Reports
What Arizona v. United States May Mean for States with Similar Immigration Laws
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Arizona v. United States, a case addressing the legality of the Arizona immigration law known as SB 1070. According to the statement of legislative intent, the law was designed to make “attrition through enforcement” the official policy of all state and local agencies in Arizona. Following the passage of SB 1070, numerous other states—including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Utah—passed legislation with similar provisions, which have also been challenged in court. Read More
Prosecutorial Discretion in Context: How Discretion is Exercised Throughout Our Immigration System
Discretion takes many forms throughout the immigration enforcement process. Every removal of a noncitizen from the United States, for example, reflects a series of complex choices which reflect discretion. To understand the role of discretion fully, however, we need to examine the entire range of opportunities to exercise discretion in immigration enforcement and the cast of decision makers who make discretionary decisions, such as members of Congress who enact laws, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers who make arrests, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) trial attorneys who represent the government in removal proceedings, and immigration judges who preside over those proceedings. This Special Report traces the role of discretion throughout the immigration enforcement process. Understanding these roles is important not only in individual cases, but also in how policymakers write regulations and draft laws. Knowing how the enforcement system anticipates and incorporates discretion is key to understanding how our immigration laws work. Listen to Hiroshi Motomura discuss this report. Read More
Proportionality in Immigration Law: Does the Punishment Fit the Crime in Immigration Court?
Proportionality is the notion that the severity of a sanction should not be excessive in relation to the gravity of an offense. The principle is ancient and nearly uncontestable, and its operation pursuant to diverse constitutional provisions is well-established in numerous areas of criminal and civil law, in the United States and abroad. Immigration law, however, which is formally termed “civil” but is functionally quasi-criminal, has not previously been subject to judicial or administrative review for conformity to constitutional proportionality principles. Yet it is undisputed that the Due Process Clause—one of the sources of the proportionality principle in American law—applies to immigration proceedings. This Perpsectives suggests that understanding the use of proportionality in criminal and civil law offers immigration practitioners a new way to challenge the status quo, particularly in cases where the underlying basis for the removal order and the resulting consequences of removal are so disparate. Applying established proportionality principles, attorneys and policymakers can both argue for a more sane and balanced approach to immigration enforcement, one that measures the relative nature of an immigration offense against the severity of the current removal system, while securing judicial review of individual removal orders for consistency with constitutional proportionality requirements. Listen to Michael Wishnie discuss this paper: Read More
Latinos in North Carolina: A Growing Part of the State’s Economic and Social Landscape
North Carolina has become a hub of Latino migration to the South. While many think this migration came suddenly, North Carolina has, in fact, been welcoming and integrating Mexican and other Latino migrants for generations. Over the last three decades, the Latino population in North Carolina grew from less than a half percent of the total population to 8.4 percent—more than 800,000 people. North Carolina, which now has more agricultural guest workers than any other state in the nation, has contributed to a quickly growing national population of 50 million Latinos, now the largest minority group in the country. But much is at stake for Latinos, native and newly arrived, as the state and region experience demographic transformation. The polarized nature of the current immigration debate has made the steady growth of Latinos in North Carolina more noticeable and more politically charged. The role of Latinos in North Carolina, however—as workers and residents—is an important and over-looked story of how North Carolina continues to grow and evolve in a changing economy and world. Read More
Immigrant Workers in the U.S. Labor Force
The Brookings Institution and New American Economy published “Immigrant Workers in the U.S. Labor Force,” a study analyzing the differences in both the occupations and education levels of immigrant and native-born workers in the American economy and found that even when working the same sectors, immigrants and native-born gravitate… Read More
Immigrant Workers in the U.S. Labor Force
The Brookings Institution and New American Economy published “Immigrant Workers in the U.S. Labor Force,” a study analyzing the differences in both the occupations and education levels of immigrant and native-born workers in the American economy and found that even when working the same sectors, immigrants and native-born gravitate… Read More
The Politics of Skill: Rethinking the Value of “Low-Skilled” Immigrant Workers
The political discourse surrounding the incorporation of immigrants into the U.S. labor market tends to sort immigrant workers into two broad and mutually exclusive categories: high-skilled workers who are valued by many for their contribution to economic growth, and low-skilled workers who are viewed by some as causing a glut in the U.S. labor market and thereby displacing low and middle-income native-born workers. For the most part, these categories are structured around formal education. Workers possessing a level of formal education equal or superior to the median in the United States are on one side of this divide, while workers with less formal education than that threshold are on the other. Most current proposals favor expanding immigration opportunities for those immigrants with high levels of formal education. Read More
Pew Analysis Highlights Immigrant Integration and Economic Contributions
Immigrants integrate into U.S. society over time and they contribute to the U.S. economy. These crucial yet often-overlooked facts are illustrated well by the Pew Hispanic Center’s latest statistical profile of the foreign-born population. According to Pew’s analysis of Census data, most immigrants have been here for more than a decade, and the longer they have been here, the more likely they are to have become homeowners and learned English. Moreover, growing numbers of immigrants are becoming U.S. citizens, which translates into growing political clout. The Pew data also show the degree to which immigrants fuel labor-force growth and fill valuable roles in the economy as workers in both high-skilled and less-skilled occupations. In short, immigrants are integral to the nation’s social and economic fabric. Read More
Always in Demand: The Economic Contributions of Immigrant Scientists and Engineers
With the U.S. economy in the midst of a prolonged slump, it’s hard to believe that any industry would actually benefit from having more workers. But that is precisely the case when it comes to those industries which depend upon highly skilled scientists and engineers. The United States has long faced a dilemma in this respect: the U.S. economy is capable of absorbing more high-tech professionals than the U.S. educational system produces. That is one reason so many U.S. scientists and engineers are immigrants. In “STEM” occupations (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), the foreign-born account for 26.1 percent of workers with PhDs and 17.7 percent of those with master’s degrees. Even more U.S. scientists and engineers would be immigrants if not for the arbitrary limits imposed by the U.S. immigration system, particularly the inadequate supply of green cards and H-1B visas. Given that STEM professionals tend to create jobs through their innovative work, such limits are economically self-defeating. Immigrant scientists and engineers create new jobs. Read More
Government Agencies and E-Verify: Erroneous Results and Misuse Cost Workers Their Jobs
Making E-Verify mandatory—even for government agencies and contractors—could threaten the jobs of U.S. citizens because there are errors in the system and because employers misuse it. E-Verify is inaccurate. According to an evaluation by Westat commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security, approximately 0.8 percent of work-authorized U.S. citizens and legal immigrants received an erroneous “tentative nonconfirmation” from E-Verify. Approximately 0.3 percent of those workers were able to successfully contest their findings and keep their jobs. The remaining 0.5 percent were not able to correct their records and received an erroneous “final nonconfirmation.” Read More
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