:

A recently enacted Arizona statute—the Legal Arizona Workers Act—provides that the licenses of state employers that knowingly or intentionally employ unauthorized aliens may be, and in certain circumstances must be, suspended or revoked. The law also requires that all Arizona employers use a federal electronic verification system to confirm that the workers they employ are legally authorized workers. The question presented is whether federal immigration law preempts those provisions of Arizona law. Because we conclude that the State’s licensing provisions fall squarely within the federal statute’s savings clause and that the Arizona regulation does not otherwise conflict with federal law, we hold that the Arizona law is not preempted.

The full opinion is available at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-115.pdf.