Migrant Crisis

Life Before the Dust Bowl

100

Name one out of the three states that most of the Dust Bowl Refugee came from:

Oklahoma, Texas, or Missouri

200

What major American event indirectly caused the land to be over farmed?

The Great Depression

300

Name two out of the three factors that led to Oklahoma, Texas, and Missouri to being optimal from farming before the dust bowl.

Warm Climate, almost year round farming season, and fertile land

The California Journey

100

Which state on their journey turned some people back and disallow them from entering?

California

200

Why were their cars an issue during the trip?

Common mechanical failures and no cooling

300

What obstical did most migrant have to cross at the end of their journey west?

The Monjave Desert

Camps and Life in California

100

^{In 2017, California enacted Assembly Bill 103, which directed the State Attorney General to conduct reviews of facilities where noncitizens are civilly detained, including those run by or for federal immigration authorities. In United States v. California (9th Cir. 2019), the court largely upheld the law but struck the provision reaching into the circumstances of apprehension and transfer. In 2019, the state then enacted Assembly Bill 32, which barred private, for-profit detention operators from doing business in California, including those under contract with ICE.}

^{Analyze how these two statutes each collide with the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) and the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity, distinguishing between the doctrine's two prongs: direct regulation of the federal government, and discrimination against it or those with whom it deals. Then contrast the Ninth Circuit's en banc decision in GEO Group, Inc. v. Newsom (2022), which held AB 32 unconstitutional as applied to ICE's contractors, with the historical line of cases on state regulation of federal activity, including:}

• ^{McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), on state power to tax or burden federal instrumentalities}
• ^{Johnson v. Maryland (1920), on state licensing of federal employees}
• ^{Leslie Miller, Inc. v. Arkansas (1956), on state licensing of federal contractors}
• ^{North Dakota v. United States (1990), on the limits of the discrimination prong}
• ^{United States v. Washington (2022), the Supreme Court's recent treatment of a state law singling out federal contractors}

^{Your analysis should address: (1) whether AB 32 regulates the federal government "directly" by giving California effective veto power over a federal detention choice, or merely regulates the state's own licensing and police powers; (2) why the en banc court's reasoning differs from the earlier panel decision in the same case; (3) how the anti-commandeering line (Printz, Murphy v. NCAA) cuts in California's favor while GEO Group cuts against it; and (4) why AB 103's inspection regime was treated more favorably than AB 32's phase-out, given that both burden federal operations.}

^{Part B: Socioeconomic and Historical Continuity}

^{Trace the structural continuities between the Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant camps of the 1930s and 1940s (such as Arvin/Weedpatch and Marysville) and the modern "Open-Air Detention Sites" (OADS) documented along the California-Mexico border, such as those near Jacumba Hot Springs, where people are held outdoors for extended periods with minimal shelter, food, and sanitation.}

^{Your answer must account for the following:}

1. ^{The federal-state inversion. The FSA camps were federally built and staffed, and provided sanitation, health clinics, and self-government to Dust Bowl migrants, while California growers' groups and local officials resisted them. In the OADS model, the federal government controls the site but disclaims responsibility for basic conditions. Explain how the direction of state-federal conflict reversed, and why Edwards v. California (1941), which struck down California's "anti-Okie" law barring the transport of indigent migrants into the state, is relevant to both eras.}
2. ^{Labor dependence. California agriculture has historically depended on a mobile, precarious labor supply, from Dust Bowl migrants to the Bracero Program (1942-1964) to undocumented workers today. Explain how each era's labor regime created demand for a workforce whose housing, healthcare, and sanitation costs the employers and the state declined to bear.}
3. ^{Cost externalization. Identify who ends up absorbing those costs in each era: the migrants themselves, federal agencies, county hospitals, churches, and nonprofits and mutual-aid groups. Explain why the GEO Group holding, by protecting a privatized contractor model from state phase-out, may entrench the same pattern of shifting costs onto non-state actors.}
4. ^{The synthesis. Argue whether California's laws (AB 103 and AB 32) are best understood as an attempt to reclaim state responsibility for migrants within its borders or as a symbolic assertion of sovereignty that leaves the underlying labor-migration structure untouched. Support your answer with at least one specific historical parallel from the 1930s.}

^{Scoring note for the host: full credit requires naming both prongs of intergovernmental immunity, correctly identifying GEO Group as the en banc 2022 ruling against California, and connecting the FSA camps to OADS through the theme of who bears the cost of migrant labor.}

California's AB 103 (2017) and AB 32 (2019) test intergovernmental immunity, a doctrine derived from the Supremacy Clause (Art. VI, cl. 2). It has two prongs: a state may not directly regulate the federal government, and it may not discriminate against the federal government or those with whom it deals. Historically, the doctrine grew out of McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), which barred states from taxing or burdening federal instrumentalities.

1. The core conflict.
California defended AB 32 as an exercise of its traditional police powers over health, safety, and welfare, aimed at the private-prison business model rather than at federal operations. GEO Group and the United States argued that the law dictated how the federal government could carry out immigration detention, a matter Congress committed to the Secretary of Homeland Security, including the express authority to contract with private facilities.

2. The en banc ruling.
In GEO Group, Inc. v. Newsom (9th Cir. 2022) (en banc), the court held AB 32 unconstitutional as applied to ICE's contractors. The court reasoned that a state cannot use its police power to control who may operate federal detention facilities, because doing so gives the state a functional veto over a federal choice. With private operators banned, ICE would be forced to change how it detains people in California, or stop doing so. That is direct regulation, not a generally applicable health or safety rule. (Verify the exact date and vote count before reading them aloud, since I'm working from memory.) The earlier panel had taken a different view, and the full court's decision superseded it.

3. Historical comparison.

• Johnson v. Maryland (1920) barred a state from requiring a license of a federal postal driver, and Leslie Miller, Inc. v. Arkansas (1956) barred a state from applying its contractor-licensing scheme to a federal contractor. Both treat state control over who may perform federal work as forbidden.
• North Dakota v. United States (1990) and United States v. Washington (2022) address the discrimination prong. They show that a state may regulate federal contractors only if it does so evenhandedly, and that a law singling out federal contractors is invalid.
• GEO Group rests on the direct-regulation line: AB 32 didn't merely tax or license a contractor, it prohibited the federal government's chosen means outright.

4. AB 103 vs. AB 32.
In United States v. California (9th Cir. 2019), the court largely upheld AB 103 because it gathers information without stopping federal operations. It struck the provision reaching into the circumstances of apprehension and transfer. AB 32 differed in kind: inspection informs, while a phase-out eliminates the federal option entirely.

5. Anti-commandeering.
Printz and Murphy v. NCAA protect states from being conscripted into federal programs, and California invoked them to say it need not help ICE. But they are a shield for states, not a sword. Declining to assist federal enforcement is protected, while affirmatively dismantling federal infrastructure is not.

State oversight laws struggle against federal immigration supremacy.

200

Why were the people in California paid so bad?

So many people came to California that the supply of people went up so the land owners could pay people less without losing workers.

300

Why shouldn't you answer camps and Life in California 100?

It gives 500 points 

which is unfair the other competitors.

FDR Programs

100

Which program built many of the camps?

The FSA

200

What did the AAAs actually do.

give migrant farm owners money.

300

Which AAA program helped migrants?

Neither

World War Two

100

Give a reason the economy got better during WW2?

- War time industries provide jobs for many

- Massive federal spending

- High agricultural demand

200

How did WW2 benefit migrant workers?

- Wages doubled

- New jobs

300

What color was the slide 10?

Green and Yellow.