Law Commons^™

'Illegal' Migration Is Speech, Daniel Morales

College of Law Faculty

Non-citizens must comply with immigration laws just because citizens say so. The citizenry takes for granted its monopoly on immigration control, but the legitimacy of this arrangement has been called into question by cutting-edge political theorists. One prominent theorist argues, for example, that basic democratic principles require that non-citizens living outside the U.S. have a say in the formation of immigration law, since they must obey it. For the first time, this Article provides a legal response to these political theory developments, assimilating them, along with the facts on the ground, into an account of “illegal” migration as First Amendment …