Statutory Interpretation – Implied Preemption – Supremacy Clause

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United States Supreme Court

Case Name: Kansas v. Ramiro Garcia, et al.

Case No.: 17-834

Focus: Statutory Interpretation – Implied Preemption – Supremacy Clause

Kansas makes it a crime to commit “identity theft” or engage in fraud to obtain a benefit. Respondents, three unauthorized aliens, were tried for fraudulently using another person’s Social Security number on the W–4’s and K–4’s that they submitted upon obtaining employment. They had used the same Social Security numbers on their I–9 forms. Respondents were convicted, and the Kansas Court of Appeals affirmed. A divided Kansas Supreme Court reversed, concluding that §1324a(b)(5) expressly prohibits a State from using any information contained within an I–9 as the basis for a state law identity theft prosecution of an alien who uses another’s Social Security information in an I–9. The court deemed irrelevant the fact that this information was also included in the W–4 and K–4. One justice concurred based on implied preemption.

The Kansas statutes under which respondents were convicted are not expressly preempted. IRCA’s express preemption provision applies only to employers and those who recruit or refer prospective employees and is thus plainly inapplicable. . Respondents’ argument that Kansas’s laws are preempted by implication is also rejected. Pp. 15–20. (a) The laws do not fall into a field that is implicitly reserved exclusively for federal regulation, including respondents’ claimed field of “fraud on the federal verification system.” The submission of tax withholding forms is neither part of, nor “related” to, the verification system. Federal law does not create a comprehensive and unified system regarding the information that a State may require employees to provide.

There is likewise no ground for holding that the Kansas statutes at issue conflict with federal law. In the present cases, there is certainly no suggestion that the Kansas prosecutions frustrated any federal interests. Federal authorities played a role in all three cases, and the Federal Government fully supports Kansas’s position in this Court. In the end, however, the possibility that federal enforcement priorities might be upset is not enough to provide a basis for preemption. The Supremacy Clause gives priority to “the Laws of the United States,” not the criminal law enforcement priorities or preferences of federal officers. Art. VI, cl. 2. Pp. 18–20.

Reversed and remanded

Dissenting: BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which GINSBURG, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined.

Concurring: THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which GORSUCH, J., joined. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which GINSBURG, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined.

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Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.