WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday broadened the ability of states to use criminal laws versus illegal immigrants and other people who do not have work permission in the United States in a ruling including identity theft prosecutions in Kansas.
FILE PICTURE: The Supreme Court building outside seen in Washington, U.S., January 21,2020 REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger
The 5-4 judgment, with the court’s conservative justices in the bulk, reversed a 2017 Kansas Supreme Court decision that had voided the convictions of 3 restaurant employees for fraudulently using other people’s Social Security numbers.
In the opinion composed by Justice Samuel Alito, the high court discovered that Kansas did not unlawfully intrude on federal authority over immigration policy.
The court’s four liberal justices disagreed. While a 1986 federal law called the Migration Reform and Control Act did not clearly prevent states from pursuing such prosecutions, they said in a dissent composed by Justice Stephen Breyer, the law’s total function hands the policing of work permission scams “to the