Immigration and Crime Article

Robert A. Mikos, “Enforcing State Law in Congress’s Shadow,” 90 Cornell L. Rev. 1411 (2005) analyzes, from a law and economics perspective, how federal sanctions based on violations of state law may cause defendants to contest state charges more vigorously, thus producing unintended consequences. First, the sanctions make it more costly to enforce state laws. Second, states may attempt to evade the harsh consequences under federal laws through a variety of means. Of particular interest to readers of this blog, Professor Mikos uses the federal immigration law’s reliance on state criminal convictions as a basis for removal as one of his two case studies.   To download a copy of the article, see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=605422