Immigration Law and Policy Essay ⋆ Criminal Justice Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Immigration law in the United States has grown more complex over the years. Anti-immigration legislation and sentiment is not new in the United States. Within the last century, however, and particularly since 2001, legislation aimed at preventing or penalizing immigration has increased at both federal and various local levels, with ordinances criminalizing acts by both native citizens and undocumented immigrants in an effort to control both legal and illegal immigration. An idealized sense of control has been realized in some ways; however, criminalizing immigration has led to unexpected socioeconomic problems.

The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), the Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907), and the National Origins Act (1924) are all examples of the U.S. government attempting to control immigration while targeting particular “undesirables.” The establishment of the Border Patrol, also in 1924, marked the beginning of the U.S. government attempting to control immigration and its borders through an agency designed specifically for that purpose. The major immigration policy that still heavily influences immigration is the 1965 Immigration Act, which created a family preference for potential migrants.

As the Border Patrol has grown to be the largest law enforcement agency in the United States, immigration law has grown harsher toward immigrants, particularly since the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) that gave legal status to more than 2 million Mexican migrants. While IRCA did grant amnesty (legal residency), it also established sanctions for employers hiring undocumented workers and provided for increased border enforcement. Ironically, the increased border enforcement and the amnesty marked the beginning of the end of the circular migration pattern that had existed for nearly 100 years, in which Mexican migrants would journey back and forth between Mexico and the United States. Mexicans began settling in the United States legally and otherwise in larger numbers than ever before. The provisions of IRCA, in many cases, required undocumented migrants to stop circulating back and forth until their status was clear.

Since IRCA there have been two other major immigration laws passed, in 1990 and in 1996, that have increased border controls, revised grounds for exclusion and deportations, and further limited and restricted immigrants accessing social services. These two new legislative acts continued the trend of incrementally challenging the immigrant. After September 11, 2001, the chance for comprehensive immigration reform disappeared for the immediate future; many states and local counties and cities attempted to fill the void by passing legislation aimed at restricting, criminalizing, excluding, and further marginalizing the undocumented immigrant.

In the early 21st century, strong anti-immigrant backers pushed stringent legislation at the federal level but were more successful at the state and local level. As immigrants continued to settle in new areas throughout the United States, including the South, a new wave of anti-immigrant legislation began at the state level. Further, the immigrant population in new destinations, and throughout the United States, grew due to natural increase, which also served to raise the anxiety of anti-immigrant advocates, particularly in areas where the white population was naturally decreasing.

Growing frustration at the state and local level led to anti-immigrant legislation in states such as Georgia, Alabama, and Arizona; these states were described as taking federal law into their own hands. States implemented laws to prohibit social services to undocumented immigrants, along with nativistic “English only” laws, tougher employer sanctions, rental restrictions, and continued emphasis on finding ways to further marginalize the undocumented population. For example, Arizona prohibits undocumented children from being able to receive state financial aid and in-state tuition for college. These and other types of local ordinances are being used as part of what some anti-immigrant backers call attrition through enforcement. It is essentially a lockdown at the local level, although there is some of this working at the federal level as well.

While state and local laws aimed at deterring undocumented immigration by denying undocumented immigrants social benefits are not new, these types of laws and local ordinances increasingly appeared in various states across the country throughout the first decade of the 21st century. One of the first was Proposition 187. California’s Save our State initiative was passed by voters in 1994, although it was never implemented. The goal of Prop. 187 was to have social service agencies work with the federal government to identify undocumented immigrants and to deny them social benefits and public services.

Since 2001, towns and counties have passed or attempted to pass ordinances to criminalize dealings with undocumented immigrants. Businesses who hire undocumented workers may have their licenses withdrawn or lose county or city funding, landlords who rent to undocumented tenants may be sanctioned, and renters may be required to have a residential occupancy license. Other legislation includes ordinances to discourage day laborers, authorization of police authority to seize vehicles used by employers hiring day laborers, and the requirement that all civic business be conducted in English. Lawsuits filed by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) have led to courts striking down some ordinances and local governments repealing other ordinances themselves. Ironically, while cracking down on immigrants, jurisdictions often lose economic activity, leaving their economy in worse shape than before the ordinance passed.

State governments have also attempted to deal with immigration through state legislation. With Congress’s failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level, the battleground moved into the states. In 2007 alone, it is estimated that state legislators introduced more than 1,500 pieces of legislation related to immigrants and immigration. The most notorious attempt has been Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona. SB 1070, one of the strongest anti-immigrant laws, was signed into law in 2010 by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. In her study of immigration policy, Judy London noted that SB 1070 “makes it a misdemeanor for noncitizens to be in Arizona without carrying proof of immigration status and it requires Arizona local police to enforce federal immigration laws. Specifically, the act obligates police, during a lawful stop, to determine a person’s immigration status if there is a reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien.” Other states have attempted to pass similar legislation, with most following Arizona’s blueprint.

States have tried to implement their own sanctions, requiring employers who hire undocumented workers to register and pay fees, attempting to deny worker’s compensation to certain immigrant workers, as well as requiring state agencies to collect information about those they serve, in particular immigrant status. Alabama one-upped Arizona by passing its own law that was partially upheld by the federal District Court in Birmingham on September 28, 2011. The court’s ruling upheld provisions in the state law that allows authorities to ask about immigration status of people arrested or simply detained upon reasonable suspicion that they may be in the United States illegally, while also criminalizing an illegal resident’s failure to carry alien-registration papers. The law also nullifies contracts entered into by undocumented immigrants, forbids transactions between undocumented immigrants and divisions of the state, and requires that all elementary and secondary schools collect information regarding the immigration status of its students. It did not take long for immigrant students to stop attending school. A major concern with this and the Arizona law is the fear that racial profiling will disproportionately affect minorities, particularly Latino immigrants.

As of 2013, attempts to reform immigration law at the federal level had not been successful. In particular, the DREAM Act—legislation to allow immigrants who were brought into the United States as children by their undocumented parents to stay and apply for work and education—languished in Congress for many years. Notably, immigrant children who are abused, neglected or even abandoned by their immigrant parents become wards of the court if they meet Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a unique protection indicated by the Immigration Reform Act of 1990. This status at times can be highly arbitrary and based on key events and timing, such as a minor being brought illegally into the United States in order to seek shelter with a documented immigrant. Uniformity is the key to help avoid or solve issues and complexities that hinder or deny minors this critical status; such uniformity could be created by better education of those involved in such cases, standardized screening processes, and statutory reform.

Indeed, immigration law and policy in the United States seems destined for constant supervision, revision, and change, as indicated by President Barack Obama’s use of executive power in ameliorating or attempting to solve immigration issues. In 2013, there were an estimated 800,000 to 1.76 million individuals illegally present in the United States, which includes youth under the age of 15, at whom the DREAM Act was directed. Congress declined to pass the act four times (2006, 2009, 2010, and 2011), thus spurring the Obama administration to claim “prosecutorial discretion” in immigration matters, which calls into question if such authority for the executive branch has been granted by the Constitution.

Moreover, the executive branch lacks the power to not enforce laws; therefore, conclude law professors Robert J. Delahanty and John C. Yoo, the administration has “provided no adequate excuse or justification for its nonenforcement decision. Rather, it has laid claim to a power to make significant domestic policy on its own, even when that policy amends existing acts of Congress.” Such issues considerably diverge from the real and immediate needs of immigration policy and enforcement, yet nonetheless indicate the complexities of creating, passing, and enforcing immigration policy.

Immigration policy, particularly for undocumented immigrant youth, is impacted by grassroots movements led by such youth, many of whom came to an understanding of their illegal status as they attempted to enter college. Such movements, in which undocumented immigrant youth come out of hiding parallel “queer activism” which has sought for greater visibility and political presence of LGBTQ youth; both groups lobby and rally for greater visibility; the undocumented further encourage extension of deportations and deferred action. Such actions, whether originating in the executive branch of the government or among the ranks of the affected. fight or modify, according to L. Corrunker, “global persecution, criminalization, and prosecution of immigrants,” and increasingly “enforcement-oriented immigration policies to reinforce national ideologies and state power.”

Bibliography:

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