Abstract
For more than a century, the federal government has outlawed the smuggling of undocumented aliens. Over that federal statute's long legislative evolution, Congress has developed an increasingly comprehensive scheme for punishing alien smugglers in proportion to their crimes. More recently, the federal government has amended and enforced the alien smuggling statute in ways designed to advance the government's war on domestic terrorism. However, despite the existence of this major federal statute, in 2006 Colorado enacted its own independent ban on alien smuggling. This Comment argues that the federal alien smuggling statute preempts the Colorado alien smuggling statute, both because Congress intended for the federal alien smuggling statute to be preemptive and because the Colorado statute impedes important objectives of the federal alien smuggling statute.
Recommended Citation
Ben Meade,
Interstate Instability: Why Colorado's Alien Smuggling Statute Is Preempted by Federal Immigration Laws,
79
U. Colo. L. Rev.
237
(2008).
Available at:
https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/lawreview/vol79/iss1/6