Immigration Law Commons^™

Preempted Or Permitted? State Immigration Enforcement, Federal Preemption, And The Future Of Immigration Policy, Aryn Kerr

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Economic Cost Of Exclusion: How Trump's Second-Term Immigration Policies Threaten California's Economy, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

The second Trump administration has pursued an array of immigration enforcement initiatives—from denaturalization and visa scrutiny to termination of humanitarian programs and aggressive workplace raids. Legal scholars have sharply debated these measures, but almost entirely through constitutional, statutory, and rights-based frames. This Article exposes a critical omission in immigration law scholarship: the economics of large-scale noncitizen removal. Drawing on major empirical studies of historic enforcement episodes—including Mexican repatriation between 1929-1934, Japanese internment during World War II, Arizona’s immigration restrictionism from 2007-2012, and federal immigration enforcement efforts of 2008-2015—this Article demonstrates that broad noncitizen removals may reduce the employment and wages …

Undocumented Eldercare, Llc, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

Americans are aging. Within five years, 20% of the U.S. population will be over the age of 65. In the next 25 years, the number ofcitizens over the age of 80 is expected to triple.

Many older Americans, particularly the oldest, need help with daily lifeeverything from dressing and showering to cooking and cleaning. Assistance, however, is hard to come by. At-home caregivers are expensive. Institutional settings, also expensive, are routinely understaffed.

Thousands of noncitizens provide eldercare in home and institutional settings. Many of these noncitizens have work authorization pursuant to Temporary Protected Status (TPS), an immigration program that President …

Name, Image, And Likeness Deals And Immigration Consequences For International Student-Athletes, Eric E. Johnson, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

International student-athletes are being sidelined from deals that would allow them to reap financial benefits from licensing their name, image, and likeness (“NIL”). The calls to sideline these students are not coming from the NCAA or even the federal agencies in charge of immigration. The calls are coming from overly cautious universities, attorneys, and academics who incorrectly see NIL licensing as work or employment that is incompatible with the visa obligations of international student-athletes. This Article argues that international athletes can license their NIL without violating their visa terms.

Name, Image, And Likeness Deals And Immigration Consequences For International Student-Athletes, Eric E. Johnson, Kit Johnson

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lawful Work While Undocumented: Business Entity Solutions, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

Immigration law and business-associations law rarely enter the same conversation. This Article argues, however, that business entity formation—such as the use of limited liability companies—has the potential to not only expand opportunities for undocumented migrants but also to significantly benefit the U.S. economy. As such, this Article seeks to make a round of introductions: introducing immigration scholars and lawyers to concepts of business entity formation that can radically change the lives of undocumented persons in the United States and introducing corporate scholars and lawyers to the ways in which their work can intersect with immigration law to effect social and …

An Immigration Solution For Improving Rural Healthcare, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

If you are one of the more than 249 million people who live in urban areas of the United States, more than 80% of the U.S. population, you’ve likely never thought much about your physical proximity to a doctor. Primary care physicians and medical specialists abound in urban America. But if you are among the more than 59 million people who live in rural areas of the country, you may well know the struggle of finding primary care, a specialist, or a dentist. That is because there is a worrying shortage of medical professionals in rural America. There is a …

Women Of Color In Immigration Enforcement, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

Immigration enforcement agencies are among the most racially diverse in federal law enforcement. More than half of all women holding law enforcement positions within immigration agencies are minorities, though the overall number of female agents is relatively small. This Essay focuses on women of color in immigration enforcement. It begins with a necessary primer on immigration enforcement. Next, it traces key developments that led to the diversification of immigration enforcement, including analysis of never before published data about the racial and gender diversity of immigration agents. Then, it considers the unique benefits of hiring women of color as enforcement agents …

Rising Up Without Pushing Down: Lessons Learned From The Suffragettes' Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

American suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton famously wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal.” Yet when suffragettes spoke of “all” men and women, they were clear about exceptions. Immigrants did not qualify. Indeed, in her own address at the First Women’s Rights Convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848, Stanton said that “to have . . . ignorant foreigners . . . fully recognized, while we ourselves are thrust out from all the rights that belong to citizens, it is too grossly insulting to the dignity of woman to …

Universities As Vehicles For Immigrant Integration, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

This Essay discusses how universities could play a productive role in helping potential future U.S. citizens feel a sense of belonging to the United States. This discussion is prompted by, and is offered as a reaction to, Chapter Four of Professor Ming Hsu Chen’s forthcoming book, Constructing Citizenship for Noncitizens. In that chapter, Professor Chen focuses on the “blocked pathways to citizenship” experienced by international students, temporary workers, and DACA recipients in the United States. Professor Chen notes that these three groups of noncitizens share a common thread of status insecurity, and she explores how this challenges their integration into …

The Mythology Of Sanctuary Cities, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

Sanctuary jurisdictions — be they cities, counties, or states — employ various means of disentangling local law enforcement from federal civil immigration enforcement. Much of the criticism directed at these “sanctuary cities” revolves around a set of myths — such as that these jurisdictions are lawless or dangerous. This Essay identifies nine myths about sanctuary cities and subjects each to a fact-based shakedown.

Punishing Families For Being Poor: How Child Protection Interventions Threaten The Right To Parent While Impoverished, David Pimentel

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pereira V. Sessions: A Jurisdictional Surprise For Immigration Courts, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

On June 21, 2, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a bombshell opinion regarding immigration court procedure: Pereira v. Sessions. On its face, the case is a boon for certain noncitizens seeking relief from deportation. Yet, as this Essay explains, Pereira’s implications are far greater. Although the Court’s opinion never mentions jurisdiction, Pereira necessarily means that immigration courts lack subject-matter jurisdiction over virtually every case filed in the last three years, plus an unknown number of earlier-filed cases. This situation arises from the chronic failure of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to comply with the law in commencing deportation proceedings. …

Beauty And The Beast: Disney's Use Of The Q And H-1b Visas, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

The Walt Disney Company made national headlines in 2015 when its former information-technology employees went public with the news that they had been fired and asked to train their replacements: foreign workers holding H-1B visas. Disney’s move was spotlighted during the 2016 presidential campaign as then-candidate Donald Trump railed against Disney’s use of H-1B visas to employ people, “imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay.” What few appreciate is that Disney is not new to working the immigration laws to its advantage. Just at the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida, …

A Citizenship Market, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

Imagine a global marketplace in which private citizens could freely swap their citizenship. Participants might agree on a pure one-for-one trade or a swap with a cash payment on one side of the deal. What might the implications of such a citizenship market be? This Article explores the possibilities in terms of individual rights and economic efficiency. The United States already comes close to selling citizenship—by prioritizing investors who bring capital with them and by pursuing reforms to quantify would-be migrants’ potential economic contributions. Other governments go further, issuing a passport in return for a cash payment. Yet these government-directed …

Opportunities & Anxieties: A Study Of International Students In The Trump Era, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Can We Act Globally While Thinking Locally: Responding To Stella Burch Elias, The Perils And Possibilities Of Refugee Federalism, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

In The Perils and Possibilities of Refugee Federalism, Professor Stella Burch Elias skillfully exposes both the dangers and the opportunities presented by state responses to the resettlement of refugees within their borders. She concludes that states are prohibited from excluding refugees from their territory, but she argues that states have a previously untapped opportunity to legislate at the local level in an effort to promote the integration of refugees into their communities. This Response does not challenge those conclusions. Rather, this Response seeks to provide context to the idea of refugee federalism by further discussing the problem, acknowledged by Professor …

Irreconcilable Similarities: The Inconsistent Analysis Of 212(C) And 212(H) Waivers, Kate Aschenbrenner Rodriguez

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Of Mice And Men: On The Seclusion Of Immigration Detainees And Hospital Patients, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

With a special focus on federal provisions strictly regulating Medicare-participating hospitals' use of seclusion, this Article uses developments in health law as a lens through which the uses and abuses of seclusion in immigration detention centers might be assessed and through which the standards governing detention centers might be improved. In particular, this Article argues that the unenforceable standards governing seclusion in immigration detention, including the most recent version of ICE's Performance-Based National Detention Standards, were incorrectly modeled on correctional standards developed for use in jails and prisons with respect to convicted criminals. This Article asserts that correctional standards are …

The Grapes Of Wrath: On The Health Of Immigration Detainees, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

This Article challenges the lack of health care provided to individuals in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) custody. As background, many immigration detainees are physically and emotionally vulnerable at the time of initial confinement due to a history of torture and trauma, which may include human trafficking, sexual violence, political oppression, psychosocial trauma, and acculturative stress. Detention can exacerbate preexisting vulnerabilities and contribute to severe physical and mental illness as well as death. Between October 2003 and October 2015, 153 individuals died while in ICE custody. Although most proposals for detainee health reform borrow heavily from constitutional law, international …

A Cost-Benefit Analysis Of The Federal Prosecution Of Immigration Crimes, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

Immigration crimes are the most prosecuted federal crimes in America. This Article examines the benefits of the federal prosecution of immigration crimes (training, deterrence, and signaling/expression) and balances those benefits against the costs of such prosecutions (court- house costs, alternative prosecution, and incarceration). I conclude that deportation immediately following a conviction for an immigration crime appears to capture the key benefit of this system (signaling/expression) while alleviating its greatest expense (incarceration).

Vast Hordes...Crowding In Upon Us: The Executive Branch's Response To Mass Migration And The Legacy Of Chae Chan Ping, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

In this essay, we consider how Chae Chan Ping v. United States influences the Executive Branch’s policy response to mass migration, even today. The fear of mass migration reflected in the opinion, and the Court’s articulation that our government must protect its citizenry from “vast hordes...crowding in upon us,” is a message that still resonates. When it comes to policy, the Chinese Exclusion case is more modern than one might expect. In fact, we see the fingerprints of Chae Chan Ping in the Obama Administration’s current practice regarding the detention and processing of family migrants from Central America, and in …

Give And Take? Procedure, Practicalities, And Policy In Naturalization Appellate Jurisdiction, Kelsey Frobisher

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Chae Chan Ping At 125: An Introduction, Kit Johnson

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Case: Chae Chan Ping V. United States, 130 U.S. 151 (1889)

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Immigration’S Plenary Power Doctrine Endures, David A. Martin

Oklahoma Law Review

The plenary power doctrine, traditionally traced to the Supreme Court’s decision in Chae Chan Ping, has persisted despite a steady and vigorous stream of scholarly criticism. This essay undertakes to explain why. First, the Court’s strong deference to the political branches does not derive from the concept of sovereignty. Justice Field’s opinion for the Court invoked sovereignty not to trump rights claims but to solve a federalism problem — structural reasoning that locates the immigration control power squarely in the federal government, though not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. The Chae Chan Ping Court’s deference to the political branches instead …

Scalia’S Short Reply To 125 Years Of Plenary Power, Michael Scaperlanda

Oklahoma Law Review

With its plenary power doctrine, the Supreme Court erred by rejecting the universal in favor of the particular. Liberal immigration theorists, on the other hand, make the opposite error by rejecting the particular in favor of the universal. Drawing on classic international law publicists and the Catholic philosophical tradition, this essay argues that the two concepts—the state’s greater duty toward its own citizens (the particular) and equal dignity and worth of all human beings (the universal)—go hand in hand: complementing each other and giving the state a qualified right to limit immigration along with a qualified duty to admit vulnerable …

Elusive Equality: Reflections On Justice Field’S Opinions In Chae Chan Ping And Fong Yue Ting, Victor C. Romero

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Immigration In The Supreme Court, 2009-13: A New Era Of Immigration Law Unexceptionalism, Kevin R. Johnson

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Chae Chan Ping V. United States: Immigration As Property, Rose Cuison Villazor

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.