Last modified on August 9, 2021, at 21:42

Kansas v. Garcia

In Kansas v. Garcia, 140 S. Ct. 791, 797 (2020), Justice Sam Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court held against the open borders side by ruling as follows:

Kansas law makes it a crime to commit “identity theft” or engage in fraud to obtain a benefit. Respondents—three aliens who are not authorized to work in this country—were convicted under these provisions for fraudulently using another person’s Social Security number on state and federal tax-withholding forms that they submitted when they obtained employment. The Supreme Court of Kansas held that a provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), 100 Stat. 3359, expressly preempts the Kansas statutes at issue insofar as they provide a basis for these prosecutions. We reject this reading of the provision in question, as well as respondents’ alternative arguments based on implied preemption. We therefore reverse.

Id. at 797.

While open borders advocates like to cite their victory with a more liberal Supreme Court in Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387 (2012), the 5-4 Kansas v. Garcia decision trimmed some of that pro-immigration precedent back.