In early November 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court asked the Solicitor General to express the White House's views on a controversial Arizona law targeting companies that hire undocumented workers. The Legal Arizona Workers Act requires employers to use a federal database to verify the immigration status of potential employees or risk suspension or revocation of their business licenses. Arizona is one of at least two states that have made the E-Verify employee verification system mandatory. The law allows private complaints to be filed against employers and those found to have "knowingly or intentionally" hired undocumented workers could have their Arizona state business licenses suspended or revoked.
 
The Arizona legislature passed the law in 2007 to regulate employment-eligibility and immigration-status verification. Then-Arizona Governor (now Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security) Janet Napolitano signed it out of frustration when the federal government failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform. A coalition of business, labor, and civil-rights organizations challenged the Arizona statute through legal action, arguing that Congress never intended for state and local governments to enact their own programs designed to weed out and punish errant employers.
 
In Chicanos Por La Causa, Inc. v. Napolitano, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the action, noting that the law is facially constitutional. On July 24, 2009, the coalition responded with a petition for a writ of certiorari in Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. v. Candelaria, asking the Supreme Court to answer the following questions:
 
1. Whether an Arizona statute that imposes sanctions on employers who hire unauthorized aliens is invalid under a federal statute that expressly "preempt[s] any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar laws) upon those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, undocumented workers. 
 
2. Whether the Arizona statute, which requires all employers to participate in the federal electronic employment verification system, is preempted by a federal law that specifically makes that system voluntary.
 
3. Whether the Arizona statute is impliedly preempted because it undermines the "comprehensive scheme" that Congress created to regulate the employment of foreign nationals. 
 
In an unusual move, the Supreme Court invited the Solicitor General to "file briefs in this case expressing the views of the United States." In other words, the Supreme Court wants the Obama Administration to express its opinion on state immigration laws, which the White House has generally tried to avoid. A Supreme Court ruling on the Arizona law could affect other states that have taken the issue into their own hands in response to what many see as federal inaction on immigration reform.
 
"Employers are being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of conflicting state and local immigration laws," said Robin Conrad, executive vice president of the National Chamber Litigation Center, the U.S. Chamber's public policy law firm. "At least 150 employment-related immigration bills were proposed in just the first quarter of 2009. The Supreme Court needs to step in and make it clear that it's up to the federal government to set national immigration policy."
 
The Arizona law has yet to be enforced. The key question before the Supreme Court is whether the state law may be enforced without violating federal law.