Law Commons^™

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

Indiana Law Journal

When the United States government sets immigration law and policy, how much attention must it pay to constitutional rights? This question has been much debated since President Donald Trump issued a series of immigration-related executive orders in his first week in office, including a bar on entry by citizens of a set of majority-Muslim countries, but it was controversial long before then. In important part, the answer depends on what the Constitution says about the scope and limits of the power of the federal government over immigration. Therein lies the tale. On this subject, the country’s founding documents say very …

The Privileges And Immunities Of Non-Citizens, R. George Wright

Cleveland State Law Review

However paradoxically, in some practically important contexts, non-citizens of all sorts can rightly claim what amount to privileges and immunities of citizens. This follows from a careful and entirely plausible understanding of the inherently relational, inescapably social, and essentially reciprocal nature of at least some typical privileges and immunities.

This Article contends that the relationship between constitutional privileges and immunities and citizenship is more nuanced, and much more interesting, than usually recognized. Crucially, allowing some non-citizens to invoke the privileges and immunities of citizens often makes sense. The intuitive sense that non-citizens cannot logically claim the privileges or immunities of …