ImmigrationProf Blog

Visiting Research Fellowships UC San Diego

The Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California at San Diego will offer a limited number of Visiting Research Fellowships at both the predoctoral and postdoctoral level for the 2006-07 academic year. These awards are to support advanced research and writing on any aspect of international migration and refugee flows, in any of the social sciences, history, law, and comparative literature. Due to funding constraints, CCIS will be able to award fellowships for the 2006-07 academic year only to scholars who have a current or former affiliation to a University of California campus (as a student, faculty member, or researcher). Non-stipend Guest Scholars are not required to have a UC affiliation. CCIS fellowships must be held in residence at UCSD (commuting arrangements from outside of San Diego are not permitted).

Immigration Detention Conference

For information about a November 11-12 immigration detention conference in Washington D.C. organized by Detention Watch Network, check out http://www.lirs.org/What/partners/DWNConfRegPacket2005.pdf

Judicial Review Conference Materials

New York Law School's Justice Action Center and the New York Law Review hosted a one day conference exploring judicial review of immigration cases. The conference was attended by over 130 attorneys, academics, students and judges. Materials from the conference, including he remarks of the Honorable John Walker, Jr., Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, can be found at http://www.nyls.edu/seekingreview  Thanks to Lenni B. Benson, Professor and Co-Director Justice Action Center, New York Law School, for organizing the event and making the materials available on the internet.  KJ

Haitian Interdiction Revisited

In an essay entitled "Thirteen Years at Guantánamo," Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh reviews a book (Brandt Goldstein, Storming the Court: How a Band of Yale Law Students Sued the President - and Won) on the Yale law students' efforts to halt Haitian interdiction and repatriation in the 1990s.  Dean Koh thinks back on the case and traces the impact of the Supreme Court's decision in Sale v. Haitian Ctrs. Council Inc. on the detention of "enemy combatants" on Guantánamo today. The essay can be found at http://www.alternet.org/story/26132/ KJ

New Refugee and Asylum Post in DHS

Due to the excellent advocacy of the Asylum Program (and Director Eleanor Arce) of Human Rights First, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff announced the decision to create a senior position for a refugee and asylum coordinator within DHS.   KJ

Mexico-Canada Guestworker program

Today, Canada's prime minister Paul Martin meets with Mexico's leader Vicente Fox. On their agenda: a Canadian guestworker program for Mexicans. Rachel Dornhelm reports.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2005/09/30/AM200509308.html

Law & Society Association Annual Meeting -- Call for Participation

The Call for Participation for the 2006 Law & Society Association Annual Meeting in July 6-9, in Baltimore, Maryland is now available at the Law & Society Association Website: www.lawandsociety.org   This conference, which attracts scholars from many different disciplines from around the world, is a great venue for presenting immigration law and policy research.

KJ

Aggravated Felony Legislation

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) have introduced a bill known as “The Passport and Travel Document Fraud Prevention Act” (S. 524). This bill would expand the definition of “aggravated felony” in immigration law to include a wide range of passport and document related offenses. The harsh consequences of an “aggravated felony” conviction include mandatory detention, permanent deportation, and ineligibility for any type of relief. Earlier this year, Senator Feinstein was unsuccessful when she attempted to offer similar language as an amendment during congressional debates around intelligence reform, DHS Appropriations, and Patriot Act Reauthorization. We predict that S. 524 will come up again on the next piece of “must-pass” legislation or be “marked-up” in the Senate Judiciary Committee.  We are not sure about the timing for this bill, but would like to have a sign on letter “on hand” to circulate to congressional staff when the bill moves.  We will alert you once we learn more about the timing for the Feinstein-Sessions bill, so that timely contacts can be made to congressional targets.  

For an analysis of the legislation see:

http://www.immigrationforum.org/documents/PolicyWire/Legislation/FeinsteinAnalysis.pdf

On the Adequacy of Direct Review after the Real ID Act of 2005

Many thanks to Gerald Neuman for sharing his extremely helpful article on the jurisdictional issues raised by the "REAL ID Act."  The text of the article is attached here: Download Neuman.pdf.

-jc

Iowa Looking for an Immigration Law Professor

Add Iowa to the law schools looking to hire a professor with immigration law expertise. Candidates interested in an academic career in law should send resumes, references, and descriptions of areas of interest to: Faculty Appointments Committee, College of Law, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1113.

Undocumented Immigrants and Hurricane Katrina

For a September 28 story of the denial of assistance and possible deportation of undocumented immigrant victime of Hurricane Katrina, see

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=69b9752a0c82041c78788e4390506983

CRS Report on "Other Than Mexican" Apprehensions

The Congressional Research Service issued a report on border security analyzing the dramatic (from 25,000 in 1997 to 119,000 in 2004-05) increase in "Other Than Mexican" apprehensions.   Interestingly, Honduras and Brazil are the now the top two "OTM" countries.  The Brazilian increase may be due in part to a popular (40,000 viewers a night) television soap opera "America," which follows a young woman's journey to the United States through Mexico.

for a link to the report, see http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/

Immigration Law Firm Hits the Big Time!

Fragomen Del Rey Bernsen & Loewy has become the first immigration law firm to be named on Am Law 200, a list of the nations' 200 highest-grossing law firms. http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1122627912134

Latest Chapter in Anti-Castro Activist Fighting Removal

For the Immigration Judge's ruling that Luis Posada-Carriles established that it was more likely than not that, because of his anti-Castro activities, he would be tortured if removed from the United States to Venezuela, see Download POSADA_DECISION3_9-26-05.pdf The IJ stated that the case "reads like a character from one of Robert Ludlum's espionage thrillers."

The Meaning of the Studies?

The Pew Hispanic Center immigration report is the latest in a series of studies that strongly suggests that the border enforcement build-up beginning in the early 1990s, along with the immigration reforms of 1996, and the tightening of the borders after September 11, 2001, have not reduced undocumented immigration to the United States, and in fact may have inadvertently contributed to an increase in the undocumented population. The REAL ID Act is unlikely to change things much. One is left to wonder what must be done in terms of meaningful reform if the real goal is to regulate and monitor immigration.

KJ

Immigration 1992-2004

A new report by the Pew Hispanic Center, "Rise, Peak and Decline: Trends in U.S. Immigration 1992 – 2004," provides the first detailed analysis of recent year-to-year immigration flows to the United States. Using newly developed statistical methods, Jeffrey S. Passel, one of the nation's most respected demographers in the field of immigration and a senior research associate at the Center, breaks down the overall increases in the foreign-born population that the United States has experienced since the early 1990s into estimates of annual flows and charts key changes in its major components, including countries of origin and legal status. With co-author and Center director Roberto Suro, Passel offers new insights into the pace and content of migration. The report is based on multiple data sources compiled by the US Census Bureau.

http://pewhispanic.org/

Some highlights from the Pew Report

Just a quick (non-exhaustive) summary of some interesting points from the report:

-As immigration sholars across disciplines have been telling us for years, immigration levels rise and fall. Notwithstanding popular discourse to the contrary, the number of migrants (authorized and unauthorized) was actually  in  decline though the early part of this decade.  Click here for a story summarizing the point.

-The rise and fall of migration flows do not correlate in any meaningful way with the adoption of more restrictive immigration laws and policies.  Indeed massive spikes in migration occurred shortly after the adoption of AEDPA and IIRIRA. Instead, migrants' decisions to come to the U.S. tend to respond to a variety of push and pull factors, most notably the health of the U.S. economy.

-There has been a shift in immigrant flows away from states with large foreign born populations like CA and NY, and toward new settlements, like North Carolina and Iowa (although the number of migrants going to TX and FL continues to grow).

-Unauthorized migrants account for about half of all migrants are entering the country.  The number of authorized migrants coming to the U.S. is below the level it reached in the mid-90s; the number of unauthorized migrants, after a dip, is back up to its mid-90s level.

-jc

Latest Pew Hispanic Center Report on Immigration

For the Pew Hispanic Report titled "Rise, Peak, and Decline: Trends in U.S. Immigration 1992-2004 by Jeffrey S. Passel and Roberto Suro (Sept. 27, 2005), see http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=53 The report is choick full of fascinating information.

AILF Report on Border Enforcement

For an excellent summary of the efficacy of U.S. border enforcement policy and recommendations for a new approach to U.S./Mexico migration, see Douglas S. Massey, "Beyond the Border Buildup: Towards a New Approach to Mexico-U.S. Migration" (American Immigration Law Foundation, Sept. 2005). http://www.ailf.org/ipc/infocus/2005_beyondborder.pdf

Among the findings of the report are that,

-- "Between 1986 and 2002 the number of Border Patrol officers tripled . . . ."

-- "The probability of apprehension along the U.S.-Mexico border fell . . . to an all-time low of 5 percent in 2002."

-- "The cost of making one arrest along the U.S.-Mexico border increased from $300 in 1992 to $1700 in 2002, an increase of 467 percent . . . ."

-- "From 1980 to 1992, the cost of hiring a coyote (smuggler) averaged around $400 per crossing, but rose to $1,200 in 1999 before leveling off."

-- "the average probability of return migration among Mexican migrants to the United States declined from around 45 percent prior to 1986 to around 25 percent in 2002."

Judge (soon-to-be Chief Justice) John Roberts on Immigration

For Judge John Roberts' written responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee on immigration questions, check out this link. Roberts responds to questions about Plyler v. Doe, rights of noncitizens under the Constitution, the plenary power doctrine, judicial review, and indefinite detention.

Download roberts_immigration_qs.pdf