A way around bad federal immigration law

What’s interesting is why they couldn’t act. In 1996, as part of President Clinton’s promise to “end welfare as we know it,” he signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. Part of that grand compromise was a provision requiring participating states to withhold state professional and occupational licenses from undocumented immigrants.

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But the law also provided a way to get around that prohibition. If a state legislature passed a law specifically authorizing licensing of undocumented immigrants, then the federal prohibition would have no effect.

That’s the position the U.S. Department of Justice took in a 2012 test case in California concerning Sergio Garcia, a Mexican-born man who was prohibited from practicing law because he was an undocumented immigrant. Even as they opposed licensing him, the Justice Department conceded that the California legislature could overrule the prohibition by enacting a single statute.

And so, the California legislature passed legislation on Oct. 5, 2013, which was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. It is effective on Jan. 1, 2014, at which point Mr. Garcia will be licensed to practice law.

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