Following a pattern of absurd, baseless, and false charges lobbed against the Justice Department by Fox News, today Fox's Monica Crowley claimed on America Live that there is a “concerted effort” by President Obama and Attorney General Holder to “open the door to international law, to have international law hold sway over the U.S. Constitution.” Crowley also claimed that Obama and Holder are “waging war against the American people.”

Crowley and America Live host Megyn Kelly were attacking the Obama administration because the governments of Mexico and other Latin American countries had filed a brief arguing that Arizona's controversial immigration law, S.B. 1070, violated the U.S. Constitution. Crowley suggested that the Justice Department should have opposed the Latin American countries' motions to be allowed to file a brief.

In fact, there's nothing in the Latin American countries' brief or the federal government's brief suggesting that international law is relevant to the question of whether S.B. 1070 is unconstitutional. Furthermore, there's nothing unusual or nefarious about a foreign government filing a brief in U.S. court.

The only international law source the Mexican brief cites is the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a treaty signed by the United States and Mexico. And the only purpose for which the brief cites that treaty is to say that the Mexican government has the right to protect the interests of its citizens and therefore should be permitted to file a brief. From Mexico's brief:

Under Article 5(a) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which both countries are signatories, Mexico has a right to protect the interests of its nationals within the limits of international law. Mexico seeks to ensure that its citizens present in the U.S. are accorded the human and civil rights granted under the U.S. Constitution. [Retrieved via Pacer]

Other than that, all the case citations are to Supreme Court and lower federal court cases, Arizona S.B. 1070, and the statutory citations are to immigration bills proposed or enacted in other U.S. states. At no point does the brief assert or suggest that international law has any bearing on whether S.B. 1070 is constitutional.

And the federal government does not rely on international law in its brief either.

Furthermore, foreign governments routinely file briefs in U.S. courts. Indeed, U.S. Supreme Court justices have cited foreign governments' briefs in certain cases. For instance, in the 1988 case of Doe v. United States, the majority opinion written by Justice Harry Blackmun cited a brief filed by the Government of the Cayman Islands in a case dealing with an issue involving self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment as it related to offshore bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. (Blackmun said that the argument of the Cayman Islands did not affect the outcome in the case.) Seven other justices joined Blackmun's opinion including Justice Antonin Scalia and then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

And it is hardly a new practice for foreign governments to file briefs in U.S. cases. As an example, according to the Lexis database the government of Canada filed a brief in Olson v. United States, a 1934 case dealing with the federal government's eminent domain power under the Fifth Amendment.