Truax v. Raich
**Overview of Truax v. Raich**
Truax v. Raich is a significant U.S. Supreme Court case from 1915 that addressed the tension between state laws and the rights of non-citizens in the workplace. The case arose when the Arizona legislature enacted a law mandating that 80 percent of a business's employees be American citizens. This legislation led to the dismissal of Mike Raich, an Austrian citizen and legal resident, from his job as a cook, solely due to the potential penalties his employer faced under the new law. Raich challenged the law, claiming it violated his right to equal protection as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
In a decisive ruling, the Supreme Court sided with Raich in an 8-1 vote, emphasizing that the right to work in one’s chosen occupation is fundamental to personal freedom. The Court also highlighted that immigration and employment rights are primarily federal matters, asserting that states cannot restrict the ability of legally admitted aliens to earn a living. This landmark decision reinforced the principles of federalism and expanded the interpretation of individual rights under the Constitution, particularly for non-citizens.
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Subject Terms
Truax v. Raich
The Case: U.S. Supreme Court decision on immigrant rights
Date: Decided on November 1, 1915
Significance:Holding that a law restricting employment of noncitizens was unconstitutional, the Truax v. Raich decision explicitly held that the equal protection clause protected their equal right to earn a livelihood in the common occupations of the state.
In early 1914, the Arizona legislature enacted a law requiring that at least 80 percent of the employees of every business operating within the state had to be American citizens. At the time, Mike Raich, an Austrian citizen who was a legally admitted alien, was working as a cook in a Bisbee, Arizona, restaurant. His employer, William Truax, discharged him solely because of the penalties that could be incurred under the new law. Filing suit in a U.S. district court, Raich asserted that the law denied him the equal protection of the law and was therefore contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment.
By an 8-1 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Raich’s challenge. In unambiguous language, Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote 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 Fourteenth Amendment to secure.” The Arizona statute, moreover, violated the principles of federalism. Because the power to admit or exclude aliens was vested exclusively in Congress, the states “may not deprive aliens so admitted of the right to earn a livelihood, as that would be tantamount to denying their entrance and abode.”
Bibliography
Aleinikoff, Thomas A., et al. Immigration and Citizenship: Process and Policy. 6th ed. St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West, 2008.
Epstein, Lee, and Thomas Walker. Constitutional Law for a Changing America: Rights, Liberties, and Justice. 6th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2006.