S3E22: Who can regulate immigration, states or D.C.?

VA, WV, SC, MS, IA, TN, NE & FL National Guards to the Mexican border. Why? Because TX Gov. Abbot has asked for help. To learn about Gov. Abbot's Operation Lone Star program, visit the Texas Indigent Defense Commission site.

But can they do that? Isn't regulating immigration the role and responsibility of the federal government? And what is "Immigration Federalism"?

A recent New York Times article included the following admonition: "But states cannot enforce federal immigration law — that is up to the federal government". But what if our federal government abdicates its responsibility in enforcing immigration laws, in protecting our borders?  This is not a crazy question. As my guest, Prof. Deep Gulasekaram, explains, this is, in fact, the very claim that Republican governors of AZ and TX have made - that our federal government has abdicated its responsibility in matters of immigration.

Strangely, for an issue that is and has been so important to our nation's history - hint: we are a nation of immigrants, immigration is not even mentioned in the Constitution. And as Prof. Gulasekaram tells it, for the initial 100 years of our history, immigration was pretty much run and regulated by our states. It wasn't until after the Civil War that the federal government got involved in immigration matters the way we think of it today.

From the 1870s to the mid-20th Century, immigration was a race-based regulated system. For example, for the longest time, only white people could become US citizens. There were also quotas that favored Northern and Western Europeans. All of this changed in the 1960s, from which time to 2001, immigration became a bipartisan matter. But after 9/11, immigration became a hot-button, political and polarizing issue. As a result, our Congress hasn't really passed a robust immigration law for a long time.

To better understand the history of the tension between US states and our federal government when it comes to immigration, which is a highly polarizing issue now, I spoke with Mr. Gulasekaram, who at the time of this recording, was a Professor of Law at the Santa Clara University School of Law, where he taught Constitutional Law and Immigration Law. He now teaches at the University of Colorado, Boulder law school: https://lawweb.colorado.edu/profiles/profile.jsp?id=1126

Prof. Gulasekaram is co-author of the leading immigration law casebook used in law schools, Immigration & Citizenship: Process and Policy. And he is also co-author of The New Immigration Federalism - a book that provides an in-depth empirical and theoretical analysis of the resurgence of state and local immigration lawmaking, which is the subject of our conversation in this episode.

Prof. Gulasekaram is also the co-founder of the World Children’s Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving health and educational infrastructure for children in developing areas around the world.

You may also be interested in an earlier episode, in which, my guest, Prof. Jennifer Chacon, answers this question: do immigrants commit more crime than native-born Americans? Listen here: https://bit.ly/HbN-S3E18

I hope you enjoy these episodes.

Adel

Host of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠History Behind News⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ podcast

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