In this file photo from Feb. 2, 2016, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt answers questions at the Statehouse in Topeka. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Topeka ? Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt says he wants the nation’s high court to review three Kansas Supreme Court decisions that limit state and local officials’ ability to prosecute undocumented aliens for identity theft in seeking employment.

“We are not convinced the Kansas court’s application of the federal immigration statute is correct, so we are requesting review of all three cases by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Schmidt said in a presss release.

The three cases were decided last week. All three were from Johnson County in 2012 and they involved undocumented aliens who used stolen Social Security numbers to secure jobs in the area. They were charged and convicted of identity theft and making false writings on their employment application documents.

On Friday, Sept. 8, the Kansas Supreme Court, in a series of 5-2 rulings, overturned their convictions, saying federal immigration law completely pre-empted the state from prosecuting aliens for making false statements on their I-9 forms, the document in which an applicant states he or she is eligible to work in the United States.

The decisions sparked controversy because they came in the midst of a roiling national debate over immigration policy, the DREAM Act, and President Donald Trump’s announcement that he plans to rescind an Obama-era policy known as DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

“The Kansas court reasoned that the state cannot prosecute a defendant for falsifying state or private legal documents if the defendant also put the same false information on federal forms for employment verification. I doubt Congress intended that peculiar result,” Schmidt said.

Randall Hodgkinson of the Kansas Appellate Defender’s Office, who represented two of the three defendants on appeal, said the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision was very narrow in scope.

During a telephone interview this week, he said undocumented aliens can still be prosecuted for identity theft if, for example, they use stolen Social Security numbers to apply for credit. The decisions, he said, apply only to cases in which they use false documents in seeking employment.

Hodgkinson also said he argued the defendants’ cases on appeal, and he did not know whether the individuals were still in the country, or if they had already been deported.