What law have illegal aliens broken? [View all]
It appears I was wrong... crossing the border outside channels is, indeed, a federal crime. My bad.
8 U.S.C. § 1325 : US Code - Section 1325: Improper entry by alien
So that answers the question.
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[font color=gray]None. It seems odd, but... none.
They are extra-legal, but there is no statute criminalizing being in the United States without federal authorization.
If a policeman in Seattle sees whoever is atop the FBI's Most Wanted list he'll arrest him, even though the guy may well not be charged with any violations of Seattle ordinances or Washington state law.
But all these state anti-immigrant laws are not enforcing federal law, they are seeking to enforce what they imagine federal policy to be, or wish that it was.
And that's why Scalia equating undocumented aliens to bank-robbers was so faulty.
(The use of the contentious term "illegal alien" in the headline was quite intentional because it points right to the puzzling question of illegality.)[/font color]
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