U.S. files immigration suit

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces the federal government is suing California over state laws concerning immigration and sanctuary cities.

SAN FRANCISCO – The Trump administration’s lawsuit against California over state laws aimed at protecting immigrants makes the same argument the Obama administration made when it went after an Arizona law that sought to crack down on people in the country illegally: The power to regulate immigration lies primarily with the U.S. government.

But legal experts say the two states’ laws are fundamentally different, so the claim that states can’t control immigration may not carry as much weight in the lawsuit announced Wednesday by U.S Attorney Jeff Sessions.

Sessions is challenging three California laws, including one that requires the state to review detention facilities where immigrants are held and another that bars law enforcement from providing release dates for people in jail and their personal information.

“The lawsuit against California is not going to be decided on the general, broader claim that immigration is exclusively the purview of the federal government,” said Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law who studies state immigration regulations.

Federal officials say they need the kind of information California has blocked to take custody of people in the country illegally who are dangerous and need to be removed.

The Trump administration often points to the case of Kate Steinle – a San Francisco woman who was shot and killed in 2015 by a Mexican man who had been deported five times – as an example of the need for tougher immigration laws.

The administration has tried to block funding from so-called sanctuary cities and states and has clashed particularly hard with California, which has resisted President Donald Trump on issues including marijuana policy and climate change and defiantly refuses to help federal agents detain and deport immigrants.

The 2010 Arizona law that prompted a lawsuit by the Obama administration was different because it did enact immigration laws, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said.

The Arizona law required police, while enforcing other laws, to question the immigration status of people suspected of being in the country illegally, made it a crime to harbor immigrants here illegally, and banned them from seeking work in public places. It also required immigrants to carry registration.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the law in 2012.