Interesting SSRN Immigration Articles

The Social Science Research Network (www.ssrn.com) released some interesting immigration articles:

Rethinking Drug Inadmissibility NANCY MORAWETZ (NYU)  William & Mary Law Review, Vol. 50, 2008

Abstract: Changes in federal statutory policy, state criminal justice laws, and federal enforcement initiatives have led to an inflexible and zero-tolerance immigration policy with respect to admission of immigrants who have engaged in minor drug use. This essay traces the evolution of the statutory scheme and how various provisions in state and federal law interact to create the current policy. It proceeds to investigate the broad reach of these rules if they are fully enforced, in light of the widespread lifetime experience with minor drug use both in the United States and abroad. Drawing on the experience of law enforcement agencies that have abandoned similarly rigid rules, the essay proposes changes to the immigration law that would better reflect societal standards with respect to the appropriate lifetime consequences of past drug use. Finally, the essay argues that more systemic reform depends on developing mechanisms that will better insulate the specific criteria for denying admission from the one-way political ratchet of episodic congressional oversight.

The Private Enforcement of Immigration Laws Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 96, No. 3, 2008 HUYEN PHAM (Texas Wesleyan)

Abstract:  In the immigration policy debate, the question of who enforces our immigration laws can be as significant as what those policies are. And on that question, a significant and startling trend in immigration law has emerged: the shifting of enforcement responsibilities once held exclusively by government officers to private parties such as employers, landlords, and public carriers. These laws obligate private parties to ensure that they provide their goods and services only to those with legal immigration status; private parties who fail to do so face civil and criminal penalties. This article maps the expansion of private enforcement laws and weighs their costs and benefits. On the benefit side, private enforcement has strong intuitive appeal. According to advocates, the laws reduce illegal immigration by eliminating the pull factors that draw immigrants here; moreover, this additional enforcement is provided at little cost to our national and local governments. These touted benefits have motivated Congress and local legislatures across the country to consider expanding the obligations of private immigration enforcement to educators, medical care providers, and even charities. But the reality is that private enforcement laws do not make effective immigration policy. Drawing on the nation’s 21 year experience with federal employer sanctions, I observe that private enforcement laws have not reduced illegal immigration. Rather, these laws have been plagued by enforcement problems that undermine their effectiveness: enforcer confusion about their legal obligations, fraudulent documents that threaten the verification process, and political ambivalence about enforcement. Moreover, the laws have resulted in substantial discrimination against those who look or sound foreign. The laws have succeeded in conveying a symbolic message of tough immigration policies, but in the final analysis, the real costs of private immigration enforcement outweigh this symbolic benefit and counsel against their use.

Gang-Related Asylum Claims: An Overview and Prescription MATTHEW J. LISTER University of Memphis Law Review, Vol. 38, No. 4, Forthcoming

Abstract: Over the last several years asylum cases relating to activities of criminal gangs have greatly increased in frequency. Cases involving Central American gangs, the so-called maras, have attracted the most attention but similar cases have arisen out of South Eastern and Eastern Europe as well. Applicants in such cases face a number of difficulties as their cases do not fit into paradigm categories for asylum claims. These cases almost always involve non-state actors, for example, acting for reasons that are not, at least at first glance, clearly political. Additionally, the reasons why gangs target particular individuals often do not obviously fit into one of the traditional protected grounds. If applicants fleeing gang activity are to successfully apply for asylum they will have to overcome these apparent difficulties. In this paper, a contribution to the University of Memphis Law Review Spring Symposium on immigration reform, I break down gang-related asylum claims into three main categories and show how at least some cases in each category fit within the area set out for protection by asylum and refugee law. I briefly discuss a conceptual framework which explains how some gang-related cases should be seen as falling in the area that asylum law seeks to protect (thereby providing a concrete example of the sort of protection that I claim in my dissertation refugee law is meant to provide) and give advice to practitioners about how to formulate meritorious claims.

KJ