Remarks
Law, Belonging, and Exclusion: The Dual Role of Immigration and Citizenship Law – Rose Cuison-Villazor
This Symposium Issue engages the duality of immigration and citizenship law: a legal framework that can grant inclusion, opportunity, and belonging, and simultaneously erect borders that authorize exclusion and expulsion. As an immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen, I have experienced first-hand how these laws shape both policy and the lived realities of individuals and communities, immigrants and citizens alike. Several pieces in this issue were developed directly from presentations, panels, and discussions held at the symposium that took place on April 3–4, 2025. By publishing these pieces, this Symposium Issue offers a deeper analysis of the topics addressed at the two-day event and extends the conversations to a wider audience.
It is an understatement to say that Donald Trump helped put immigration in the news. His first administration brought many dramatic changes to immigration law and enforcement. In the early days of President Trump’s second term, the nation experienced an unprecedented “shock and awe” campaign with a flood of immigration policy initiatives. Despite its rock-solid constitutional foundation, birthright citizenship is under attack. Requiring migrants to wait in Mexico while claims to remain in the United States are decided, the Remain in Mexico policy returned. Expedited removal again has been expanded to allow for the removal of migrants arrested in the entire country, not just the border regions, without due process of law, including notice and the opportunity to be heard. The President deployed the military to assist in immigration enforcement and combat the so-called “invasion” of migrants. President Trump declared an immigration state of emergency in the U.S./Mexico border region. With the support of some Democrats, Congress passed the Laken Riley Act, with its unforgiving detention and removal measures. Military planes deported migrants to their homelands. With much fanfare, President Trump ordered migrants to be shipped to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba for detention. Immigration roving patrols with officers questioning and arresting people on the streets of cities across the country. I could go on, but you no doubt get the picture. The Trump administration is engaged in a deliberate effort to demonstrate a relentless commitment to immigration enforcement whatever the human costs. This is a radically different approach than that taken by President Biden and, in fact, any U.S. president.
Liminality and Citizenship – Jennifer M. Chacón
Changes in immigration enforcement policies initiated by the second Trump administration represent a transformative shift in the governance of noncitizens within the United States. These changes not only impact noncitizens, but also weaken the protections of citizenship. They establish racialized gradations of security in legal statuses, and represent a general diminution of legal protections against unlawful and unconstitutional exercises of executive power.
This Administration has embarked upon a complete reimagining of U.S. immigration policy; one that is often at odds with laws on the books, and certainly inconsistent with past practice. This essay focuses on two broad categories of changes to immigration enforcement policies made by this Administration. The first set of changes relates to the “illegalization” of hundreds of thousands of noncitizens who, up until now, actually had some form of official permission to be in the United States, at least temporarily. The second set of changes pertains to interior enforcement practices—changes that have altered the way that both noncitizens and citizens experience immigration enforcement on the ground.
What Does Immigration Law Scholarship Accomplish? – Alan Hyde
In the spring of 2007, as I prepared to return to Rutgers after two years visiting another law school, I spoke by telephone with Vice-Dean Ron Chen. Ron said: “Alan, I need you to start teaching a different upper-class elective. Enrollments in labor law no longer justify repeated sections.” I responded that I could teach either pension and benefit law, or immigration law. Ron said: “Immigration law.” That is how I became a teacher and scholar of immigration law.
Panel on Mass Deportation at Rutgers University Law Review’s “The Dual Role of Immigration & Citizenship Law” Symposium – Margaret Stock
Transcript of remarks made during Rutgers University Law Review’s 2025 Symposium titled, “The Dual Role of Immigration & Citizenship Law.” These remarks were made as part of a panel discussing mass deportation moderated by Rutgers Law School Professor Jessica Rofé.
Articles
Immigration Crises in the Second Trump Administration – Stephen Lee
In this essay, I want to make two points. First, the policies rolled out during the second Trump administration’s first year are testing the limits of the good governance principles laid out by the Court. While in some instances, the administration has demonstrated a willingness to adhere to core administrative principles like fulsome reason-giving and notice, in others, it has sought to expedite implementation by invoking justifications rooted in perceived crises related to immigration. In framing policies as necessary evils to address migration emergencies, agency officials have put the Court in the position of having to decide whether its prior demands for greater process, deliberation, and transparency can adapt to a regulatory environment in which the government insists on importing its entire immigration enforcement strategy into crisis management terrain and the judicial deference norms that typically follow.
This leads to my second point: the immigration policies of the second Trump administration demonstrate that crises are not always natural or inevitable events. While natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes arise outside of the state, forcing agency officials to respond, other events generating a seismic impact can arise from wholly within the state. The Trump administration’s policies illustrate crises of this latter type. If crises can sometimes emerge as legal and political constructions, then they can operate both as a tool for governance as well as for resistance. The essay concludes with some thoughts on where such acts of resistance are already forming.
The Automation of Deportation? Evaluating the Challenges of Artificial Intelligence – Hon. John G. Browning
According to the International Monetary Fund, nearly 40% of global employment will be impacted by AI. The immigration field is no exception. A growing number of countries, including the United States, are using AI tools to validate the authenticity of documents, analyze applications and other paperwork, and automate a variety of time-consuming tasks. Yet as much as this technology promises great benefits, AI’s use—or, more accurately, misuse—poses significant risks as well. This article explores these risks.
This article begins with a look at the institutional use of AI tools, including the risks of bias they present. Next, this article will examine the risks associated with individual use of generative AI tools. While such tools have been lauded for their efficiencies in research and drafting by attorneys, immigration attorneys’ misplaced reliance and lack of proper vetting of such technology can expose their clients to problems ranging from erroneous legal advice to faulty AI-generated translations that impact everything from asylum claims and visa applications to deportation proceedings. The article will analyze real-world examples of such AI errors, including immigration counsel citing nonexistent cases fabricated by AI, as well as cases involving misinterpretations by AI-driven translation apps that jeopardized immigration proceedings.
AI for Good: Expanding Legal Services for Immigrants – Huyen Pham & Bryan Garcia
In this Essay, we explore the possibilities for putting AI technology in the hands of clients themselves, considering the advantages and disadvantages. Thinking about the specific context of immigration law, we could envision apps that help individuals to prepare for interviews for affirmative asylum, visas, or naturalization; to educate them about their rights in ways that are more specific, timely, and convenient than current know-your-rights formats; or, in a more attorney-adjacent interaction, using an app to conduct the initial intake interview and organize that information, making the usual time-consuming intake process more efficient and effective. We are not envisioning apps that give legal advice or replace lawyers entirely; as Chief Justice Roberts said in his 2023 end of year report, “[L]egal determinations often involve gray areas that still require application of human judgment.” But as lawyers, it would be remiss of us to ignore the promise of AI to increase legal assistance for immigrants because we fear its perils.
A Role for Artificial Intelligence in a Politicized Immigration World – Richard Frankel
This essay offers three principles to guide AI with respect to immigration. First, AI technology can offer independence and protection from political interference and influence over day-to-day agency decisions. By taking first-level decisions out of human hands, it can prevent political meddling or at least make it more difficult. Second, the full impact of the current administration’s effort to reduce the federal workforce and to weaken agency power remains to be seen, but the effect is likely to be felt for years to come. The reality is that there may be fewer government workers in the foreseeable future, that institutional knowledge may disappear, and that immigration benefit backlogs are likely to grow. AI may end up being not just beneficial, but indispensable, for adjudicating visa and benefit claims in a timely fashion, and for ensuring that eligible noncitizens receive the relief to which they are entitled. Finally, while the Biden administration stated that AI should be done in a rights-respecting way, this essay suggests instead that AI use should be guided by the principle of affirming human dignity. In that way, it can address a noncitizen’s affirmative claim for benefits, i.e. where the noncitizen is seeking government help. But it can also protect against the government’s non-consensual intrusion of noncitizen rights, such as through expanded surveillance.
The End of Citizenship as We Have Known It – Peter J. Spiro
The slow-burn disruption of citizenship has attracted renewed interest in its place in the American and global contexts. Citizenship had long been neglected as constitutionally inconsequential. In recent years, the subject has attracted the attention of international legal political scholars. Among American theorists, Linda Bosniak has been a star of her generation, distinguished especially by her work on rights and territoriality as they relate to citizenship.
Bosniak’s broader framing of citizenship is also canonical. In her schema, citizenship has four dimensions: legal status, rights, political activity, and collective identity. This Essay rebalances the four perspectives in light of recent developments. It argues that citizenship as rights, political activity, and collective identity is now in a state of freefall.
Making Immigration Entrepreneurial – David Nows
The H1-B visa program is one of two significant immigration programs for skilled labor, and currently imports tens of thousands of skilled foreign workers to the United States each year. Today, companies like Amazon, Meta, and Tesla dominate the H1-B program, taking up hundreds of spots respectively each year. This state of affairs allows technology companies to fill their ranks with skilled labor where there are shortages of such workers in the United States. However, it does little to help new entrepreneurial ventures acquire much needed talent, since startups are mostly unable to compete with larger technology companies in utilizing the H1-B visa program’s lottery process. This lottery process favors employers who can pay to submit multiple visa applications per applicant in an effort to bolster the applicant’s odds of being selected for one of a limited number of H1-B visas. In this sense, the current H1-B framework is anti-entrepreneurship, favoring temporary workers for large enterprises over workers who will work quickly to create significant economic value through new business startups.
This essay argues that the United States is due for an entrepreneurship-specific visa for startup founders and early-stage startup employees. It builds on the work of previous scholars who have advocated for founder-specific and investor-specific visas. However, this essay goes further, by advocating for visas and a path to permanent residence specific to early-stage startup employees who are granted meaningful equity in the new venture for which they work. A program like the one proposed here would allow the United States to maintain its lead as the preeminent destination for entrepreneurs globally, and further, would provide a clear pathway for permanently recruiting highly skilled workers with an orientation towards innovation. Given that new business ventures are the main driver of economic growth in the United States, this proposal provides for a program that would drive more economic growth than the current H1-B program.
This essay proceeds in three parts. First, Section I discusses the basics of the H1-B visa program generally, as well as the political climate around the issue of business immigration in early 2025. Then, in Section II, this essay contemplates the obstacles that exist for new startups who seek to utilize the current H1-B program for hiring employees. Lastly, this essay suggests reforms to be made via a new visa program for both startup founders and early-stage startup employees.
CHNV as a Model for a New Guest Worker Program – Nicole Hallett
On March 21, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it would revoke the legal status of the 530,000 individuals who had entered the United States since 2023 on the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) Humanitarian Parole Program effective April 24, 2025. The fate of the program was already clear in the first days of the new administration. One of the first acts of the Trump administration was to end new applications for the program. Although courts temporarily paused the program’s cancellation, the Supreme Court subsequently allowed the cancellation to move forward. With the announcement, a two-year experiment with a new kind of immigration program has come to an end.
In this essay I argue that while the CHNV program was not designed as a guest worker program, it shared many characteristics with such programs. Perhaps more importantly, the differences between traditional guest worker programs and the CHNV program suggest a blueprint for a new kind of guest worker program that incorporates the best elements of the CHNV program.
The Renewed Assault on Sanctuary Cities – Rick Su, Rose Cuison-Villazor, & Pratheepan Gulasekaram
It took less than three hours after his inauguration for President Trump to renew his attack on sanctuary cities. In an executive order titled Protecting the American People Against Invasion, the President called on his administration to ensure that sanctuary jurisdictions “do not receive access to Federal funds,” and to “undertake any other lawful actions, criminal or civil” against them. A day later, then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove issued a memo threatening action against any jurisdictions that “fail[] to comply with lawful immigration-related commands and requests.” Since then, billions of dollars of federal funding have been withheld, lawsuits against several states and cities were filed, federal agents swarmed into cities like Minneapolis and Chicago, and additional executive orders have been issued threatening criminal sanctions against local officials.
This Essay outlines the challenges that sanctuary jurisdictions are facing under the second Trump Administration. We argue that this fight not only implicates immigration policies in this country, especially with respect to interior enforcement, but it also threatens to upend the basic structure of our federal system. We begin in Part I with an overview of the legal tensions underlying this sanctuary fight—between federal supremacy on the one hand and anti-commandeering on the other. This sets the stage for Part II, where we examine the various legal mechanisms—defunding, civil litigation, and criminal prosecution—that the Trump Administration has used or threatened to use against sanctuary jurisdictions. Finally, Part III explores the opposite—the risks they face if they decide to participate. As is often the case for local governments in the United States, we show how today’s immigration debates place them between a rock and a hard place.
Comments are closed