Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is co-leading a 25-state coalition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a challenge involving Iowa’s immigration enforcement law.
Drummond and the other attorneys general filed an amicus brief in Bird v. Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, supporting Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird’s request for the Supreme Court to review a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
The appeals court found Iowa’s law unconstitutional and blocked the state from enforcing it. The law makes illegal entry into Iowa a state crime and mirrors federal law criminalizing illegal entry.
The coalition argues Supreme Court review is needed in part because a separate Eighth Circuit panel upheld a similar state law, creating conflicting decisions within the circuit.
Oklahoma has its own interest in the case. A federal district court has blocked Oklahoma’s immigration enforcement law, and that case is currently on appeal before the Tenth Circuit.
“States have always had the authority to protect their own citizens, and that includes the power to prosecute someone for breaking into our state illegally, just as we would for any other crime,” Drummond said. “The Eighth Circuit’s ruling doesn’t just tie Iowa’s hands. It opens the door for federal courts to strike down any state law that so much as resembles federal law. Oklahoma has a stake in getting this right, and I’m proud to lead this coalition in asking the Supreme Court to step in.”
The coalition argues the Eighth Circuit improperly allowed the lawsuit to proceed without plaintiffs showing they faced prosecution, struck down the entire Iowa law without identifying an unconstitutional application and improperly treated overlap between state and federal immigration laws as grounds for invalidating the state law.
Drummond is co-leading the coalition with Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.
