Kimberly Kindy’s recent detailed article in the Washington Post — “State lawmakers move to ban Chinese land ownership” — reports that “[l]awmakers in 33 states have introduced 81 bills this year that would prohibit the Chinese government, some China-based businesses and many Chinese citizens from buying agricultural land or property near military bases.”
The article includes this: “The bills face an uncertain legal future. The American Civil Liberties Union has challenged the constitutionality of the Florida law, making some of the same arguments that caused several state supreme courts to strike down broad bans on land ownership by foreign citizens of Asian countries decades ago, including a pivotal California Supreme Court decision in 1952.”
The reference is to Sei Fujii v. State of California (1952) 38 Cal.2d 718, where the court held to violate federal equal protection principles a California law prohibiting land ownership by “aliens” who were ineligible for American citizenship unless a U.S. treaty with the alien’s country of citizenship allowed property ownership. The court concluded, “The California alien land law is obviously designed and administered as an instrument for effectuating racial discrimination, and the most searching examination discloses no circumstances justifying classification on that basis. There is nothing to indicate that those alien residents who are racially ineligible for citizenship possess characteristics which are dangerous to the legitimate interests of the state, or that they, as a class, might use the land for purposes injurious to public morals, safety or welfare.” (Id. at pp. 737-738.)
Related:
Supreme Court grants another posthumous law license, to a civil rights hero — Administrative Order 2017-05-17 (Cal. 2017) 217 Cal.Rptr.3d 730 [394 P.3d 488].