I agree with you, brucejoel99, that this decision is unlikely to be upheld on appeal. Judge Miranda Du's ruling would mean, in effect, that federal courts are always powerful to second-guess the merits of Congress's immigration laws.
I have always thought the way that the SCOTUS has handled the issue of "discrimination against aliens/noncitizens" has been odd and inconsistent. Here is some of the history behind how the SCOTUS has handled that subject.
In
McCready v. Virginia, (1876), the Court upheld a state law that prohibited aliens/noncitizens from planting oysters in the state's rivers or tidal waters. Nothing was said in the short opinion about Equal Protection Clause analysis.
In
Patsone v. Pennsylvania, (1914), the Court upheld a state law that prohibited aliens/noncitizens from killing wild game or owning shotguns or rifles. In this case, the Court was clearly analyzing the Equal Protection Clause issue, but the Court applied the traditional, lenient
rational-basis test, and the law was upheld.
The next year the Court heard the case of
Truax v. Raich, (1915). The voters of Arizona adopted a state law, via referendum, that prohibited employers with five or more employees from having any more than 20% of the employees being aliens/noncitizens. The Court found two reasons for holding this law unconstitutional: the law violated the Equal Protection Clause and it violated principle of the supremacy of the federal government's power over the control of immigration. In terms of Equal Protection Clause analysis, the Court did not bother to explain which legal standard it was applying, whether the rational-basis test or any stricter legal test. Nothing was said about whether the voters were "prejudiced" against aliens/noncitizens. It merely found the law to violate the EP Clause -- on the ground that the state was discriminating against aliens/noncitizens -- by fiat. Also, the Court deemed the state to being interfering with a power of the federal government: the state law was "hostil[e] to exclusive federal power. The authority to control immigration -- to admit or exclude aliens -- is vested solely in the federal government."
However, later that same year, in
Heim v. McCall, (1915), the Court upheld a state law that prohibited any aliens/noncitizens from being employed under any contract for construction of public works. The Court's opinion did not contain any explanation at all why the law did not violate the EP Clause, and nothing was said about principle that the power to regulate immigration was exclusively the federal government's power. The recent
Truax decision was not mentioned at all.
In
Terrace v. Thompson, (1923), the Court upheld a state law that prohibited aliens/noncitizens "who have not in good faith declared their intention to become citizens of the United States" from leasing or owning agricultural property. This time, the Court did acknowledge the
Truax precedent, but found this case to be distinguishable from what the Court had said in
Truax.
In
Takahashi v. Fish & Game Commission, (1948), the Court struck down a state law that prohibited "aliens ineligible for citizenship" from obtaining fishing licenses. No particular legal standard was described. The Court again found the law to violate the EP Clause by fiat, and that the state is not allowed to interfere with the federal government's power over immigration.
In
Graham v. Richardson, (1971), the Court struck down a state law that denied welfare to resident aliens/noncitizens unless they had resided in the United States for at least fifteen years. In this case, the Court finally stated explicitly that it deems that state laws which classify on the basis of alienage to be "inherently suspect, and are therefore subject to
strict judicial scrutiny," "[T]he Court's decisions have established that classifications based on alienage, like those based on nationality or race, are inherently suspect and subject to close judicial scrutiny. Aliens as a class are a prime example of a 'discrete and insular minority' for whom such heightened judicial solicitude is appropriate." Then the Court went on to reiterate the principle that only the federal government has the power to control immigration.
In
Sugarman v. Dougall, (1973), the Court struck down a state law that prohibited aliens/noncitizens from holding jobs in the state's competitive civil service positions. The Court repeated its assertion in
Graham that "aliens as a class 'are a prime example of a "discrete and insular minority" ' and that classifications based on alienage are 'subject to close judicial scrutiny.' " The law was thus held to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Nothing was said about the principle that only the federal government can regulate immigration.
But in
Foley v. Connelie, (1978), the Court upheld a state law that prohibited aliens/noncitizens from becoming state troopers, and in
Ambach v. Norwick, (1979), the Court upheld a state law that prohibited aliens/noncitizens from becoming public school teachers. Apparently, "close scrutiny" does not mean the same thing as "strict scrutiny," and it does not consistently mean
it's always unconstitutional to discriminate against aliens. It just means that the Justices want to carefully think about all policy implications. In other words, it just gives the judges the ability to legislate from the bench.
In
Plyler v. Doe, (1982), the Court struck down, under the Equal Protection Clause, a state law that denied enrollment in the state's public schools, students who were
illegal aliens. The Court's opinion acknowledged that it has been using three different legal tests when analyzing cases challenged under the Equal Protection Clause: a highly lenient and deferential rational-basis test; a very strict legal standard called the strict scrutiny test; and a third test in between the other two, a
heightened scrutiny test. But in
Plyler, the Court never clearly explained which of these tests it was applying. The late Prof. David P. Currie, writing in his book, "The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The Second Century," has unusually harsh words about the Court's ruling in
Plyler: "With all due respect, this conclusion seemed to be carrying solicitude pretty far. Public funds are limited, and those who have no business even being in the state have a poor claim upon them. I may have a right to keep a burglar out of my house, the Court seemed to be saying, but once he gets inside I must invite him to dinner."
