Law Commons^™

Immigration As Commerce: A New Look At The Federal Immigration Power And The Constitution, Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

The relationship of immigration law to the Constitution has long been incoherent. One result is that there is little clarity on the appropriate standard of review for constitutional violations when aspects of immigration law and policy are challenged in the federal courts. This Article advances the Commerce Clause as the anchor of a new understanding of the link between the government's immigration power and the Constitution. Despite the extensive early history of the Foreign Commerce Clause as the presumed source of the immigration power, it plays almost no role in immigration jurisprudence today, and few scholars have seriously considered its …