New Immigration Articles from SSRN

Here are some new immigration articles posted on the Social Science Research Network (www.ssrn.com):

"Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions to Noncitizens" Maryland Bar Journal, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 40-45, July/August 2008 U of Maryland Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2008-26 FERNANDO NUNEZ, University of Maryland - School of Law:  The criminal defense attorney's intuitive pursuit of freedom for a client is almost always the best approach in the representation of individuals charged with a crime. When representing noncitizens, however, the prudent practice is to deemphasize immediate freedom and instead to focus on the collateral consequences the conviction will have on the noncitizen's immigration status.

"The Citizenship Paradox in a Transnational Age (A Review of Hiroshi Motomura's 'Americans in Waiting')" Michigan Law Review, Vol. 106, No. 1111, 2008 NYU Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 08-19 CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ, New York University - School of Law:  In "Americans in Waiting," Hiroshi Motomura traces the multiple ways in which law and policy have framed the relationship between immigrants and the body politic. He ultimately calls on Americans to honor the very best of our traditions by treating lawful immigrants as American citizens in waiting, presumptively entitled to all the prerogatives of membership. His vision, while compelling, comes up against a difficult problem. In a globalizing world marked by large-scale migration and transnational forms of association, we do indeed still need robust conceptions of national, geographically anchored citizenship to promote social cooperation. But the political institutions, such as citizenship, that support strong frameworks of belonging have shown themselves unable to fully absorb the influx of migrants with plural loyalties. The public opinion on which these frameworks depend often resists the inclusion of too many new members. In both the United States and Europe, we see evidence of an admissions-status tradeoff, or the dynamic whereby the acceptance of large numbers of immigrants is accompanied by parsimonious treatment of those immigrants, including through the withholding of legal status. The global phenomena of large-scale migration and transnational loyalties fragment national political communities, making it more difficult for the very institutions that traditionally have promote social cohesion to respond effectively to that fragmentation, rendering realization of ideals like Motomura's elusive. After developing this argument, I conclude by offering some thoughts on how to broach these tensions in a way that is true to Motomura's vision of immigrants as Americans in waiting, primarily by calling for a reinvigoration of local forms of territorial belonging.  [I HAVE READ BOTH THIS REVIEW AND PROFESSOR MOTOMURA'S BOOK AND RECOMMEND BOTH. -- KJ].

"Challenging Managed Temporary Labor Migration as a Model for Rights and Development for Labor-Sending Countries" New York University Journal of International Law and Politics (JILP), Vol. 40, No. 2, 2008 XINYING CHI, New York University - School of Law:  As global labor mobility increases, international organizations and States have intensified efforts to find ways to manage migration in the best interests of States and migrants. In recent years, a consensus has emerged among international organizations involved in labor migration that properly managed temporary labor migration is an effective way of balancing the interests of sending countries, receiving countries, and migrants themselves. In this Note, I contend that this emerging paradigm is unlikely to achieve both its touted goals: promoting long term economic development for sending countries and protecting migrant workers' rights. Not only do many sending countries lack the institutional capacity to properly design and implement migration and development policies, but also the very assumptions underlying the paradigm are flawed. I conclude that international organizations and migration experts should be cautious about promoting temporary labor migration to sending countries.

KJ