DOJ accuses Illinois of interfering with federal immigration policy via workplace privacy law

CHICAGO (CN) — The Department of Justice sued the state of Illinois, the Illinois Department of Labor, its director Jane Flanagan and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul Thursday over a state workplace privacy law it says impedes on federal immigration authority.

The DOJ, in its lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Illinois, says Illinois’ Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act — specifically recently-enacted amendments to the bill, which went into effect on January 1 — usurps the federal government’s control of employment eligibility verification.

“This Department of Justice is committed to protecting American workers, employers, and enforcing federal immigration law,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release Thursday. “Any state that incentivizes illegal immigration and makes it harder for federal authorities to do their job will face legal consequences from this Administration.”

Illinois’ privacy law and its amendments regulate Illinois employers’ use of employment eligibility verification systems and impose restrictions on the use of those systems but the government says they “stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress—to root out unauthorized employment and to encourage an employer’s voluntary participation in E-Verify.”

Federal immigration legislation created the E-Verify program, which allows employers to determine that a prospective employee is legally authorized to work in the U.S, in 2003. The program electronically compares the information from an employee’s I-9 form to records already available to the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

If the records don’t match, the E-Verify program notifies the employer and prompts further action to confirm employment eligibility, which typically entails the employee contacting the Department of Homeland Security or the Social Security Administration. If an employee can’t correct the mismatched information, they could be terminated.

The amendments to the Illinois law prevent employers in the state from terminating employees if their information doesn’t match other forms in the E-Verify program, and require employers to notify employees of their rights under E-Verify programs and similar systems.

The DOJ said these new E-Verify requirements confuse employers, thereby discouraging the use of the program across the state, which it said violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“As amended, SB0508 discourages the use of E-Verify, frustrates innovation of employment eligibility verification, and obfuscates E-Verify and Form I-9 inspection requirements by adding layers of protection for employees and imposing onerous and confusing notice requirements for Illinois employers beyond those required under the federal E-Verify program and the INA,” the DOJ said in its complaint.

Since he took office in January, President Donald Trump has made a concerted effort to overhaul immigration and border security.

This isn’t the first time the Department of Justice has taken to the courts to challenge a city or state’s immigration policies. In February, the Trump administration sued Illinois, the city of Chicago and Cook County over their sanctuary city laws.

Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance bars city agencies, with some exceptions, from asking or disclosing people’s immigration status. The ordinance also says that, without a criminal warrant or unless county officials “have a legitimate law enforcement purpose that is not related to the enforcement of immigration laws,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not be allowed to use Cook County facilities.

The government also said in its February lawsuit that the Cook County ordinance violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.

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