Second, Sessions challenged a law designed to protect immigrants from workplace raids. Under the act, federal immigration officers may not access “any nonpublic areas of a place of labor” or “the employer’s employee records” without a subpoena or judicial warrant. California passed this law for several reasons, chief among them a desire to protect employees from harassment by ICE. But Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center, noted that the legislature had another concern: There’s a long history of employers effectively blackmailing undocumented employers over their immigration status, using the information to thwart union drives and exploit workers. California’s law makes such blackmail more difficult by forbidding employers from giving voluntary consent to an immigration raid, instead requiring judicial oversight to ensure due process.

Sessions claims that these protections create an “obstacle” to the “objectives of Congress” in authorizing these raids. But there’s a problem with that theory: The California measures explicitly permit any action “required by federal law.” How can a state statute impede federal law enforcement if the statute itself allows anything that federal law requires? As Ian Millhiser points out at ThinkProgress, this “objectives of Congress” doctrine is so hazy that nobody’s quite sure what counts as an “obstacle.” We do know, however, that Justice Clarence Thomas dislikes the doctrine, while the court’s liberals seem hesitant to apply it when a state pursues legitimate interests that aren’t explicitly reserved to the federal government. Sessions’ argument here isn’t frivolous. But because no federal statute directly conflicts with the California acts, it’s doubtful that a majority of the court would strike them down on that basis.

Third, and most bizarrely, Sessions challenged an act that allows the California attorney general to inspect immigration detention facilities within the state. These facilities are notorious for their poor conditions: California detainees have been sexually abused and denied medical treatment, while a handful have died from lack of proper care. Yet ICE has been destroying its record of immigrant abuse. The California law seeks to restore transparency by directing the attorney general to tell the legislature and the governor about what he sees in the facilities—including the amount of “due process provided.”

What, exactly, is wrong with that? According to Sessions, these inspections constitute “an improper, significant intrusion into federal enforcement of the immigration laws.” This claim is already weak, since the attorney general’s inspections would do nothing to impede the enforcement of these laws. It is made weaker by the fact that 9 of California’s 10 detention facilities are either run by local law enforcement or contracted out by the city. Some cities rent out beds in the local jail to ICE detainees; others contract with private prisons to house these immigrants. Only one facility, the Otay Mesa Detention Center, is under contract with the federal government exclusively.

Sessions might be able to prevent the California attorney general from inspecting Otay Mesa because it is exclusively federal. But he almost certainly cannot prevent the state from inspecting its own detention facilities. California does not relinquish all authority over its jails and prisons when it allows the feds to house undocumented immigrants in them. To claim otherwise would be to reject the notion of state sovereignty altogether.

And that is what’s so galling about this lawsuit: Yet again, Jeff Sessions, a self-proclaimed defender of states’ rights, is seeking to undermine states’ ability to conduct their own affairs. He is intruding upon California’s police powers and undermining its protection of civil rights because he dislikes the state’s laws. Sessions may wish that every state would accede to his policy agenda. But he can’t use the Constitution to make them obey his commands.

• Immigration