On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the immigration case Flores-Figueroa v. United States. It is not often that the Supreme Court addresses immigration law cases and many in the immigration community followed this case closely as it involved a law widely used by ICE in combating unauthorized work by noncitizens.
At the heart of the case was ICE’s interpretation of a statute involving identity theft. Often, unauthorized workers will present documents that contain fictitious social security numbers. Many unauthorized workers don’t even know what social security numbers are – except, perhaps, something that they need to work. If a noncitizen’s fictitious social security number happened to actually match another person’s actual social security number, ICE would charge that noncitizen with an identity theft crime that would extend jail time by two years. ICE would then use the threat of extended jail time as leverage in its prosecution. The Supreme Court, however, held that ICE was applying the statute too broadly as many of the individuals charged did not know that the social security number belonged to someone else. Actual knowledge was a required element of the statute.
The decision’s consequences on ICE’s enforcement policy are debatable. The Obama administration has already stated that it is shifting its workplace enforcement policy to focus on violating companies. This decision, at most, will reinforce the administration’s shift.