US Immigration Reform Initiative
The US Immigration Reform Initiative, a series of essays and papers, seeks to look beyond recent and current US immigration debates to outline a flexible, secure, and evidence-based immigration system that would serve the nation’s interests, reflect its liberal democratic ideals, and benefit from the contributions of talented, hardworking immigrants from throughout the world.
Together, the publications in the collection make the case that:
- Immigration policymaking should be embedded in a larger set of partnerships, processes, and commitments that respond to the conditions that force persons to migrate.
- The US immigration system should reflect liberal democratic values and an inclusive vision of national identity.
- It is incumbent on policy and opinion makers to publicize the broad national interests served by US immigration policies.
- Policymakers should, in turn, evaluate and adjust US immigration policies based on their success in furthering the nation’s interests.
- The United States should prioritize the gathering and dissemination of the best available evidence on migration and on the nation’s migration-related needs and programs, and should use this information to respond flexibly to changing migration patterns and new economic developments.
- Immigrant integration strengthens communities and represents an important, overarching metric for US immigration policies.
- The successful integration of the United States’ 43 million foreign-born residents and their progeny should be a national priority.
- An immigration federalism agenda should prioritize cooperation on shared federal, state, and local priorities.
- An immigration federalism agenda should recognize the federal government’s enforcement obligations; the interests of local communities in the safety, well-being and participation of their residents; the importance of federal leadership in resolving the challenges posed by the US undocumented population; and the need for civil society institutions to serve as mediators of immigrant integration.
- Immigration reform should be coupled with strong, well-enforced labor standards in order to promote fair wages and safe and healthy working conditions for all US workers.
- Fairness and due process should characterize US admission, custody, and removal decisions.
- Family unity should remain a central goal of US immigration policy and a pillar of the US immigration system.
- The United States should seek to craft “win-win” immigration policies that serve its own interests and that benefit migrant-sending states.
- US immigration law and policy should be coherent and consistent, and the United States should create legal migration opportunities for persons uprooted by US foreign interventions, trade policies, and immigration laws.
- The United States should reduce the size of its undocumented population through a substantial legalization program and seek to ensure that this population never again approximates its current size.
The JMHS Special Collection is available in hardcopy. To order a print edition, contact [email protected].
Recommendations for the Biden Administration
T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Donald Kerwin
Improving the U.S. Immigration System in the First Year of the Biden Administration
The Biden administration will face substantial challenges in putting immigration and refugee policy back on track—not just reversing ill-advised policies of the past four years but also improving a system that was in need of reform well before the current administration took office. In this paper, T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Donald Kerwin highlight a number of reforms that should be prioritized by the Biden administration in its first year.
...Publications
Susan Martin
Rebuilding the US Refugee Resettlement Program
This paper offers an historic review of the US refugee resettlement program. It spans the colonial era, to the establishment of the first distinct US admissions policies for persons fleeing persecution in 1917, to the creation of the formal US Refugee Admissions Program in 1980, and to the Trump administrations’ denigration of and attempts to eviscerate the program. It proposes ways that a new administration can rebuild this crucially important program and put it on more secure footing. In particular, it recommends that a new administration:
- Reframe the discourse on refugee resettlement to emphasize its central importance to the nation’s identity and the way it serves the national interest.
- Rebuild the capacity of the federal government to administer the program and the badly depleted community-based resettlement infrastructure that is central to the program’s success.
- Hold emergency consultations with Congress to increase refugee admissions in Fiscal Year 2021, and consult soon after the inauguration with international, state and local, and non-governmental partners to plan FY 2022 resettlement goals, including a robust admissions ceiling and budget.
- Reform and reinvigorate federal consultations with states and localities to ensure their receptivity, capacity and support for refugees, and eliminate the current veto power of states and municipalities over resettlement in their jurisdictions.
- Explore legislative fixes to the refugee admissions process and attempt to depoliticize the process by setting a “normal flow level” that does not require an annual Presidential determination.
- Join the Global Compact on Refugees, which seeks to expand the availability of durable solutions for refugees, and encourage other nations to follow the U.S. example of resettling larger numbers of refugees.
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Daniel E. Martínez, Josiah Heyman, and Jeremy Slack
Border Enforcement Developments Since 1993 and How to Change CBP
Enforcement along the US-Mexico border has intensified significantly since the early 1990s. Social scientists have documented several consequences of border militarization, including increased border-crosser deaths, the killing of more than 110 people by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents over the past decade, and expanded ethno-racial profiling in southwestern communities by immigration authorities. Less attention has been paid to the pervasive and routine mistreatment migrants experience on a daily basis in CBP custody.
This paper traces major developments in border enforcement to three notable initiatives: the “prevention-through-deterrence” strategy, the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Consequence Delivery System, initiated in 2011. Despite the massive buildup in enforcement, CBP has operated with little transparency and accountability to the detriment of migrants. The paper provides an overview of the findings of nongovernmental organizations and social scientists regarding migrant mistreatment while in CBP custody. It then highlights important shifts in migration patterns over the past decade, as well as changes in border enforcement efforts during the Trump administration. It discusses how these transformations affect migrants’ everyday encounters with CBP officials.
The paper concludes by providing specific recommendations for improving CBP conduct. Its core theme is the need to emphasize and inculcate lessons of appropriate police behavior, civil rights, and civil liberties in training and recruiting agents and in setting responsibilities of supervisors and administrators. It offers recommendations regarding important but underrecognized issues, including ending the use of CBP agents/officers as Asylum Officers, as well as better-known issues such as militarization and the border wall.
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Donald Kerwin
Strengthening the US Immigration System through Legal Orientation, Screening and Representation: Recommendations for a New Administration
This paper highlights the importance of legal orientation, screening, and representation to the US immigration system. It proposes that a new administration facilitate legal representation in order to establish a fairer and more efficient removal adjudication system and to place more immigrants on a path to permanent residence and citizenship. As is well-documented, legal assistance can:
- Improve the ability of immigrants to identify and articulate their claims in removal proceedings and produce better-informed case outcomes.
- Increase the efficiency and contribute to the integrity of the removal adjudication system.
- Lead to better-prepared applications for immigration benefits, and thus a more just and efficient legal immigration system.
- Place more non-citizens on a path to permanent residence and naturalization by identifying their potential eligibility for immigration benefits or relief, and, in some cases, their existing US citizenship.
Legal representation and expertise can also contribute to resolving some of the substantial problems that afflict the US immigration system, such as lengthy court and asylum backlogs. In addition, it can identify and help to correct legal and factual errors by immigration adjudicators, and abuses by enforcement officers and private contractors.
The paper’s first section describes federal legal orientation and assistance programs for non-citizens in removal proceedings. The second section discusses the need for large-scale legal screening and representation of US undocumented residents, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) beneficiaries. Its third section examines the proliferation of universal representation programs—supported by states, localities, and private funders—for non-citizens in removal proceedings before an immigration judge, and in summary removal processes administered by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The paper concludes with a series of administrative measures that a new administration could take in its first year to strengthen and expand legal representation. It also outlines longer-term policy recommendations that would require legislation.
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Donald Kerwin
Moving Beyond Comprehensive Immigration Reform and Trump: Principles, Interests, and Policies to Guide Long-Term Reform of the US Immigration System
This paper introduces a special collection of 15 articles that chart a course for long-term reform of the US immigration system. The papers look beyond recent legislative debates and the current era of rising nationalism and restrictionism to outline the elements of a forward-looking immigration policy that would serve the nation’s interests, honor its liberal democratic ideals, promote the full participation of immigrants in the nation’s life, and exploit the opportunities offered by an increasingly interdependent world. ...
Edward Alden
Is Border Enforcement Effective? What We Know and What it Means
For too long, the policy debate over border enforcement has been split between those who believe the border can be sealed against illegal entry by force alone, and those who believe that any effort to do so is futile without expanding legal work opportunities. New evidence suggests that unauthorized migration across the southern border has plummeted, and border enforcement has been a significant reason for this decline. These research advances should help to inform a more rational public debate over border enforcement expenditures. In particular, Congress should take a careful look at the incremental gains that might come from additional spending on border enforcement. The evidence suggests that deterrence through enforcement, despite its successes in reducing illegal entry across the border, is producing diminishing returns due to three reasons. First, arrivals at the border are increasingly made up of asylum seekers from Central America, which is a population that is harder to deter because of the dangers they face at home, and in many cases not appropriate to deter because the United States has legal obligations to consider requests for asylum. Second, the majority of new additions to the US unauthorized population is now arriving on legal visas and then overstaying. And finally, among Mexican migrants, a growing percentage of repeat border crossers are parents with children left behind in the United States, a population that is far harder to deter. Finally, the administration could better inform this debate by releasing to scholars and the public the research it has sponsored in order to give Americans a fuller picture on border enforcement....
Lenni B. Benson
Immigration Adjudication: The Missing “Rule of Law”
US immigration removal procedures need reform, and systematic flaws in the removal adjudication system must be addressed. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses every tool in its arsenal to expeditiously remove people from the United States, including by bypassing judicial hearings. In “ministerial” or expedited forms of removal, there is no courtroom, no administrative judge, and rarely any opportunity for legal counsel to participate or for federal judicial review. In these settings, the rule of law is entirely within the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers who serve as both prosecutor and judge. This paper argues that the rule of law must be restored to the US removal adjudication system, and it proposes ways in which this can be accomplished. Specific recommendations include the necessity of clear enforcement priorities, sufficient resources to allow for fair adjudication, a statute of limitations for immigration violations, and the right to counsel. ...
Deborah A. Boehm
Separated Families: Barriers to Family Reunification After Deportation
This paper outlines the complexities — and unlikelihood — of keeping families together when facing, or in the aftermath of deportation. After discussing the context that prevents reunification among immigrant families more generally, I outline several of the particular ways that families are divided when a member is deported. Drawing on case studies from longitudinal ethnographic research in Mexico and the United States, I describe: 1) the difficulties in successfully canceling deportation orders, 2) the particular limitations to family reunification for US citizen children when a parent is deported, and 3) the legal barriers to authorized return to the United States after deportation. I argue that without comprehensive immigration reform and concrete possibilities for relief, mixed-status and transnational families will continue to be divided. Existing laws do not adequately address family life and the diverse needs of individuals as members of families, creating a humanitarian crisis both within and beyond the borders of the United States. The paper concludes with recommendations for immigration policy reform and suggestions for restructuring administrative processes that directly impact those who have been deported and their family members....
Els de Graauw and Irene Bloemraad
Working Together: Building Successful Policy and Program Partnerships for Immigrant Integration
Supporting and investing in the integration of immigrants and their children is critically important to US society. Successful integration contributes to the nation’s economic vitality, its civic and political health, and its cultural diversity. Although the United States has a good track record on immigrant integration, outcomes could be better. This paper argues that a robust national integration policy infrastructure is needed. This infrastructure must be vertically integrated to include different levels of government, and horizontally applied across public and private sector actors and different types of immigrant destinations. The resultant policy should leverage public-private partnerships, drawing on the work of community-based nonprofit organizations, and the support of philanthropy, business, education, and faith-based institutions. If the federal government will not act, then cities, states, and civil society organizations must continue to work together to build an integration infrastructure from the bottom up....
Janice Fine and Gregory Lyon
Segmentation and the Role of Labor Standards Enforcement in Immigration Reform
Despite the fact that many low-wage, violation-ridden industries are disproportionately occupied by immigrants, labor standards and immigration reform have largely been treated as separate pieces of an otherwise interrelated puzzle. Not only is this view misguided, but this paper argues that strengthening labor standards enforcement would ensure that standards are upheld for all workers, immigrant and others. In addition, labor standards enforcement is instrumental to the erosion of sub-standard conditions in certain sectors, often referred to as the “secondary” labor market, that are associated with advanced market economies. Ensuring labor standards are upheld diminishes the incentive for employers to undercut wages by exploiting vulnerable workers, many of whom are immigrants. As this paper argues, strengthening enforcement must include not only “vertical” mechanisms, including strategic enforcement and penalizing and criminalizing egregious and repeated labor violators, but also “lateral” mechanisms, such as co-enforcement by workers and through worker and community organizations. The article illustrates the role of co-enforcement in labor standards through two case studies....
Zoya Gubernskaya and Joanna Dreby
US Immigration Policy and the Case for Family Unity
This paper reviews and critically evaluates the principle of family unity, a hallmark of US immigration policy over the past 50 years and the most important mechanism for immigration to the United States. Family unity is critical for promoting immigrant integration, social and economic well-being, and intergenerational mobility. However, several US policies and practices contribute to prolonged periods of family separation by restricting travel and effectively locking in a large number of people either inside or outside of the United States. Furthermore, increasingly aggressive enforcement practices undermine family unity for a large number of undocumented and mixed-status families....
John W. Harbeson
Mainstreaming Involuntary Migration in Development Policies
This essay addresses the issue of how best to insert migration concerns into development planning, as a part of a process of thinking more broadly about US migration policies and interests....
Donald Kerwin and Robert Warren
National Interests and Common Ground in the US Immigration Debate: How to Legalize the US Immigration System and Permanently Reduce its Undocumented Population
This paper identifies potential common ground in the US immigration debate, including the national interests that underlie US immigration and refugee policies, and broad public support for a legal and orderly immigration system that serves compelling national interests. It focuses on the cornerstone of immigration reform, the legal immigration system, and addresses the widespread belief that broad reform will incentivize illegal migration and ultimately lead to another large undocumented population....
Philip Martin
Immigration Policy and Agriculture: Possible Directions for the Future
President Trump issued executive orders after taking office in January 2017 that could lead to the removal of many of the 11 million unauthorized foreigners, including one million who work in US agriculture. Agriculture in the western United States especially has long relied on newcomers to fill seasonal farm jobs. The slowdown in Mexico-US migration since 2008-09 means that there are fewer flexible newcomers to supplement the current workforce. Farm employers are responding with worker bonuses, productivity-increasing tools, mechanization, and guest workers. Several factors suggest that the United States may be poised to embark on another large-scale guest worker program for agriculture. If it does, farmers should begin to pay payroll taxes on the wages of guest workers. This will foster mechanization and development in the workers’ communities of origin if payroll taxes are divided equally between departing workers and commodity-specific boards to increase the competitiveness of production in the United States. The economic incentives provided by payroll taxes could help to usher in a new and better era of farm labor....
Pia M. Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny
Creating Cohesive, Coherent Immigration Policy
US immigration policy has serious limitations, particularly when viewed from an economic perspective. Some shortcomings arise from faulty initial design, others from the inability of the system to adapt to changing circumstances. In either case, a reluctance to confront politically difficult decisions is often a contributing factor to the failure to craft laws that can stand the test of time. This paper argues that, as a result, some key aspects of US immigration policy are incoherent and mutually contradictory — new policies are often inconsistent with past policies and undermine their goals. Inconsistency makes policies less effective because participants in the immigration system realize that lawmakers face powerful incentives to revise policies at a later date. It specifically analyzes US policies regarding unauthorized immigration, temporary visas, and humanitarian migrants as examples of incoherence and inconsistency. Lastly, this paper explores key features of an integrated, coherent immigration policy from an economic perspective and how policymakers could better attempt to achieve policy consistency across laws and over time....
Cristina Rodriguez
Enforcement, Integration, and the Future of Immigration Federalism
Given the density of the intergovernmental dynamics that shape the country’s immigration policy, it is imperative to develop a comprehensive strategy for immigration federalism. State and local involvement in immigration policy are varied but fall into two basic categories: 1) enforcement federalism, which concerns the extent to which localities should assist or resist federal removal policies, and 2) integration federalism, which encompasses measures designed to assist immigrants, regardless of status, to integrate in the United States. This essay offers four basic principles to frame any future federalism agenda on immigration. ...
Emily Ryo
The Promise of a Subject-Centered Approach to Understanding Immigration Noncompliance
This paper examines the importance of applying a subject-centered approach to understanding immigration noncompliance and to developing effective, ethical, and equitable immigration policies. In general, a subject-centered approach focuses on the beliefs, values, and perceptions of individuals whose behavior the law seeks to regulate. This approach has been widely used in non-immigration law contexts to produce a more nuanced understanding of legal noncompliance. By contrast, the subject-centered approach has been an overlooked tool in the study of immigration noncompliance. This paper argues that a subject-centered understanding of why people obey or disobey the law can advance public knowledge and inform immigration policy in important ways. Specifically, the paper considers how the use of this approach might help us: (1) recognize the basic humanity and moral agency of unauthorized immigrants, (2) appreciate not only direct costs of immigration enforcement policies, but also their indirect and long-term costs, and (3) develop new and innovative strategies to achieving policy goals....
Peter J. Spiro
Citizenship after Trump
This essay examines citizenship policy under the Trump presidency....
Julia G. Young
Making America 1920 Again? Nativism and US Immigration, Past and Present
This paper surveys the history of nativism in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. It compares the current surge in nativism with earlier periods, particularly the decades leading up to the 1920s, when nativism directed against southern and eastern European, Asian, and Mexican migrants led to discriminatory national origin quotas and other legislative restrictions on immigration. ...
Download the JMHS Special Collection
JMHS Special Collection | The US Immigration System: Principles, Interests, and Policy Proposals to Guide Long-Term Reform
The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) announces the release of The US Immigration System: Principles, Interests, and Policy Proposals to Guide Long-Term Reform, a special collection of the Journal on Migration and Human Security (JMHS). The collection seeks to look beyond recent and current US immigration debates to outline a flexible,......