Immigration Law Commons^™

Sustaining Tiered Personhood: Jim Crow And Anti-Immigrant Laws, Karla M. Mckanders

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Latino immigrants are moving to areas of the country that have not seen a major influx of immigrants. As a result of this influx, citizens of these formerly homogenous communities have become increasingly critical of federal immigration law. State and local legislatures are responding by passing their own laws targeting immigrants. While many legislators and city council members state that the purpose of the anti-immigrant laws is to restrict illegal immigration where the federal government has failed to do so, opponents claim that the laws are passed to enable discrimination and exclusion of all Latinos, regardless of their immigration status. …

Alienated: A Reworking Of The Racialization Thesis After September 11, Ming H. Chen

Publications

This article revises widespread application of the racialization thesis to Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians following September 11. It suggests in its place an “alienation thesis” to describe the formation of an alien identity for those perceived and treated as noncitizens. This thesis draws on Asian American and critical race scholarship to re-interpret sociological understandings of the post-September 11 response to Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians. The article concludes that shifting conceptions of this phenomenon is critical to reforming “alienating” practices that function not only to cause harm to their intended targets, but also to distort the legal requirements of …

Immigration As Invasion: Sovereignty, Security, And The Origins Of The Federal Immigration Power, Matthew Lindsay

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers a new interpretation of the modern federal immigration power. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Supreme Court and Congress fundamentally transformed the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration, from a species of commercial regulation firmly grounded in Congress’ commerce authority, into a power that was unmoored from the Constitution, derived from the nation’s “inherent sovereignty,” and subject to extraordinary judicial deference. This framework, which is commonly referred to as the “plenary power doctrine,” has stood for more than a century as an anomaly within American public law. The principal legal and rhetorical rationale for the …

Go West Young Woman!: The Mercer Girls And Legal Historiography, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

This essay is a response to Professor Kerry Abrams’s article The Hidden Dimension of Nineteenth-Century Immigration Law, published in Vanderbilt Law Review. The Hidden Dimension tells the story of Washington Territory’s entrepreneurial Asa Shinn Mercer, who endeavored to bring hundreds of young women from the East Coast to the tiny frontier town of Seattle as prospective brides for white men who had settled there. Abrams locates the story of the Mercer Girls, as they were called, in the history of American immigration law. My response locates The Hidden Dimension in American legal historiography, both that branch of American legal historiography …

Fractured Membership: Deconstructing Territoriality To Secure Rights And Remedies For The Undocumented Worker, D. Carolina Nuñez

Faculty Scholarship

Relied upon but unwelcome, among us but uninvited, undocumented workers in the United States – now numbering over 8 million – labor on the border of inclusion and exclusion, between a status-based conception of membership and a territorial approach to membership. Although mere presence in the U.S. secures undocumented workers many of the same labor protections afforded to authorized workers, undocumented status often forecloses certain remedies otherwise available for employer breaches of those protections. Many commentators have criticized this effective status-based denial of rights to undocumented workers as inimical to the goals underlying labor and immigration law. While this Article …

The International Law Of Economic Migration: Toward The Fourth Freedom, Joel P. Trachtman

Upjohn Press

This volume examines the welfare economics, political economy, and legal experience in international economic migration, and on the basis of its analysis, suggests the structure of a multilateral framework agreement on international economic migration.

Battered, Broken, Bruised, Or Abandoned: Domestic Strife Presents Foreign Nationals Access To Immigration Relief, Misty Wilson Borkowski

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Life Cycle Of Immigration: A Tale Of Two Migrants, William J. Aceves, James M. Cooper, Alejandro Gonzalez, Pedro Egana Marshall

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Recognizing The Problem Of Solidarity: Immigration In The Post-Welfare State, David Abraham

Articles

No abstract provided.

Redefining The Rights Of Undocumented Workers, Keith Cunningham-Parmeter

American University Law Review

Should a nation extend legal rights to those who enter the country illegally? The Supreme Court recently addressed this question when it held that unauthorized immigrants who are fired illegally for unionizing cannot recover monetary remedies. This has led to a significant decline in employment protections for unauthorized immigrants beyond the unionized sector. For example, some courts now question whether unauthorized immigrants can receive full remedies for sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, or on-the-job injuries.

Scholars have criticized these losses but have yet to formulate a coherent framework for evaluating the employment rights of unauthorized immigrants. This article does so by …

Asylum In A Different Voice: Judging Immigration Claims And Gender, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

An extensive statistical study of disparities in asylum adjudication throughout the United States reveals gross disparities in rates of asylum grants by region of country, experience of adjudicators, prior employment, and other factors. One of the most robust findings was one of gender disparities in adjudication rates. If the adjudicator of claims for asylum was female there was a 44% greater likelihood that asylum would be granted. This chapter in the book reporting these findings reflects on this significant finding of gender differences in judging and discusses, in light of the author's prior work on gender differences in lawyering, whether …

Bah V. Mukasey, Sandrine Dehaeze

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Proportional Deportation, Angela M. Banks

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Embracing Paradox: Three Problems The Nlrb Must Confront To Resist Further Erosion Of Labor Rights In The Expanding Immigrant Workplace, Michael C. Duff

All Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the Supreme Court's 2002 Hoffman Plastic Compounds opinion, normally considered in terms of its social justice ramifications, from the different perspective of NLRB attorneys tasked with pursuing enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) under the conceptually (and practically) odd rubric that some NLRA employees (unauthorized workers) have no remedy under the NLRA. The article focuses on three problems evincing paradox. First, NLRB attorneys prosecuting cases involving these workers will probably gain knowledge of unlawful background immigration conduct. To what extent must the attorneys disclose it, and to whom? Second, NLRB attorneys are extraordinarily reliant on …

No Matter What: The Inevitability Of Mexican-Us Migration And Its Lessons For Border Control Strategies, Ragini Shah

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

Since the mid 1980s, immigration reform has always included a mix of increased access to legal status for undocumented workers and escalation of border enforcement strategies. Recent events including the economic recession and Arizona’s passage of its own immigration enforcement regime have brought the border enforcement strategies more squarely into the public debate. Unfortunately, the debate continues to be grounded in the unsupported assumption that increased enforcement measures will decrease the number of unauthorized migrants that enter the country each year. This article critiques that assumption and argues instead that immigration policy must be seen in a larger context of …

Robbed Of The American Dream, Megan Walker

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Many people have immigrated to the United States, hoping to live the “American dream.” Unfortunately, this romantic notion is part of the reason that the United States has become one of the most sought after destination countries for human trafficking. It is easy for traffickers to convince potential victims that they can live the American dream. Traffickers from all over the world and all walks of life profit in this booming market, by promising poor and vulnerable people high wages in legitimate jobs as farm workers, maids, and waitresses. Many of these people end up in terrible conditions as indentured …

Interest And Action: Findings From A Survey Of Asian American Attitudes On Immigrants, Immigration, And Activism, Michael Liu, Shauna Lo, Paul Watanabe

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

This report presents results from a survey of 412 Chinese and Vietnamese in the Boston area about attention paid to immigration issues, views on the impact of immigrants and on immigration policies, and likeliness to engage in political activities around immigration rights.

The Constitutional Dimension Of Immigration Federalism, Clare Huntington

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Farmers Branch, Texas, the city council enacted a measure to fine landlords who rent their premises to unauthorized migrants,' and in Arizona, the state legislature passed a law imposing stiff penalties on employers who intentionally or knowingly hire unauthorized migrants. In San Francisco, the board of supervisors passed a measure that bars law enforcement officers from inquiring into the immigration status of an individual in the course of a criminal investigation. In Alabama and Florida, state officials have entered into agreements with the federal government permitting state law enforcement officers to arrest and detain non-citizens on immigration charges. Other …

A Comparative Perspective On Immigration Law For Same-Sex Couples: How The United States Compares To Other Industrialized Democracies, James D. Wilets

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Essay: In Opposition To The Suffolk County Legislature's Introductory Resolution 2025, Andrea Callan

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Save America: Stop Illegal Immigration, Hon. Virgil H. Goode Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

Security is an overriding issue confronting the United States, and if we want enhanced security, illegal immigration must be stopped. In fact, illegal immigration is an addiction that the United States must break, or it will break the United States.

Rights And Obligations Of Americans In Mexico Under Immigration Law And Other Areas Of Mexican Law, Jorge A. Vargas

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Birthright Citizenship, The Fourteenth Amendment, And State Authority, James C. Ho

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Close To Crucial: The H-2b Visa Program Must Evolve, But Must Endure, Lindsay M. Pickral

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Significance Of The Local In Immigration Regulation, Cristina M. Rodríguez

Michigan Law Review

The proliferation of state and local regulation designed to control immigrant movement generated considerable media attention and high-profile lawsuits in 2006 and 2007. Proponents and opponents of these measures share one basic assumption, with deep roots in constitutional doctrine and political rhetoric: immigration control is the exclusive responsibility of the federal government. Because of the persistence of this assumption, assessments of this important trend have failed to explain why state and local measures are arising in large numbers, and why the regulatory uniformity both sides claim to seek is neither achievable nor desirable. I argue that the time has come …

Brief Of Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Juan Rivera V. State Of Maryland, No. 08-80, Maureen A. Sweeney

Court Briefs

The petitioner requested the Maryland Court of Appeals to reverse a decision that his criminal plea of guilty was voluntary. The Court of Special Appeals of Maryland had ruled it voluntary. Law professors at the University of Maryland and the University of Baltimore filed this amicus brief in support of the petitioner.

The brief presents the issue of whether a guilty plea is voluntary and knowingly given when it is based on affirmative misinformation about the direct immigration consequences of such a plea. The amici argue that the petitioner’s plea was unconstitutionally involuntary and unknowing because his attorney, the prosecutor, …

The Alien Invasion, Ediberto Román

Faculty Publications

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, repeatedly complains about strict immigration policies' impact on the ability for businesses to hire skilled workers. In terms of other sectors of the economy, an American Farm Bureau Federation study notes that "if agriculture's access to migrant labor were cut off, as much as $5- 9 billion in annual production of... commodities.., would be lost in the short term. Over the longer term, this annual loss would increase to $6.5-12 billion as the shock worked its way through the sector." Preeminent economist John Kenneth Galbraith effectively responded to those who have advocated for closed borders …

Of Inferior Stock: The Two-Pronged Repression Of Radical Immigrant Birth Control Advocates At The Turn-Of-The Twentieth Century, Cesar Cuahtemoc Garcia Hernandez

St. Thomas Law Review

This article addresses law's coercive function to quash birth control advocacy at the turn-of-the-twentieth century. Part II addresses the development of anti-obscenity legislation, especially at the federal level, to slow quelling support for birth control availability and usage. In particular, the article addresses the trend during the late 1800s in which the states and federal government prohibited sending birth control information or products through the mail. This section also explores the significant harassment, and both actual and threatened prosecution of birth control advocates that resulted from criminal prohibitions. Part III surveys the rampant nativism that swept policymaking circles during this …

No Brown Towns: Anti-Immigrant Ordinances And Equality Of Educational Opportunity For Latina/Os, Tom I. Romero

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

"The right to education in the environment of a multi-racial community seems equally fundamental." Spencer v. Kugler, 404 U.S. 1027, 1028 (1972)(mem.)(Douglas, J., dissenting) .

In 1972, the United States Supreme Court in Spencer v. Kugler affirmed New Jersey's statutory scheme compelling school district boundaries to coincide with those of the State's political subdivisions. In writing a dissent to the Court's affirmation of the lower court opinion that such segregation was "de-facto" and not subject to a constitutional violation, Justice William O. Douglas highlighted the pernicious influence of local government boundaries in creating unequal and inferior education for the nation's …

Immigration Reform From The Outside In, Bill Piatt

Faculty Articles

Immigration reform is made up of two differing extreme positions, but by seeking common ground, a more fair and balanced approach may be adopted in the best interests of all.Rather than trying to analyze positions as conservative or liberal, it makes more sense to view the extremes as a “closed border” versus “open border” approach. The extreme positions will not work, so a more middle-ground position would require a thoughtful examination of a number of issues. Those issues are what are the costs and benefits of removing those already illegally here; what role should the federal, state, and local governments …