New SSRN Immigration Articles

Here are the latest immigration articles from the Social Science Research Network (www.ssrn.com): 

“Citizenship, Civic Virtue and Immigrant Integration: The Enduring Power of Community-Based Norms” Yale Law & Policy Review, Vol. 27, pp. 335-397, Spring 2009 LAUREN GILBERT, St. Thomas University School of Law.  [BLOGGER’s NOTE:  Professor Gilbert’s work ALWAYS is worth reading.].  ABSTRACT:  This article, the result of two summers of ethnographic research in Lewiston and Auburn, Maine, attempts both to evaluate the merits and explore the consequences of different approaches to immigrant integration. It examines the impact that national citizenship norms and state and local integration policies have had on the Somalis’ experience in Lewiston while also exploring internal obstacles to the Somalis’ incorporation. Part II briefly reviews competing theoretical perspectives on citizenship, membership, and belonging. This Part explores the historic tension between a more liberal or pluralist view of citizenship, where loyalty to the ‘American Creed’ is viewed as compatible with religious and cultural differences, and a more nationalist, Anglo-centric, ‘core culture’ model, rooted in Christianity and the English common law that tends to characterize immigrants who do not share our national and cultural values as a potentially destabilizing force. Under yet a third model, multicultural accommodation, which has gained acceptance in Canada and is increasingly gaining adherents in the United States, ethnic groups living in cultural enclaves enjoy a certain degree of autonomy over their community’s internal affairs. Throughout this Article, I explore whether multicultural accommodation can co-exist with liberal and core culture approaches to immigrant integration. Part III examines how these different theories of membership and belonging are reflected in the naturalization case law on good moral character. Through most of the twentieth century, and notwithstanding the U.S. Constitution’s grant of power to Congress to establish a uniform rule for naturalization, the U.S. Immigration Service and many district court judges applied a community-based standard in assessing whether applicants met the good moral character requirement for U.S. citizenship. Much of the case law involved naturalization applicants accused of violating state mores legislation, including laws against adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bigamy, abandonment, and incest. In 1981, however, a Fourth Circuit decision led to an important shift in the law.. The court found that reliance on state sodomy laws as a basis for denying naturalization would defeat the Constitution’s uniformity requirement and adopted a federal standard for evaluating good moral character based on whether the conduct in question was ‘harmful to the public.’ In 1990, Congress transferred authority to decide naturalization petitions from the federal district courts to the INS. Yet, prior to this, a rich body of case law emerged that explicitly draws on ecclesiastic, common law, and philosophical sources, as well as the community’s moral values of the time. These earlier cases are more than just a reflection of a bygone era; they implicate the broader debate over whether state mores regulation is still appropriate and raise the question whether an applicant’s eligibility for naturalization should turn on the values of the particular community where he or she resides. Through a close study of the Somalis’ experience in Lewiston, Part IV of this Article explores the impact of external and intragroup barriers on the process of incorporating an immigrant or refugee group into the social fabric of a community. It first investigates the factors that led a large segment of the Somali refugee community that the U.S. government had resettled in major urban cities across America to choose to relocate to Lewiston, Maine. It then examines the initial reception of the Somali refugees by the people of Lewiston and the circumstances that led to a series of crises within the town. This section then analyzes continuing barriers to the Somalis’ incorporation. It first addresses external barriers at the federal, state, and local levels before addressing intragroup barriers, including isolationist tendencies within the Somali community, ongoing rivalries among the major clans and subclans, subordination of women, and discrimination against minority and low-caste clans. The Article concludes in Part V by examining the barriers to citizenship and immigrant integration that are created by the interplay among national citizenship norms, state, and local integration policies, and the norms and dynamics internal to immigrant communities themselves.

“The Consequences of Immigration Reform for the US Courts of Appeals” CHAD WESTERLAND, University of Arizona – Department of Political Science.  [BLOGGER’S NOTE:  This is a very important, yet under-theorized, issue.]  ABSTRACT:   In this paper, I examine the consequences of the changes in the administrative procedures for appeals in immigration cases for circuit court judges. I discuss these changes and offer a model of decision making in immigration appeals.

“Issues of Filing a Form I-751 for an LPR Separated But Not Divorced: A Policy with Little Sense and a Big Burden” Bender’s Immigration Bulletin, Vol. 14, p. 982, 2009 JEAN PIERRE ESPINOZA, Stetson University – College of Law, PAUL PALACIOS, CRYSTAL ROZNAK, SARAH SHABO.  [BLOGGER’S NOTE:  ANOTHER VERY IMPORTANT TOPIC.] ABSTRACT: Current immigration law establishes that conditional residents divorced could remove the conditions on their LPR status but people not divorced but separated could not. What is the public policy behind banning people separated but not divorced from applying for a waiver for bona fide marriage, when divorced people could do so? How is such a public policy justified, considering that the law requires only evidence that the marriage was entered in good faith, and the immigrants, whether separated or divorced, could prove that the marriage was bona fide? This article analyzes the USCIS’s treatment of the I-751 application for removal of conditions for people who are neither happily married nor divorced. Part II provides a background of basic concepts such as conditional residency, its antecedents, how and why it was created, the law regulating conditional residency, how to remove the conditions, and the waivers available. Part III focuses on the waiver for bona fide marriage, its requirements, and the situation of people unable to apply for it because they are neither joint petitioning, nor applying for the bona-fide-marriage waiver. Part IV analyzes a hypothetical case. Finally, Part V analyzes the public policy behind forbidding separated, non-divorced people from using the waiver for removing the conditions on their LPR status.

“International Cooperation in Homeland Security” U of Utah Legal Studies Paper No. 057-08-09 AMOS N. GUIORA, University of Utah – S.J. Quinney College of Law.  [BLOGGER’S NOTE:  I agree with the second point, the need for international cooperation on immigration and security.] ABSTRACT:   Terrorism against the United States, post-9/11, reaches far beyond the U.S. borders. In order to effectively prevent and react to terrorism within the homeland, the U.S. must think of security internationally. International security efforts touch on key issues such as travel security, border control, immigration, intelligence, and financing terrorism. This article examines the U.S. effort at international cooperation in homeland security by examining security and threat assessment in order to analyze current developments and necessary progress moving forward. Further, this article explores comparative efforts at international cooperation in homeland security by examining Canada, Japan, and the E.U. in terms of security and threat assessment. Finally, this article offers recommendations and articulates criteria by which the U.S. can improve vital efforts at international cooperation in homeland security. To ensure effective counterterrorism, the U.S. must follow a two step process. First, the U.S. must take measures to protect the homeland. Those measure include: promoting travel security by implementing sophisticated technology; promoting border security by securing the Northern border; implementing intelligence sharing between agencies; creating a coordinated plan to promote travel and border security; undergoing training and simulation, and finally; ensuring institutionalized continuity from one Administration to the next. After taking action to protect the homeland, the U.S. must use these factors as a foundation on which to establish international cooperation. To establish effective international cooperation in homeland security, the U.S. must take measures including the following: forging international partnerships; sharing intelligence related to travel security; creating a coordinated international security plan; running international training and simulation exercises, and finally; implementing international institutionalized continuity.

KJ