New Immigration Articles from SSRN

Here are some new immigrtaion articles from the Social Science Research Network (www.ssrn.com):

“Guest Worker Programs are No Fix for Our Broken Immigration System: Evidence from the Northern Mariana Islands” New Mexico Law Review, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2011 Albany Law School Research Paper No. 37 DOROTHY HILL, Albany Law School.  ABSTRACT:  The creation of a large-scale unskilled guest worker program has been a prominent element of comprehensive immigration reform proposals in recent years. This year it was featured as one of the “four pillars” of a reform framework endorsed by the Obama Administration. The principal ills that are cited as justifying immigration reform include the deterioration of border security, the violence associated with human smuggling, and the widespread mistreatment of unauthorized immigrants. Many believe that a large-scale guest worker program will help to resolve these problems by providing a lawful channel to divert the flow of unauthorized workers. This article argues that such faith defies the evidence. Namely, a guest worker program will not quell the flow of unauthorized workers or secure the border, and will inevitably be accompanied by exploitation and abuse of guest workers, among other problems, even if it includes greater worker protections than existing programs. This article reaches these conclusions by examining past and present federal unskilled guest worker programs, as well as the guest worker program run by the Northern Mariana Islands, a Commonwealth of the United States. The Northern Marianas’ guest worker program had in place many of the worker safeguards proposed by recent reform bills, and yet it, like all federal programs to date, contributed to widespread worker exploitation, depressed wages, predatory employment practices, a tremendous backlog of labor cases, and a high incidence of human trafficking. The Northern Marianas example illustrates that even a “worker friendly” guest worker program will not solve the ills associated with unauthorized immigration, but, rather, will serve to perpetuate them with the aid of state apparatus.

“Impact of Migration on Economic and Social Development: A Review of Evidence and Emerging Issues” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5558 DILIP RATHA, World Bank Email: dratha@worldbank.org SANKET MOHAPATRA, World Bank. ELINA SCHEJA, affiliation not provided to SSRN.  ABSTRACT: This paper provides a review of the literature on the development impact of migration and remittances on origin countries and on destination countries in the South. International migration is an ever-growing phenomenon that has important development implications for both sending and receiving countries. For a sending country, migration and the resulting remittances lead to increased incomes and poverty reduction, and improved health and educational outcomes, and promote economic development. Yet these gains might come at substantial social costs to the migrants and their families. Since many developing countries are also large recipients of international migrants, they face challenges of integration of immigrants, job competition between migrant and native workers, and fiscal costs associated with provision of social services to the migrants. This paper also summarizes incipient discussions on the impacts of migration on climate change, democratic values, demographics, national identity, and security. In conclusion, the paper highlights a few policy recommendations calling for better integration of migration in development policies in the South and the North, improving data collection on migration and remittance flows, leveraging remittances for improving access to finance of recipient households and countries, improving recruitment mechanisms, and facilitating international labor mobility through safe and legal channels.

“Executive Deference in U.S. Refugee Law: Internationalist Paths Through and Beyond Chevron” Duke Law Journal, Vol. 60, No. 5, 2011 BASSINA FARBENBLUM, University of New South Wales (UNSW).  ABSTRACT: When Congress amended U.S. immigration law via the Refugee Act of 1980, it did so with the explicit purpose of bringing U.S. asylum law into conformity with the nation’s international refugee treaty obligations. Nevertheless, U.S. courts interpreting domestic asylum provisions routinely discount international legal norms, laboring under the mistaken perception that the Chevron doctrine requires deference to the executive agency’s interpretation of asylum law regardless of its compatibility with international law. As a result, domestic asylum law has become jurisprudentially unmoored from international refugee law to the serious detriment of asylum seekers. This Article argues that neither Chevron nor the policies underlying it compel the lockstep deference that courts afford the Board of Immigration Appeals’ interpretation of U.S. asylum law. The Article charts two alternate paths by which courts may reject agency statutory interpretations that are inconsistent with international refugee law: a route through Chevron that navigates within existing Supreme Court jurisprudence, and a route beyond Chevron based on the limited applicability of this administrative law doctrine to the asylum-adjudication context. Addressing further impediments to the reconciliation of domestic and international law, the Article demonstrates that courts are indeed capable of applying a coherent interpretive methodology to determine the content of refugee treaty obligations, particularly if engaged by government lawyers committed to reestablishing the international legality of U.S. practice. In seeking to remove a fundamental administrative law obstacle to the implementation of international refugee law, the Article lends impetus to broader scholarly efforts to align U.S. law with this nation’s international human rights obligations. It also provides a framework that enables courts, immigration attorneys, and government policymakers to situate U.S. asylum law in the more rights-protective context that Congress intended.

KJ