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Iowa Republicans’ state immigration law stopped by federal appeals court
The U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday affirmed a federal judge’s decision to block the law as unconstitutional
Jan. 24, 2025 3:57 pm, Updated: Jan. 24, 2025 8:20 pm
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DES MOINES — A state law that would allow the arrest and deportation of immigrants in Iowa if they had previously been denied entry into the country will remain blocked after a federal appeals court ruling issued Friday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a federal judge’s ruling that the Iowa law conflicts with federal immigration law, and that the federal government has the ultimate say over immigration law.
As a result of the appeals court ruling, the state law will not go into effect.
The appeals court ruling was unanimous from three federal appeals judges: Duane Benton, Morris Arnold and Jonathan Kobes. All three were appointed to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals by Republican presidents: Benton by George W. Bush, Arnold by George H.W. Bush, and Kobes by Donald Trump.
In the appeals court’s opinion, Benton cited previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings that held the court has “long recognized the preeminent role of the Federal Government with respect to the regulation of aliens within our borders,” and that the federal government “has broad, undoubted power over the subject of immigration and the status of aliens.”
The state law, Benton wrote in the court’s opinion, “conflicts with federal law because it creates a parallel scheme of enforcement for immigration law.”
Benton later quoted a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling and said Iowa’s law similarly, “violates the principle that the removal process is entrusted to the discretion of the Federal Government.”
The opinion highlighted multiple examples of how the state law would conflict with federal immigration law:
- Federal immigration law allows for exceptions to the arrest and deportation of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. The Iowa law contains no such exceptions, the appeals court noted.
- Congress has given federal officials discretion to enforce immigration laws. Immigration enforcement actions taken by Iowa officials could conflict with federal officers’ priorities, the court said. “Iowa could prosecute an illegal alien whom federal officials have exercised their discretion not to bring an enforcement action against,” Benton wrote.
- The U.S. Attorney General is provided options for an immigrant facing deportation whose life or freedom would be threatened in a given country. The Iowa law provides only one option for the destination of a deportation: the country from which the individual attempted to enter the state. “Ordering an alien to return to one specific country contradicts federal officials’ discretion in determining where to remove the alien to,” Benton wrote.
- The state law would prohibit judges from reducing the sentencing of an individual convicted under the state law even if the individual is being processed by federal immigration agents. “Even if federal officials are considering an alien’s case, Iowa may arrest the alien, prosecute the alien, obtain an order to return, and transport the alien to a port of entry. By prohibiting abatement of the state prosecution, Section 6 undermines federal officials’ discretion to decide if, when, and how to address the case of an individual alien,” Benton wrote.
A spokeswoman for Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said the office is reviewing the ruling to determine its next steps.
How we got here
Iowa Republicans passed the state law, Senate File 2340, in 2024. Statehouse Republicans said the state immigration law was needed because they felt the federal government, under then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, was not taking sufficient action to enforce federal immigration laws.
Border crossings reached historic levels under the Biden administration, before illegal crossings started to fall after Biden issued an executive order restricting asylum applications in certain circumstances. Biden issued the order after federal Republicans thwarted a bipartisan border deal in the U.S. Senate pushed by Biden and endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council, which represents front-line agents.
Iowa’s law would allow Iowa law enforcement officials to arrest and charge a noncitizen with a crime if they are in the state after being previously deported or barred from entering the United States. The law makes it an aggravated misdemeanor, which carries up to a two-year sentence. In some cases, including people with certain prior convictions, the state crime would become a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
A judge then would be able to order the person to leave the country or face prison time.
Shortly after it was signed into law, in May of 2024 the U.S. Department of Justice — then under the Biden administration — and civil rights organizations sued to stop the law. The groups argued the state law is unconstitutional because it tramples on federal sovereignty over immigration, ensnares those with legal status, and creates “chaos” in orderly immigration enforcement.
Just weeks before the law was to go into effect, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher in June of 2024 granted an injunction and halted the law, ruling the state law was preempted by federal law.
The appeals court on Friday affirmed Locher’s ruling.
Reaction to the ruling
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, whose office argued the case to the federal appeals court, said in a statement that “the battle is far from over.”
“Iowa stood strong against the Biden-Harris border invasion that made every state a border state,” Bird said in the statement. “As President Trump works nationally to fix the mess Biden and Harris created on the southern border, we will continue fighting in Iowa to defend our laws and keep families safe.”
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
The U.S. Department of Justice, which argued against the state law, did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Friday’s ruling came during the first week of President Donald Trump’s new administration.
The other groups that argued against the law celebrated the appeals court’s ruling Friday.
“This incredibly inhumane law would put lives and families at risk,” Erica Johnson, executive director of Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, said in a statement. The group was one of the plaintiffs in the original lawsuit.
“(The state law) would take people — including mere children — who have been living here peacefully and contributing to their communities, sometimes for decades, and sets them up for deportation,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t matter if they now have authorization to be here. They can still be put in prison or deported at the border, often thousands of miles away from their home country. We need laws that create workable, orderly, humane immigration systems. (The state law) does just the opposite.”
Rita Bettis, the legal director for the ACLU of Iowa, in a statement called the state law “the worst anti-immigrant legislation in Iowa’s history.”
“This extremely harmful law has exposed people with lawful status, and even children, to serious harm — arrest, detention, deportation, family separation, and incarceration, by the state,” Bettis said in her statement. “The manner in which the state has targeted even those with legal status only reaffirms that the federal government, and not individual states, should enforce immigration law.”
Tom Barton of The Gazette and Caleb McCullough contributed to this report.
Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com
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