California dreaming

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed suit against California for passing a series of laws it says systematically thwart federal immigration enforcement. We here in the nation’s immigrant capital, a sanctuary city that’s been unfairly put in the crosshairs by the Trump administration’s DOJ, sympathize with our West Coast brethren as they seek to establish a sanctuary state.

But the case made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t entirely wrong; two of the California statues in question are too sweeping. At issue are three state laws passed in 2017. One blocks private employers from cooperating with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and requires them to alert employees in advance of a potential worksite enforcement inspection, with penalties of $2,000 to $10,000 should they fail.

A second grants the state power to inspect federal detainee holding facilities.

The third prevents local law enforcement, absent a judicial warrant, from handing off an immigrant to the feds, or providing information to federal authorities about a release date from custody — except when that immigrant has committed serious crimes.

This is most similar to New York policy, and it rests on firm legal ground. Absent a judicial warrant, localities have no affirmative obligation to cooperate with the feds, who have plenty of immigration-enforcement authority on their own.

The Supreme Court has well-established the principle, based on the 10th Amendment, that the feds can’t effectively commandeer state personnel and resources to enforce federal law. But the other two laws are dubious indeed. Private employers must comply with both state and federal law. Demanding employers to tell their workers about any ICE sweep — or be subject to state sanctions — puts a business in an untenable, unwinnable position.

And the California law giving state officials oversight authority over federal detention centers will almost surely fail to withstand court scrutiny. It’s a well-established U.S. legal principle that states cannot exercise direct oversight over federal personnel and agencies.

Sessions’ rhetoric as he goes to legal war with the nation’s largest state is overheated, not to mention offensive. He has called California’s laws the modern-day version of Southern state “nullification” and “secession.”

But two of the three laws in question here do go too far in their well-intended attempt to push back against an overzealous federal government.

Sanctuary cities and states can shelter undocumented immigrants. They cannot effectively handcuff federal authorities.