Quotations Class 9

Truax v. Raich (1915)

[T]he complainant, a native of Austria, has been admitted to the United States . . . with the privilege of entering and abiding in the United States, and hence of entering and abiding in any State in the Union. Being lawfully an inhabitant of Arizona, the complainant is entitled under the Fourteenth Amendment to the equal protection of its laws. The description -- "any person within its jurisdiction" -- as it has frequently been held, includes aliens.

It requires no argument to show that the right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community is of the very essence of the personal freedom and opportunity that it was the purpose of the Amendment to secure. If this could be refused solely upon the ground of race or nationality, the prohibition of the denial to any person of the equal protection of the laws would be a barren form of words.

The discrimination defined by the act does not pertain to the regulation or distribution of the public domain, or of the common property or resources of the people of the State the enjoyment of which may be limited to its citizens, as against both aliens and the citizens of other States.

Takahashi v. Fish & Game Commission (1948)

(Quoting Raich) The authority to control immigration -- to admit or exclude aliens -- is vested solely in the Federal Government. The assertion of an authority to deny to aliens the opportunity of earning a livelihood when lawfully admitted to the State would be tantamount to the assertion of the right to deny them entrance and abode, for, in ordinary cases, they cannot live where they cannot work. And, if such a policy were permissible, the practical result would be that those lawfully admitted to the country under the authority of the acts of Congress, instead of enjoying in a substantial sense and in their full scope the privileges conferred by the admission, would be segregated in such of the States as chose to offer hospitality.

The state's law here cannot be supported in the employment of this legislative authority because of policies adopted by Congress in the exercise of its power to treat separately and differently with aliens from countries composed of peoples of many diverse cultures, races, and colors. For these reasons, the power of a state to apply its laws exclusively to its alien inhabitants as a class is confined within narrow limits.

Murphy, J., concurring

§ 990 of the California Fish and Game Code, barring those ineligible to citizenship from securing commercial fishing licenses, is the direct outgrowth of antagonism toward persons of Japanese ancestry. Even the most cursory examination of the background of the statute demonstrates that it was designed solely to discriminate against such persons in a manner inconsistent with the concept of equal protection of the laws. Legislation of that type is not entitled to wear the cloak of constitutionality. . . . The statute in question is but one more manifestation of the anti-Japanese fever which has been evident in California in varying degrees since the turn of the century.

Graham v. Richardson (1971)

But the Court's decisions have established that classifications based on alienage, like those based on nationality or race, are inherently suspect and subject to close judicial scrutiny. Aliens as a class are a prime example of a "discrete and insular" minority for whom such heightened judicial solicitude is appropriate. Accordingly, it was said in Takahashi that "the power of a state to apply its laws exclusively to its alien inhabitants as a class is confined within narrow limits."