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From Scalia on §3

“In addition to any violation of federal law, a person is guilty of willful failure to complete or carry an alienregistration document if the person is in violation of 8

It is beyond question that a State may make violation of federal law a violation of state law as well. We have held that to be so even when the interest protected is a distinctively federal interest, such as protection of the dignity of the national flag, see Halter v. Nebraska, 205 U. S. 34 (1907), or protection of the Federal Government’s ability to recruit soldiers, Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254 U. S. 325 (1920). “[T]he State is not inhibited from making the nationalpurposes its own purposes to the extent of exerting its police power to prevent its own citizens from obstructingthe accomplishment of such purposes.” Id., at 331 (internal quotation marks omitted). Much more is that so when, as here, the State is protecting its own interest, the integrity of its borders. And we have said that explicitly with regard to illegal immigration: “Despite the exclusive federal control of this Nation’s borders, we cannot conclude that the States are without any power to deter the influxof persons entering the United States against federal law,and whose numbers might have a discernible impact ontraditional state concerns.” Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202, 228, n. 23 (1982).

The Court’s opinion relies upon Hines v. Davidowitz, supra. Ante, at 9–10. But that case did not, as the Court believes, establish a “field preemption” that implicitlyeliminates the States’ sovereign power to exclude thosewhom federal law excludes. It held that the States are not permitted to establish “additional or auxiliary” registration requirements for aliens. 312 U. S., at 66–67. But §3does not establish additional or auxiliary registrationrequirements. It merely makes a violation of state law the very same failure to register and failure to carry evidenceof registration that are violations of federal law. Hines does not prevent the State from relying on the federal registration system as “an available aid in the enforcement of a number of statutes of the state applicable to aliens whose constitutional validity has not been questioned.” Id., at 75–76 (Stone, J., dissenting).

One such statute is Arizona’s law forbidding illegal aliens to collect unemployment benefits, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §23–781(B) (West 2012). To enforce that and other laws that validly turn on alien status, Arizona has, in Justice Stone’s words, an interest in knowing “the number and whereabouts of aliens within the state” and in having “a means of their identification,” 312 U. S., at 75. And it can punish the aliens’ failure to comply with the provisions of federal law that make that knowledge and identification possible.

In some areas of uniquely federal concern—e.g., fraud in a federal administrative process (Buckman Co. v. Plaintiffs’ Legal Comm., 531 U. S. 341 (2001)) or perjury in violation of a federally required oath (In re Loney, 134 U. S. 372 (1890))—this Court has held that a State has no legitimate interest in enforcing a federal scheme. But the federal alien registration system is certainly not of uniquelyfederal interest. States, private entities, and individuals rely on the federal registration system (including the E-Verify program) on a regular basis. Arizona’s legitimate interest in protecting (among other things) its unemploymentbenefits system is an entirely adequate basis for making the violation of federal registration and carry requirements a violation of state law as well.

The Court points out, however, ante, at 11, that in some respects the state law exceeds the punishments prescribedby federal law: It rules out probation and pardon, whichare available under federal law. The answer is that it makes no difference. Illegal immigrants who violate §3 violate Arizona law. It is one thing to say that the Supremacy Clause prevents Arizona law from excludingthose whom federal law admits. It is quite something elseto say that a violation of Arizona law cannot be punished more severely than a violation of federal law. Especiallywhere (as here) the State is defending its own sovereign interests, there is no precedent for such a limitation. The sale of illegal drugs, for example, ordinarily violates statelaw as well as federal law, and no one thinks that the state penalties cannot exceed the federal. As I have discussed, moreover, “field preemption” cannot establish aprohibition of additional state penalties in the area of immigration.

Finally, the Government also suggests that §3 poses an obstacle to the administration of federal immigration law,see Brief for United States 31–33, but “there is no conflict in terms, and no possibility of such conflict, [if] the state statute makes federal law its own,” California v. Zook, 336 U. S. 725, 735 (1949).

It holds no fear for me, as it does for the Court, that “[w]ere §3 to come into force, the State would have thepower to bring criminal charges against individuals for violating a federal law even in circumstances where fed- eral officials in charge of the comprehensive scheme determine that prosecution would frustrate federal policies.” Ante, at 11. That seems to me entirely appropriate when the State uses the federal law (as it must) as the criterion for the exercise of its own power, and the implementation of its own policies of excluding those who do not belong there. What I do fear—and what Arizona and the States that support it fear—is that “federal policies” of nonenforcement will leave the States helpless before those evileffects of illegal immigration that the Court’s opinion dutifully recites in its prologue (ante, at 6) but leavesunremedied in its disposition. §5(C)