Truax v Raich

Arizona passed a law requiring employers to have 80% of their staff as natives. Raich was from Austria. He was an at will employee and was dismissed. He claimed this violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Supreme Court held the Arizona law violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

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. Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U. S. 746, 111 U. S. 762; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 113 U. S. 31; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, supra; Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578, 165 U. S. 589, 165 U. S. 590; Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1, 236 U. S. 14. 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. It is no answer to say, as it is argued, that the act proceeds upon the assumption that "the employment of aliens unless restrained was a peril to the public welfare." .... The authority to control immigration—to admit or exclude aliens—is vested solely in the Federal government. Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698, 713, 37 L. ed. 905, 913, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1016. 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.

Justice McReynolds dissented.

• US labor law