Seyfarth Synopsis: California enacted its Immigrant Worker Protection Act (IWPA) to make it more difficult for federal immigration enforcement agents to access nonpublic areas of employer worksites and private employee records. The U.S. Justice Department, however, recently persuaded a federal district court to issue a preliminary injunction against IWPA provisions that bar employers from voluntarily providing immigration enforcement agents with access to nonpublic worksites and employee records unless federal authorities present a judicial warrant (to access nonpublic worksites) or an administrative or judicial subpoena (to access employee records). In a sister post, our immigration expert Angelo A. Paparelli extensively analyzes this development and proposes a response that California might pursue.

Angelo argues that the California Attorney General should try to persuade the Federal Court to lift the injunction against these IWPA provisions. He points out that Congress – when passing the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (HSA) – never authorized the relevant civil and criminal immigration enforcement activities. Instead, the HSA requires the relevant agency to focus solely on adjudicating requests for immigration benefits such as work and visitor visas, asylum status, green cards, and U.S. citizenship. Angelo maintains that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services should respect its lack of enforcement authority and stop sending its investigators to California worksites and stop disrupting businesses and workers in the state.