Continuity and Change: Patterns of Immigration Litigation in the Courts, 1979-1990

Abstract

The authors explored contemporary immigration litigation in the courts. They sought to establish a profile of the immigration caseload; discern some of the effects of certain immigration policy reforms on that caseload; emphasize the growing importance of affirmative challenge litigation especially impact cases in the immigration area; and determine what occurs when federal courts remand immigration cases to the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the administrative immigration court. Their study was meant to be descriptive not normative. Their exploration nonetheless led them to believe that aliens often prevail over the INS in asylum litigation and impact litigation. These results suggest that the government currently contests many meritorious claims by aliens which in the interest of all parties would best be resolved at an early pre-litigation stage. In particular aliens were successful in overturning administrative denials of asylum requests.