The largest immigration controversies over the last decade have involved policies produced by the president. Critics of this state of affairs across the political spectrum argue that Congress ought to dictate who may come to the United States and who will be forced to leave.

In a groundbreaking new book, The President and Immigration Law, Adam Cox and Cristina M. Rodríguez show how, over the course of two centuries, the president became the US immigration policymaker-in-chief.  They examine how the Executive’s ordinary power to decide when to enforce the law, and against whom, has become an extraordinarily powerful vehicle for making immigration policy. Finally, they offer a blueprint for reform that accepts the role of the president in shaping the national community, while outlining strategies to curb the abuse of law enforcement in immigration and beyond.

The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) hosted an interactive, virtual event on the need to rethink the role of the president in US immigration policymaking.

MODERATOR
Donald Kerwin
Executive Director
Center for Migration Studies

AUTHORS AND PRESENTERS
Adam B. Cox
Robert A. Kindler Professor of Law
New York University School of Law

Cristina M. Rodríguez
Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law
Yale Law School

RESPONDENTS

• Lucas Guttentag, Founder and Former Director, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, Lecturer and Professor from Practice, Yale Law School and Stanford Law School
• Roberto Suro, Professor of Journalism and Policy, University of Southern California
• Michele Waslin, PhD, Program Coordinator, Institute for Immigration Research (IIR), George Mason University