Two lawsuits challenging the attempt by Republicans in the Iowa Legislature to let the Reynolds administration appropriate power belonging to the federal government in order to arrest and deport immigrants in Iowa based on their past, not current, immigration status were filed in federal court on Thursday.
SF 2340, which Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law last month, makes it a state crime for a person to be in Iowa if they have previously been denied entry into the U.S., or been deported or otherwise removed from the country. State and local law enforcement are charged with enforcing the new law, and SF 2340 authorizes Iowa judges to issue deportation orders and order people removed from the state and transported to the nearest port of entry for expulsion from the country.
Late last month, Principal Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brian Boynton sent Reynolds a letter telling the governor that SF 2340 “is preempted by federal law and violates the United States Constitution,” since U.S. law gives the federal government sole authority to make and enforce immigration law. More than a century of Supreme Court decisions, mostly recently in 2012 in Arizona v. United States, have affirmed that immigration is a federal, not state, matter.
Boynton warned Reynolds the DOJ would sue if Iowa intended to attempt to enforce SF 2340, which goes into effect on July 1. He gave the governor until May 7 to reply to his letter. In a written statement responding to questions from the Des Moines Register about the DOJ letter, Reynolds said, “I have a duty to protect the citizens of Iowa. Unlike the federal government, we will respect the rule of law and enforce it.”
On Thursday, the DOJ filed its lawsuit.
“Iowa cannot disregard the U.S. Constitution and settled Supreme Court precedent,” Boynton said in a statement after the case was filed in federal court in Des Moines. “We have brought this action to ensure that Iowa adheres to the framework adopted by Congress and the Constitution for regulation of immigration.”
The other federal lawsuit filed on Thursday over SF 2340 makes the same case regarding federal and state power as the DOJ case does, but goes beyond it to address the impact SF 2340 is having and will have on Iowans.
“It is truly impossible to overstate how terrible this law is, how poorly written it is, how bizarre it is and how extreme it is,” Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of the ACLU of Iowa, said during an online news conference on Thursday afternoon.
The ACLU of Iowa, along with the American Immigration Council and the Immigrants Rights Project of the national ACLU, sued in federal court on Thursday on behalf of the Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice (Iowa MMJ) and its members, as well as tow individuals identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe and Elizabeth Roe.
SF 2340 “criminalizes people who do have legal authority to be present in our country and in our state, but have been removed in the past,” Bettis Austen said. “The law makes no defenses for them, no exceptions for them.”
Both pseudonymous plaintiffs in the case are legal residents in Iowa, who hold green cards, but are still at risk of arrest and deportation if SF 2340 is allowed to go into effect.
“It would likewise apply to people who have been granted asylum or may have special visas given to them because they are survivors of domestic violence or other crimes,” Bettis Austen continued.
SF 2340 also doesn’t make any exception for immigrants who were removed from the country after being brought here as children by relatives, and who are now in the country legally. The complaint filed on Thursday includes stories of two Iowa MMJ members who have that experience.
One of those Iowa MMJ members is an 18-year-old high school senior currently living in Iowa with family members, who had her application for asylum approved in 2021, after it was determined her safety and life would be at risk if she was returned to her native Honduras.
“If S.F. 2340 goes into effect, Anna will be subject to prosecution, imprisonment, and removal to Mexico,” the lawsuit states. “Anna is not a Mexican citizen and does not have family there, but she also cannot return to Honduras, where her father was killed and where she faces persecution.”
Maria Corona, executive director of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence, explained during the news conference the impact that SF 2340 will have on immigrant communities throughout Iowa.
“Law enforcement depends on community cooperation to maintain public safety, because it’s hard to prevent violence if people are afraid to call the police for help,” she said. “This law increases danger for immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking by doing exactly that. It will actively discourage victims from calling the police for help.”
Local law enforcement officials around the state have been vocal in their opposition to SF 2340.
“The problems at the southern border cannot be solved from Des Moines, Iowa,” Marshalltown Chief of Police Michael Tupper said in a statement. “Playing politics with public safety never helps public safety. This law will make the job of law enforcement more difficult. It will diminish public safety because it will cause people to fear the police needlessly. This law has severely harmed community relationships that took decades to build.”
Des Moines Chief of Police Dana Wingert has called SF 2340 unworkable.
“Local law enforcement lacks access to a database that allows us to confirm immigration status. Simply stated, not only do we not have the resources to assume this additional task, we don’t even have the ability to perform this function …” he said in an email to WOI-TV news after the bill passed the legislature. “I’m not interested, nor are we equipped, funded or staffed to take on additional responsibilities that historically have never been a function of local law enforcement.”
SF 2340 is modeled on a law passed in Texas last November. The DOJ sued Texas and enforcement of that law is currently blocked by an injunction. Having Republican-led states usurp federal immigration law and create their own laws and enforcement regimes is a position that has become increasingly popular among rightwing anti-immigrant groups and parts of the Republican Party in recent years.
Reynolds’ office issued a two-sentence written statement from the governor on Thursday in response to the two lawsuits.
“As Governor, I have a responsibility to protect the citizens of Iowa,” Reynolds said. “Since President Biden refuses to enforce our nation’s immigration laws — threatening the safety of our citizens — Iowa will step in.”
During the news conference on Thursday, Kate Melloy Goettel, senior legal director of the American Immigration Council, said the SF 2340 raised broader cultural questions in addition to its legal issues. According to Melloy Goettel, it asks “some important questions about who we are as Iowans.”
“Whether we are a state that welcomes and embraces newcomers, as we’ve been for nearly two centuries. Whether we are a state that values the contributions of immigrants as we have for two centuries. Or are we going to allow politicians to hold our values of welcoming and inclusion hostage for their short-term political gain.”
On Friday, the ACLU of Iowa and its partners filed a motion seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the enforcement of SF 2340 while the lawsuits against it are ongoing.
