Truax+v.+Raich

=Truax v. Raich= [|239 U.S. 33 (1915)]

At issue in this case was an Arizona law that required all employers who had at least five employees to "employ not less than eighty (80) per cent qualified electors or native-born citizens of the United States." Violation of the statute was a misdemeanor, punishable by fine and/or imprisonment.

The law was challenged under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court noted that the work of admitting or excluding aliens is the work of 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."

Most significantly, the Court found no "special public interest" served by the discrimination against aliens. The law was an arbitrary exercise of legislative power, and it violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.