State measures aimed at undocumented noncitizens.

At the Immigration Law Professors conference this past weekend, one panel was devoted to discussing issues of federalism in the context of immigration law. Today’s New York Times has a story that provides information on one of the issues that was raised: namely, efforts by individual states to restrict the access of undocumented noncitizens to various state-issues benefits. Julia Preston’s article points out that while 461 bills have been introduced in state legislatures this year to restrict undocumented noncitizens’ access to public benefitsand drivers licenses, only 19 of these measures have actually been enacted and only 12 imposed “any restrictions that were significant.” A link to the story is here.

-jmc