On May 26, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Legal Arizona Workers Act against a federal pre-emption challenge. Signed into law by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano in 2007, the law mandates that all Arizona employers use E-Verify or lose their license to do business in the state. E-Verify is a federal electronic system that checks information provided by an employee on the I-9 form against information contained in Social Security, Homeland Security and Department of State databases.
The case, Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Whiting , involved the question of whether the Arizona law was pre-empted by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which made it a federal civil and criminal offense to employ undocumented workers and mandated that employers complete the Employment Eligibility Verification Form, now commonly known as the I-9.
