JUDGE BLOCKS OKLAHOMA IMMIGRATION LAW FROM TAKING EFFECT

Wow. Oklahoma passed one of the nation's toughest immigration laws and the Sooner state's legislation has been the model for anti-immigrant groups around the country. And now Robin Cauthron, a US District Court Judge, has granted a preliminary injunction suspending the law from taking force due to concerns that the plaintiffs, the US Chamber of Commerce and various civil rights groups, are "substantially likely to establish" that the Oklahoma law is preempted by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. In other words, the law appears to violate the Supremacy clause of the US Constitution. Oklahoma's governor and Attorney General, defendants in the suit, had the Chutzpah to claim that Congress actually infringed upon the lawmaking authority of Oklahoma when it passed the 1986 immigration act, a charge the judge quickly dismissed.

The decision can be viewed here. Download okahoma_preliminary_injunction.pdf

Comments

[George Chell from singapore]

What do you expect from the Okies. A leopard cannot change its spots. Here in Singapore, I heard that an Okie woman in her late forties who has lived in Singapore for fifteen years and whose husband works in the oil industry forbade her twenty five year old son from dating a local woman of Chinese ancestry, a daughter of a millionaire at that. So, I am not surprised at what at what the Okies do...seems like it has more than its proportion of racists not different from Kirkorian.

[Greg Siskind]

Right you are and thanks for catching the typo.

[EB3]

I think you mean the Immigration Reform and Control Act, or "IRCA" for short. It's Public Law 99-603. I'm not sure if Thomas has the text of PLs going that far back, but if it doesn't you can probably find it on Westlaw or Lexis.

[Another voice]

I guess the same argument can be made for these sort of laws passed in other states. Hopefully this legal argument can stick and cause a domino effect in other jurisdictions by establishing a good legal precedent.