Advance Legal Topics: Immigration Law

This course provides an overview of U.S. immigration law and practice.  We will survey the legal, historical, and political considerations that shape U.S. immigration law.  The course addresses constitutional law, statutory interpretation, administrative law, policy and theory, covering a wide variety of information on this topic. It is also a practical course to assist the student in understanding both the substantive and procedural aspects of this dynamic area of law. The course will involve analysis of immigration events that frequently appear in the news.

This course will first examine the foundations of immigration law, especially Congress’ plenary power over noncitizens.  We will then cover the regulation of lawful admission, exclusion, and deportation, and will address relief from removal. 

 We will spend time discussing the ways in which the immigration and criminal systems interact, including the immigration consequences of crime, as well as state and federal efforts to criminalize immigration-related activity.  We will address asylum and refugee law, and the international obligation to provide refuge to persecuted people.  We will also discuss the concept and procedures governing access to citizenship, how immigration detention works, and tensions involving the balance of power between the federal government and the states. We will engage in close examinations of statutory and regulatory authorities (especially the Immigration and Nationality Act) as well as caselaw and administrative documents. 

Throughout the course, we will consider the major theoretical questions underlying immigration law: What defines membership in a political community?  How should the rights of citizens and noncitizens differ? What are the different ways of defining citizenship?  Are there any moral constraints on a state’s interest in controlling its borders?  How does immigration law intersect with the United States’ global role?  How does immigration law interact with the United States’ troubled history around racial subordination and its aspirations of democratic equality?