Illegal Immigration Reform Research Articles

Immigrant children's reliance on public health insurance in the wake of immigration reform.

We sought to determine whether the reversal of the public charge rule of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which may have required families to pay for benefits previously received at no cost, led to immigrant children becoming increasingly reliant on public health insurance programs. We conducted a secondary data analysis focusing on low-income children sampled in the 1997 through 2004 versions of the National Health Interview Survey. Between 1997 and 2004, public health insurance enrollments and the numbers of uninsured foreign-born children in the United States increased by 3.1% and 2.7%, respectively. Using multinomial logistic regression models to account for the substantial differences in socioeconomic status between foreign-born and US-born children, we found that low-income US-born children were just as likely as foreign-born children to have public health insurance coverage (odds ratio [OR] = 1.16; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.89, 1.52) and that, after 2000, foreign-born children were 1.59 times (95% CI = 1.24, 2.05) more likely than were US-born children to be uninsured (vs publicly insured). In the wake of the reversal of the public charge rule, immigrant children are increasingly likely to be uninsured as opposed to relying on public health insurance.

Research Note: Issues of Production vs. Reproduction/Maintenance Revisited: Towards an Understanding of Arizona’s Immigration Policies

The subject of international immigration has been a topic in which anthropologists have historically shown great interest. Especially since 1970s and 1980s anthropologists in United States have studied dynamics of immigration and patterns of adaptation of immigrants from around world. In order to understand patterns and processes of immigration and emigration, it is often necessary to look at atmosphere of anti- or pro-immigrant sentiment in receiving area. Propositions initiated and passed, and laws suggested in legislatures, whether on or federal level in United States, reflect biases for or against immigrants. Sometimes, however, legislation is contradictory, or seemingly so. Seemingly contradictory polices become less paradoxical if it is remembered many immigrants are welcomed because they are cheap labor and because they fill jobs in what one author has called the underbelly of American dream (Annerino 1999:26)-jobs to which natives are not attracted to because they are dirty, dangerous, and/or underpaid. In following pages I will look at legislation in Arizona, as well as an apparently pro-immigrant initiative in order to show how capitalist economies are more ready to accept immigrants if they can avoid paying wages of unemployment and retirement benefits and medical and educational costs of immigrants' dependents. Anthropologists working with immigrant populations might wish to explore whether same constraints are apparent in group(s) they work with. Between 2004 and June, 2005, Arizona legislature sponsored 20 antiimmigrant bills (Veranes and Navarro 2005). More were to be introduced in following years. Seemingly in contradiction, in early 2008 legislature was also considering a guest-worker program due to shortage of labor. The first piece of legislation was passed by 56 percent of voters on November 2, 2004. Proposition 200, spearheaded by a group called Protect Arizona Now, in league with Federation for American Immigrant Reform (FAIR), known as an anti-immigrant organization with white supremacist ties (Veranes and Navarro 2005:1), was similar to California's 1994 Proposition 187 in several ways. First, in introduction to text of California's Proposition 187 it is declared that they have suffered and are suffering economic hardship caused by presence of illegal aliens in state (Proposition 187, 1994: Section 1). In introduction to Arizona's Proposition 200 it is stated: This finds illegal immigration is causing economic hardship to this and illegal immigration is encouraged by public within this provide public benefits without verifying immigration (Proposition 200, 2004: Section 2). Thus, both propositions identified undocumented immigrants as an economic problem, endorsing debatable assumption they take more out of economy than they put into it. Second, both propositions underscored use of public services by undocumented immigrants, including public social services (i.e. welfare), public funded health care services, and public primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions in California and all public agencies in Arizona (Proposition 200, 2004: Section 2). Both propositions also directed public service institutions to report undocumented status of attempted users to Federal immigration authorities, although only Arizona bill made it a class 2 misdemeanor if a public service employee failed to do so (Proposition 200, 2004: Section 6). Third, primary population was being targeted was dependent wives and children of undocumented workers-whose demographic characteristics made them especially in need of medical and/or educational services. One difference between California's Proposition 187, which was declared unconstitutional, and Arizona's Proposition 200, which was not, was latter was passed after 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Individual Responsibility Act, and Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act of same year permitted states to take such actions. …

Chertoff's monster

What do gila monsters and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff have in common? Other than persistence, very little. US immigration policy – once described as “squeezing a balloon” (ie shifting emphasis from one sector to another) – and environmental policy seem to have become disparate as well. The fence now under construction along the US–Mexico border is the most recent intra-governmental standoff between the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and another governmental function, immigration control by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). NEPA has, as its basis, the mission “to declare a national policy which will encourage…harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere...[and] to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation”. Immigration policy in the Sonoran Desert is designed to stop criminal activity, and NEPA's harmonious nature is being tested again. In what most see as an aggressive action to comply with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 and the Secure Fence Act of 2006, installation of fencing, barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors was mandated. The DHS announced in early April decisive moves to finish 370 of almost 700 miles of barriers on the approximately 1969 miles of the border with Mexico by the end of 2008, and that it would exercise waivers built into the fence statute to suspend federal and state environmental laws to meet that goal. Chertoff argued that Congressional authority under IIRIRA justified the waiver: “Congress and the American public have been adamant that they want and expect border security”, and, in addition to security risks and the flow of illegal immigrants, “Illegal border traffic has also caused severe and profound impacts to the environment”. Passed in 1969, NEPA was designed to ensure that federal projects would be reviewed to assess their potential environmental harm. The law requires federal agencies to integrate environmental awareness and values into decision-making processes by considering the environmental impacts of their proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to those actions. To meet this requirement, federal agencies are required to prepare a detailed EIS for each such project. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reviews and comments on EISs prepared by other federal agencies. Congress can, in unusual and emergency situations, waive NEPA compliance to counterbalance unnecessary delays in an essential project, but such waivers must be fully vetted. Earlier this year, a federal court struck down a waiver issued by the White House that would have exempted the US Navy from complying with the Coastal Zone Management Act during sonar training exercises off of southern California. With the waivers in place, one might ask, what does the fence have to do with the environment? The answer is, plenty. At issue now is that the fence, designed to keep out criminals, illegal immigrants, terrorists, and so forth, also disturbs the natural ecological immigration of fauna. Some commentators believe that the fence is a waste of money, and will do nothing to stem the flow of cross-border migrants. On the other hand, the border spans the Sonoran Desert, wilderness areas such as Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, and the effects on those areas are already clearly visible. Ecosystems, of course, know no borders, and a number of endangered and threatened species live in this environment shared by Mexico and the US, including jaguars, ocelots, jaguarundis, gila monsters, and Sonoran pronghorns, among others; one ecologist has described the fence as “a Great Wall of Arizona”. The fence, argue environmental groups, and even some Members of Congress, will cut off migration routes for many of these species and will bisect a series of dry washes. During monsoon season, water will pool behind the fence foundations, causing erosion that could eventually alter existing willow forests and other habitat. So, given the outcry, we may soon see who has the most tenacious bite – Chertoff, or our old friend, the gila monster.

Court Stripping and Limitations on Judicial Review of Immigration Cases

ongressional "court stripping," or the attempt to take jurisdiction away from courts to review matters of all types, is not new. Jurisdiction-stripping proposals were advanced in Congress as early as 1830. Between 1953 and 1968, over sixty bills were introduced into Congress to restrict federal court jurisdiction over particular topics. The 1970s and 1980s saw efforts to strip the courts of jurisdiction in busing, abortion, and school-prayer cases. Sen. Jesse Helms once proposed a bill to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to review school-prayer cases. Barry Goldwater, upon learning of the Helms bill, dismissed the proposal as the equivalent of "outlawing the Supreme Court." Congress has for years attempted to strip courts of their jurisdiction to review actions of federal law-enforcement agencies and state courts in order to reverse deci sions they do not like, punish judges, or even avoid future rulings they may not like. Federal courts, which have been essential in expanding and preserving individual rights, are now being barraged by congressional attempts to strip the courts of their power to review. Congress's decisions about the courts' jurisdiction, including appellate jurisdic tion, have considerable effects on their caseloads, although not always in ways that might have been anticipated. Nowhere has this trend been more apparent than in Congress's legislation in the immigration area. With the enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), a Republican Congress and the Clinton administration fundamentally altered judicial review of immigration matters. Despite this legislation restricting judicial review, the caseload at the U.S. Court of Appeals has risen markedly, so much so that immigra tion cases now comprise 18 percent of the federal appellate civil docket. The legislation. The Supreme Court has suggested that "protecting the Executive's discretion from the courts. . . . can fairly be said to be the theme of the legislation." Reno v. Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 486 (1997). The AEDPA eliminated judicial review for criminal aliens. It stated that "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no court shall have jurisdiction to review any final order of removal against any alien who is removable by reason of hav ing committed a criminal offense." In addition, the act deleted the prior provision in federal law that permitted habeas corpus review of claims by aliens who were held in custody pursuant to deportation orders. The IIRIRA was an attempt by Congress to eliminate judicial review of non final orders or rulings primarily involving aliens in removal proceedings. It also con

Retroactivity and Immigrant Crimes since St. Cyr: Emerging Signs of Judicial Restraint

Prior to 1996 if a permanent resident was convicted of a crime that subjected her to deportation, she was often eligible to apply for a waiver of deportation, known as 212(c) relief. A waiver of deportation was granted under 212(c) if the immigrant could show substantial equitable ties with the United States, including a U.S. citizen spouse or children, U.S. business ownership, and employment in the United States. These 212(c) waivers were routinely granted in more than fifty percent of cases. In 1996, however, Congress overhauled immigration law through two bills—the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). A central goal of the bills was to facilitate the deportation of immigrants convicted of crimes. To do this, AEDPA restricted and IIRIRA entirely eliminated the 212(c) waiver mechanism, meaning that permanent residents convicted of a greatly expanded list of crimes would be automatically deported, regardless of how deeply connected they were with the United States.

How to avoid hiring illegal aliens

The hiring of illegal aliens by any business in the United States can result in more significant consequences because of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996. Both pieces of federal legislation are aimed at placing a bigger burden of responsibility on private employers. The new laws make hiring illegal aliens a federal crime. The resources of the United States can be put behind litigation against violators. By conducting a review of the literature on both these federal acts, along with any other immigration changes in regards to hiring foreign workers, conclusions and recommendations can be drawn to assist and guide a private employer from avoiding hiring illegal aliens.

Welfare and Immigration Reform and Use of Prenatal Care Among Women of Mexican Ethnicity in San Diego, California

Foreign-born women and, in particular, Hispanic foreign-born women, are less likely to have insurance, are less likely to have insurance that covers prenatal care, and are less likely to utilize prenatal care compared with US-born Hispanic women. Significant concern has been raised regarding the ability of immigrant women to access prenatal care services because of severe restrictions imposed on immigrants' eligibility for Medicaid-funded services following the passage in 1996 of the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reform Act (PRWORA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA). We conducted an interview-based study of prenatal care utilization with women of Mexican ethnicity and diverse immigration statuses in San Diego County, California. Our findings indicate that, despite increased levels of fear associated with recent immigration and with undocumented status, there were no statistically significant differences across immigration statuses in length of time to receipt of medical care for gynecological events and for prenatal care.

Fractured Families and Communities: Effects of Immigration Reform in Texas, Mexico, and El Salvador

The enactment of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) in 1996 represented a major shift in post World War II immigration policies. IIRIRA facilitated a large-scale removal of legal resident immigrants, increased the income-requirements to sponsor an immigrant, reduced the discretionary power of immigration judges, and increased the resources for border enforcement. In this study, effects of IIRIRA on communities and immigrant families are examined through fieldwork and interviews of social service agencies, community organizations, and households in Texas, Mexico and El Salvador. The findings indicate that IIRIRA has had major effects on communities and families in all three settings. IIRIRA has produced fear and stress among families and the communities in which they live. The law also has mobilized governmental and non-governmental agency involvement both for and against immigrants. Finally, the exclusionary aspects of the law have raised issues of social identity among migrants in the United States and abroad.

Impact of the 1996 Welfare Reform and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Acts on Caribbean Immigrants

SUMMARY This paper examines the impact of the 1996 Welfare Reform and Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Acts on Caribbean immigrants in the United States. Drawing from the conceptual framework posited by Dye's (1984) Elite Preference Modelof policy analysis, the author argues that the three laws have created enormous economic and psychological difficulties among families in the United States. Developing countries in the Caribbean region have been severely impacted by the law since they have had to accommodate returning citizens when they are deported under provisions of immigration policies. The question for consideration by this paper is how may the legal and human rights of deportees be balanced against the rights of the U.S. government to secure its borders and ensure the security of its citizens? The paper also addresses issues of immigration, and international relations particularly the north-south dialogue between powerful developed countries such as the United States and small develo...

The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same: Mexican Naturalization before and after Welfare Reform

During the last decade there has been a dramatic increase in the both the number and the rate of Mexican naturalization. Some have interpreted this increase as a response to changes in welfare and immigration policy surrounding the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which limited public assistance to non-citizens, and the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which may have increased the incentive to naturalize by making it more difficult for legal immigrants to sponsor their relatives for entry to the United States. This article uses Current Population Survey data from 1994/95 and 2000/01 to examine how the social and economic determinants of naturalization may have changed in order to provide insight into which explanation for the increase in naturalizations is most relevant. We find that while the proportion of Mexican immigrants who are naturalized increased during the 1990s, their determinants have remained largely the same with the exception that those with noncitizen spouses have become more likely to be naturalized in the post-reform period. This suggests that a more cautious interpretation be taken about the relationship between the increase in naturalizations and welfare and sponsorship restrictions, particularly when regarding Mexican immigrants.

The Effects of Recent Welfare and Immigration Reforms on Immigrants’ Access to Health Care

This study investigates the impact of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, both passed in 1996, on the use of health-care services in immigrant communities in five Texas counties. The study presents findings of interviews with public agency officials, directors of community-based organizations, and members of 500 households during two research phases, 1997–1998 and 1998–1999. In the household sample, 20 percent of U.S. citizens and 30 percent of legal permanent residents who reported having received Medicaid during the five years before they were interviewed also reported losing the coverage during the past year. Some lost coverage because of welfare reform restrictions on noncitizen eligibility or because of changes in income or household size, but many eligible immigrants also withdrew from Medicaid “voluntarily.”

Legislating a Public Health Nightmare: The Anti-Immigrant Provisions of the 'Contract with America' Congress

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, two major products of the Contract With America Congress, have restricted federal funding for immigrant health care to an unprecedented extent. Legally present immigrants are eligible for few government-sponsored services, and undocumented immigrants have even less access to care. The consequences of this public health blunder are difficult to measure because the restrictions on health care access created by the 1996 laws limit investigators' contact with the immigrants who are the targets of the legislation. Public health research demonstrates that denial of care to new and undocumented immigrants has predictable adverse health consequences for all U.S. residents. This article reviews the statutory modifications affecting immigrants' health care access since 1996, their effect on prevention and treatment of communicable disease, prenatal care, and children's health care, recent litigation arising from the 1996 legislation, and the options available for avoiding the threat these restrictions pose to the public's health.

Brutality at the border? Use of force in the arrest of immigrants in the United States

Researchers have examined police use of force against United States citizens for almost 50 years (for reviews see Sherman, 1980; Riksheim and Chermak, 1993). But researchers have not considered police and INS use of force in the arrest of immigrants. The need to understand the treatment of immigrants is more urgent than ever because of the dramatic rise in the number of immigrants arrested and deported from the United States since the passage of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). To address this gap in the literature, we conducted 211 face-to-face interviews with Salvadoran deportees and deportees’ family members in El Salvador during the Fall of 1999 and Spring of 2000. Our results suggest that immigrants arrested in the United States are subject to force more often than citizens. Further, the causal mechanisms that produce force for both groups are similar (age, sex, the location of an arrest, and the seriousness of the offense), suggesting that immigrants are subject to force more often because of heightened exposure to common risk factors. Based on the results, we call for an investigation of whether more force also means more excessive force. If the event that it does, we offer policy suggestions for reducing excessive force.

The New Asylum Rule: Improved but Still Unfair

In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). This article discusses how two specific provisions of the IIRIRA - the one-year deadline on asylum applications and the expedited removal provisions - unnecessarily cause hardship and injustice to asylum-seekers. It also assesses the response of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and suggests needed regulatory and statutory reform. Recognizing that even regulatory reforms will not eliminate many of the injustices caused by the IIRIRA, the article recommends enactment of the Refugee Protection Act, currently pending in Congress. First, the article discussed the one year filing deadline and some of the changes that have been made to it since its introduction in the IIRIRA in 1996. The one-year deadline for asylum seekers requires asylum seekers to apply for asylum within one year from their time of entry into the United States. The authors recommend that if the deadline is not repealed, the existing exceptions for and circumstances should be augmented to include delayed awareness of changed country conditions, threats to an applicant's family living abroad, and genuine belated discovery of the law. They also recommend changes in the regulatory definition of the exception for ineffective assistance of counsel. Second, the article discusses the IIRIRA's grant of authority to the INS to engage in expedited removal. Under the expedited removal provisions, an individual who is detained at the United States border because he or she does not have the proper documentation to enter, may be immediately deported at the discretion of the INS inspector back to his or her home country without an administrative or judicial hearing. The article preliminary states that expedited removal should be limited to extraordinary migrantion situations. It then discusses specifically what can be done at each stage of interrogation of the asylum-seeker by INS inspectors to make the system fairer for asylum-seekers. For example, the authors recommend numerous changes to the secondary-inspection stage of the removal process, where airport-based inspectors determine if a refugee is afraid of returning home. The authors also point out the need for numerous improvements to be made at the stage of the process during which INS determines whether aliens have a credible fear of persecution, permitting them to apply for asylum before an Immigration Judge. The article concludes with strong support for the pending Refugee Protection Act.

The Georgia Immigration Pardons: A Case Study in Mass Clemency

The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) enlarged the class of aliens subject to mandatory deportation as aggravated felons under the Immigration and Nationality Act. There is only one way of avoiding deportation where a non-citizen has at any time in the past been convicted of an offense triggering removal, and that is to obtain a pardon. Over the 15-month period ending in June of 2001, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole granted 138 pardons to permanent resident aliens who had suddenly found themselves subject to deportation under IIRAIRA. Recipients of these pardons included people who had lived in the United States for many years, were married to U.S. citizens, and who had U.S. citizen children. Some of them had been convicted of very minor offenses years before IIRAIRA'S enactment.

Assessing the Proposed Refugee Protection Act: One Step in the Right Direction

Professor Pistone discusses the Refugee Protection Act (RPA), the proposed legislation which revisits the one year asylum filing deadline and expedited removal provisions, some of the more controversial provisions of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). This paper analyzes the appropriateness of RPA's proposed changes to existing law and how it can better meet its goal of helping to ensure that those who arrive in the United States fleeing persecution have a fair and adequate opportunity to present claims for protection. Part I provides background information concerning current U.S. refugee and asylum law. Part II discusses the RPA's proposed changes to the deadline for filing for asylum implemented by IIRIRA and how the RPA proposal can be improved. Part III explains and critiques the proposed changes to the expedited removal process.

Understanding the Impact of the 1996 Deportation Laws and the Limited Scope of Proposed Reforms

In i996, Congress enacted two laws the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act1 (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act2 (IIRIRA) that drastically changed the consequences of criminal convictions for lawful permanent residents. Although lawful permanent residents had long been subject to deportation3 for criminal convictions, the i996 laws make such deportation mandatory in large classes of cases.4 Furthermore, the new laws provide that permanent residents convicted of a wide array of crimes are automatically placed in detention following the completion of any criminal sentence.' Much of the initial commentary on the i996 laws focused on the unfairness of applying these laws retroactively.6 The first cases to

Deportation, Social Control, and Punishment: Some Thoughts about Why Hard Laws Make Bad Cases

From the Author's Introduction: We live in a time of unusual vigor, efficiency, and strictness in the deportation of long-term permanent resident aliens convicted of crimes. This situation is the result of some fifteen years of relatively sustained attention to this issue, which culminated in two exceptionally harsh laws: the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). In many cases, these laws have brought about a rather complete convergence between the criminal justice and deportation systems. Deportation is now often a virtually automatic consequence of criminal conviction. This convergence, and the harshness of these laws - their retroactivity, their use of mandatory detention, the automatic and often disproportionate nature of the deportation sanction, and the lack of statues of limitation - raise two related questions: First, why are we doing this? Second, what could be the consequences of this approach for the constitutional legitimacy of deportation proceedings?

The effect of immigration and welfare reform legislation on immigrants' access to health care, Cuyahoga, and Lorain Counties.

This study examined the effect of the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 on immigrants' ability to access health care in two counties in Northeastern Ohio. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 251 individuals of varying immigration status and ethnicity. Data collected included type of recent illness, type and location of care received, type of health insurance, if any, and problems encountered. Significant associations were found between birth in a former Soviet-controlled area and use of public insurance. We did not detect an adverse effect of the welfare and immigration reform laws on ability to access care, most likely because a large proportion of respondents were permanent residents or asylees and were eligible for publicly funded medical care under the reform laws. The most common problems in obtaining medical care included lack of insurance and/or money, transportation, language, dissatisfaction with the doctor's care, and long waits. Individuals born in former Soviet-controlled areas as well as those who spoke Spanish or Slavic languages at home or work reported more difficulties in accessing care. Many undocumented individuals indicated that they would delay or refrain from seeking care due to fear of immigration consequences.

La política migratoria mexicana después de IRCA

El tema de las respuestas mexicanas, en particular las gubernamentales, acerca del fenómeno de la migración de mexicanos hacia Estados Unidos ha adquirido relevancia a partir de los cambios legislativos estadunidenses en materia inmigratoria iniciados en 1986 y actualizados en 1996 y de la intensificación de manifestaciones antiinmigrantes y xenófobas por amplios sectores de la sociedad de aquel país. En este trabajo se revisa brevemente la política mexicana que se sigue con posterioridad a la terminación de los programas de braceros y, con más detenimiento, se analizan los cambios en la postura gubernamental a raíz de la aprobación, en 1986, de la Ley de Reforma y Control de la Inmigración hasta la reciente Ley de Reforma de la Inmigración Ilegal y de Responsabilidad del Inmigrante de 1996, explorándose algunas de las implicaciones de estos cambios y de la política migratoria mexicana actual.