Lawful Permanent Residents Research Articles

Demystifying Employment Authorization and Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases

On November 20, 2014, President Barack Obama announced a series of immigration programs aimed to reform the immigration system. Deferred Action for Parents of Americans or Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and extended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) represent two such programs announced by the President. Both programs extend deferred action (one form of prosecutorial discretion) to qualifying individuals. Deferred action has been part of the immigration system for more than 50 years, and has been named explicitly by Congress, federal courts, and the agencies responsible for administering immigration laws. Additionally, regulations list deferred action as one basis for work authorization. The President’s deferred action programs offered room for a healthy debate about immigration law and policy. The debate was intensified by a lawsuit brought by the state of Texas and 25 other states challenging the deferred action programs, and a subsequent judicial opinion enjoining these programs. Much of the tension has centered on the ability for a deferred action grantee to obtain ancillary benefits like employment authorization or lawful presence. This conflict has enabled great distortion about the limits and benefits of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law. In this Article, I seek to clarify the relationship between prosecutorial discretion and employment authorization and describe the historical precedent for allowing qualifying noncitizens to apply for work authorization based on a prosecutorial discretion grant. I also examine the policy questions that are raised by the current legal framework and policy for work authorization. My methodology for this Article is to review the primary and secondary sources of law for prosecutorial discretion and employment authorization; analyze a related data set of more than 200,000 work authorization applications processed by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act; and begin a policy discussion on the benefits of enabling prosecutorial discretion beneficiaries to be authorized to work in the United States. This Article is the first to analyze the law and policy of employment authorization and prosecutorial discretion and builds naturally from my body of work developed on the role of immigration prosecutorial discretion generally, and deferred action in particular.

The Effects of DACAmentation: The Impact of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on Unauthorized Immigrants

As the largest immigration policy in 25 years, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) made deportation relief and work authorization available to 1.7 million unauthorized immigrants. This paper looks at how DACA affects DACA-eligible immigrants' labor market outcomes. I use a difference-in-differences design for unauthorized immigrants near the criteria cutoffs for DACA eligibility. I find DACA increases the likelihood of working by increasing labor force participation and decreasing the unemployment rate for DACA-eligible immigrants. I also find DACA increases the income of unauthorized immigrants in the bottom of the income distribution. I find little evidence that DACA affects the likelihood of attending school. Using these estimates, DACA moved 50,000 to 75,000 unauthorized immigrants into employment. If the effects of Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) are similar to DACA, then DAPA could potentially move over 250,000 unauthorized immigrants into employment.

Finally, a True Elements Test

The fate of defendants facing lengthy federal sentence enhancements often turns on what the U.S. Supreme Court calls the categorical approach. The approach controls whether a federal defendant might face an additional decade or longer in prison based solely on having prior convictions of a certain type. At a time when many question the wisdom of the War on Crime started in the 1980s, the Court has taken great care to delimit the circumstances in which a federal sentencing judge can lengthen sentences based on recidivism. The categorical approach also governs most immigration cases involving deportation for a crime. As Congress has cut back deportation defenses for lawful permanent residents with criminal records, the Court has demanded that convictions used for deportation strictly correspond to a federal removal ground. In both Descamps v. U.S. and Mathis v. U.S., recent Armed Career Criminal Act opinions authored by Justice Kagan, the Supreme Court interpreted the categorical approach as requiring a true elements test, declaring that at least two decades of the Court’s precedent required this result. Yet, Justice Breyer and Justice Ginsburg, two justices who had been in the majority in Descamps, dissented in Mathis. This Essay analyzes the trajectory of the Court’s categorical approach decisions, using the Mathis dissent authored by Justice Breyer, and joined by Justice Ginsburg, to explain an ambiguity in the Court’s jurisprudence that Descamps and Mathis have now settled. While Justice Kagan’s penchant for hyperbole oversimplifies the relationship between the Court’s early and late decisions regarding the categorical approach, the holdings of Descamps and Mathis are not only correct. They are likely constitutionally mandated.

Don't Get Thrown Out On YourDerrière: Common Mistakes In Establishing Federal Subject-Matter Jurisdiction

IN federal court, subject-matter jurisdiction is a magic bullet. Jurisdictional problems are particularly pernicious (to the verdict winner) or useful (to the verdict loser) because they can never be waived, the court must address any potential jurisdictional defect it notices, and an incurable jurisdictional defect requires the judgment to be thrown out. We review some common defects in federal subject-matter jurisdiction and potential ways to fix them. (1) I. Why Defects In Subject-Matter Jurisdiction Can Destroy Your Victory (Or Save You From Defeat) courts are courts of limited jurisdiction [,] possessing that power authorized by Constitution and statute.... (2) At every stage of litigation, a federal court is required to confirm that it has jurisdiction, and to dismiss the claim if it lacks jurisdiction. (3) court generally may not rule on the merits of a case without first determining that it has subject-matter jurisdiction. (4) If it appears that the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction, it must dismiss the action. (5) This rule holds even after final judgment has been entered and an appeal filed. federal appellate court is required to evaluate both its own jurisdiction and that of the district court. If the district court lacked jurisdiction, the appellate court must vacate the judgment: [E]very federal appellate court has a special obligation to satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a cause under review, even though the parties are prepared to concede it. And if the record discloses that the lower court was without jurisdiction this court will notice the defect, although the parties make no contention concerning it. When the lower federal court lacks jurisdiction, we have jurisdiction on appeal, not of the merits but merely for the purpose of correcting the error of the lower court in entertaining the suit. (6) A litigant generally may raise a court's lack of subject-matter jurisdiction at any time in the same civil action, even initially at the highest appellate instance. (7) Even if a jurisdictional defect is first discovered after trial or after judgment has been entered, it requires the case to be dismissed. (8) Jurisdiction cannot be created by consent or estoppel, or by 'the parties' litigation conduct.' (9) Even a party that initially brought the case to federal court can attack jurisdiction. (10) Federal district courts and courts of appeals take these requirements seriously. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(a)(4) requires appellants to explain why the district court and court of appeals have subject-matter jurisdiction. Many district courts and courts of appeals instruct their staff to confirm the court's subject-matter jurisdiction at the inception of a case. Indeed, it is not uncommon for a district court or court of appeals to issue a sua sponte order requiring the parties to explain why there is subject-matter jurisdiction, even when no one disputes it. Meticulous attention to the jurisdictional requirements is therefore critical. We outline some common pitfalls in pleading and establishing both diversity and federal subject-matter jurisdiction, and describe some ways to fix them. II. Diversity Jurisdiction A. Background Article III of the U.S. Constitution provides that the judicial power of the United States extends to, inter alia, controversies citizens of different and a state, or citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects. (11) Pursuant to this provision, the diversity statute, 28 U.S.C. [sections] 1332, grants federal courts jurisdiction over suits in which the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000 and the dispute is between (a) citizens of different states, (b) citizens of a state and citizens or subjects of a foreign country (excluding lawful permanent residents domiciled in the same state), (c) citizens of different states in which citizens or subjects of foreign countries are additional parties, or (d) a foreign state as plaintiff and citizens of a state or of different states. …

Potential Beneficiaries of the Obama Administration's Executive Action Programs Deeply Embedded in US Society

The Obama administration has developed two broad programs to defer immigration enforcement actions against undocumented persons living in the United States: (1) Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA); and (2) Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The DACA program, which began in August 2012, was expanded on November 20, 2014. DAPA and the DACA expansion (hereinafter referred to as “DACA-plus”) are currently under review by the US Supreme Court and subject to an active injunction. This paper offers a statistical portrait of the intended direct beneficiaries of DAPA, DACA, and DACA-plus. It finds that potential DAPA, DACA, and DACA-plus recipients are deeply embedded in US society, with high employment rates, extensive US family ties, long tenure, and substantial rates of English-language proficiency. The paper also notes various groups that would benefit indirectly from the full implementation of DAPA and DACA or, conversely, would suffer from the removal of potential beneficiaries of these programs. For example, all those who would rely on the retirement programs of the US government will benefit from the high employment rates and relative youth of the DACA population, while many US citizens who rely on the income of a DAPA-eligible parent would fall into poverty or extreme poverty should that parent be removed from the United States. This paper offers an analysis of potential DAPA and DACA beneficiaries. In an earlier study, the authors made the case for immigration reform based on long-term trends related to the US undocumented population, including potential DAPA and DACA beneficiaries (Warren and Kerwin 2015). By contrast, this paper details the degree to which these populations have become embedded in US society. It also compares persons eligible for the original DACA program with those eligible for DACA-plus. As stated, the great majority of potential DAPA and DACA recipients enjoy strong family ties, long tenure, and high employment rates in the United States. Nearly one-half of the DAPA population and far higher percentages of the two DACA populations speak English well, very well, or exclusively. An unknown, albeit not insubstantial percentage of both the DAPA- and DACA-eligible may already qualify for an immigration benefit or relief that would put them on a path to permanent residency and US citizenship. These mostly low-wage populations have relatively high rates of poverty and low rates of health insurance. Not surprisingly, the educational attainment, school enrollment rates, and English-language proficiency of the DACA-eligible substantially exceed those of the DAPA-eligible. Both populations enjoy high levels of computer and Internet access. The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) derived its estimates on the DAPA- and DACA-eligible from statistics on the foreign-born population collected in the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), as described in Warren (2016). It first derived detailed estimates for all undocumented residents, and then used the characteristics of this population (e.g., year of entry, age at entry, etc.) to tabulate the numbers of those who would be eligible for DAPA and DACA in 2014, which is the most recent year available.

DAPA, 'Lawful Presence,' and the Illusion of a Problem

When the Supreme Court adjudicates United States v. Texas, the lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's executive actions on immigration, one focal point may be the question of whether those initiatives — Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents and its predecessor, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — impermissibly confer upon their recipients. In both of his opinions for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Judge Jerry E. Smith went out of his way to characterize DAPA and DACA as affirmatively conferring their recipients with presence. In their briefing to the Supreme Court the plaintiffs have now followed his lead, arguing that DAPA and DACA impermissibly transform presence deemed by Congress into lawful presence.In this essay, I explain why these claims about are incorrect and ultimately a red herring. Describing DAPA and DACA as entailing a grant of mischaracterizes those initiatives, relying upon a misunderstanding of both the structure and content of immigration law and the manner in which undocumented immigrants are recognized and constructed as legal subjects. Moreover, as a legal matter, “lawful presence” does not even exist as a thing in the sense that Judge Smith and the plaintiffs describe it. In order to characterize DAPA and DACA as something other than guidance structuring the exercise of enforcement discretion, as permitted by existing law, both Judge Smith and the plaintiffs fashion a conception of as constituting an aggregated, intertwined package of benefits, in a manner that approximates conventional understandings of lawful immigration status. That conception, however, has no actual legal basis. Ultimately, since unlawful does not carry the meaning that Judge Smith and the plaintiffs ascribe to it, there is only the illusion of a substantive problem here.

Demystifying Employment Authorization and Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases

On November 20, 2014, President Barack Obama announced a series of immigration programs aimed to reform the immigration system. Deferred Action for Parents of Americans or Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and extended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) represent two such programs announced by the President. Both programs extend deferred action (one form of prosecutorial discretion) to qualifying individuals. Deferred action has been part of the immigration system for more than 50 years, and has been named explicitly by Congress, federal courts, and the agencies responsible for administering immigration laws. Additionally, regulations list deferred action as one basis for work authorization. The President’s deferred action programs offered room for a healthy debate about immigration law and policy. The debate was intensified by a lawsuit brought by the state of Texas and 25 other states challenging the deferred action programs, and a subsequent judicial opinion enjoining these programs. Much of the tension has centered on the ability for a deferred action grantee to obtain ancillary benefits like employment authorization or lawful presence. This conflict has enabled great distortion about the limits and benefits of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law. In this Article, I seek to clarify the relationship between prosecutorial discretion and employment authorization and describe the historical precedent for allowing qualifying noncitizens to apply for work authorization based on a prosecutorial discretion grant. I also examine the policy questions that are raised by the current legal framework and policy for work authorization. My methodology for this Article is to review the primary and secondary sources of law for prosecutorial discretion and work authorization; analyze a related data set of more than 200,000 work authorization applications processed by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act; and begin a policy discussion on the benefits of enabling prosecutorial discretion beneficiaries to be authorized to work in the United States. This Article is the first to analyze the law and policy of work authorization and prosecutorial discretion and builds naturally from my body of work developed on the role of immigration prosecutorial discretion generally, and deferred action in particular.

The military gates to US citizenship: Latina/o “aliens and non-citizen nationals” and military work

This article examines the formation of a contemporary US federal statute (8 U.S.C. §1440) that allows the granting of citizenship to non-citizens in military active duty, including migrants who did not adhere to terms of their visas, or entered the United States without formal authorization. While the actual language of the statute dates back to 1952, its origins are in the Civil War. It is a de facto form of amnesty but one that is generally excluded in contemporary debates about comprehensive immigration reform, DREAM Act proposals, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents. The essay contextualizes the statute within the long-standing and widespread forms of amnesty deployed in the United States, and explores the political process of inclusion through exclusion.

Deferred Action, Supervised Enforcement Discretion, and the Litigation Over Administrative Action on Immigration

In November 2014, the Obama administration announced the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) initiative, which built upon a program instituted two years earlier, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative. As mechanisms to channel the government’s scarce resources toward its enforcement priorities more efficiently and effectively, both DACA and DAPA permit certain individuals falling outside those priorities to seek “deferred action,” which provides its recipients with time-limited, nonbinding, and revocable notification that officials have exercised prosecutorial discretion to deprioritize their removal. While deferred action thereby facilitates a highly tenuous form of quasi-legal recognition for its recipients, it does not provide legal immigration status. Accordingly, the two initiatives are not an equivalent substitute for legislative reform proposals that would create a pathway to durable legal status for a much larger number of individuals. Nevertheless, critics have accused the Obama administration of imposing by decree precisely that which Congress has declined to authorize by statute: namely, legalization of noncitizens who lack lawful immigration status. In this Article, I critically examine those assertions and develop a rationale for the deferred action initiatives, anchored in rule of law values, that has received no meaningful attention in recent debates about DACA and DAPA. As the decision by U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen enjoining those initiatives illustrates, legal discourse has mirrored and reinforced the same incorrect claims about deferred action that circulate in anti-immigration political discourse. Like the Obama administration’s political critics, Judge Hanen repeatedly mischaracterizes the initiatives as providing “legal status” and, on that basis, flays the Obama administration for “total[ly] abdicat[ing]” immigration enforcement. These conclusions ultimately amount to what I describe elsewhere as “judicial truthiness,” highlighting an erosion of the conventional lines between litigation, adjudication, and public discourse in politically salient cases more generally.The flawed discourse surrounding DACA and DAPA underscores the need for a more careful assessment of the complex relationships between enforcement priorities, prosecutorial discretion, and the rule of law in an era of mass deportation. The blunt and distorted nature of that discourse, however, in turn has distorted the substantive analysis of those relationships. As the scale of the expansive and fragmented immigration enforcement regime has grown to such enormous levels — making the interrelated challenges of ensuring consistent execution of the law and fidelity to enforcement priorities more formidable — the need for effective mechanisms to supervise the discretion exercised by rank-and-file officials has only grown more important. But even as it purports to respect the government’s enforcement priorities, the logic of Judge Hanen’s ruling would largely disable policymaking officials from implementing such mechanisms, requiring them instead to let the vagaries of the bureaucracy reign supreme. The decision therefore not only inhibits the agency’s ability to establish enforcement priorities and manage its scarce resources, but also fails to acknowledge the importance of rule of law values such as consistency, transparency, accountability, and nonarbitrariness in the execution of the immigration laws.

Services to domestic minor victims of sex trafficking: Opportunities for engagement and support

Human trafficking of young people is a social problem of growing concern. This paper reports selected findings from an evaluation of three programs serving domestic minor victims of human trafficking. Participants in this study were funded to identify and serve male and female victims of sex or labor trafficking who were less than 18years old and were U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. Programs provided case management and comprehensive services, either directly or through community collaboration. Evaluation data included data on client characteristics, service needs and services delivered; key informant interviews with program staff and partner agencies; and case narrative interviews in which program staff provided in-depth descriptions of clients' histories. All clients served were known or believed to be sex trafficked. The majority of clients needed crisis intervention, safety planning, educational support, mental health services, and employment services. Although they were diverse in terms of demographics and circumstances, two common patterns were of homeless young people exchanging sex to meet survival needs and young people were emotionally engaged with their trafficker. Key findings include the diversity of trafficked minors, the challenge of initial and continued engagement with service delivery, the structural and resource barriers to long-term support for young people, and the potential contribution of programs specifically addressing trafficked minors. A framework linking services to young people's circumstances and outcome areas is proposed.

'Immigrants Are Not Criminals': Respectability, Immigration Reform, and Hyperincarceration

Mainstream pro-immigrant law reformers advocate for better treatment of immigrants by invoking a contrast with people convicted of a crime. This Article details the harms and limitations of a conceptual framework for immigration reform that draws its narrative force from a contrast with people — citizens and noncitizens — who have been convicted of a criminal offense and proposes an alternate approach that better aligns with racial and class critiques of the U.S. criminal justice system. Noncitizens with a criminal record are overwhelmingly low-income people of color. While some have been in the United States for a short period of time, many have resided in the United States for much longer. Many are lawful permanent residents with strong family ties, including U.S. citizen children. Convicted noncitizens who have served significant time in our penal system have experienced the well-documented harms associated with both criminal and civil incarceration. Despite the significant size of this population and its location at the convergence of two heavily criticized law enforcement regimes, these individuals rarely serve as an example for what is wrong with our immigration system. To the contrary, convicted noncitizens are typically regarded as foils for more deserving immigrants. Immigration reformers are not the first to employ a deserving/undeserving narrative as a means of obtaining political gains for some at the expense of others. Across all areas of law reform, policy makers and advocates have sought to generate empathy for groups of people by invoking a contrast with others. In drawing a contrast between a favored group and others who are degenerate, deviant, or less deserving, the “politics of respectability” depends on a contrast with an “out” or deviant group. Racial justice proponents, much more than immigration reformers, have made significant headway in moving beyond respectability politics, especially when critiquing hyperincarceration. This Article describes a different conceptualization of immigrants and crime as well as examples of how certain immigration reform groups have sought to implement aspects of this alternate frame.

History of Persecution and Health Outcomes Among U.S. Refugees.

Our goal was to describe the forms of persecution reported by adult refugees in the U.S. and the relationships between persecution and health status among this population. Data were derived from the 2003 New Immigrant Survey, a representative sample of new U.S. lawful permanent residents. Major depression, impairment in daily activities due to pain, poor self-reported health, and declining health were described for refugees who had and had not reported persecution prior to arrival in the U.S. Health status was also examined for refugees who reported different forms of persecution. Half of refugees (46.7 %) in this sample reported that they or an immediate family member had been persecuted. One in three persecuted refugees (31.8 %) reported both incarceration and physical punishment. Major depression, pain-related impairment, poor health, and declining health were twice as common among persecuted refugees than among non persecuted refugees. Notably, despite these adverse experiences, the majority of persecuted refugees did not report poor health outcomes.

Immigration Reform and Administrative Relief for 2014 and Beyond: A Report on Behalf of the Committee for Immigration Reform Implementation (CIRI), Human Resources Working Group

Successful implementation of any broad-scale immigrant legalization program requires an adequately funded infrastructure of immigrant-serving organizations. In 2014, President Obama announced an expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, as well as the Deferred Action for Parents of Citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program, which would make it possible for approximately five million people to attain lawful, albeit temporary, status and employment authorization. As the initial DACA program instituted in 2012 has already stretched the capacity of immigrant-serving organizations to their limits or even beyond them, the possibility of full implementation of DAPA and the expanded DACA programs presents a formidable challenge for these organizations. In this paper, the Human Resources Working Group of the Committee for Immigration Reform Implementation (CIRI) draws on the lessons of the Immigrant Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), DACA, and other initiatives to provide a roadmap for immigrant service delivery agencies and their partners in planning for implementation of the expanded DACA and the DAPA programs, with an eye (ultimately) to broad legislative reform. In particular, this paper focuses on the funding and human resources that the immigrant service delivery field, writ large, would require to implement these programs. If expanded DACA and DAPA were implemented, the CIRI Working Group estimates that, of the total of five million that may be eligible, 1.08 million individuals will require extensive application assistance, generating the need for approximately three times more full-time staff than are currently in the field. Moreover, without additional funding and staff, agencies will likely not be able to shift a portion of staff time to accommodate any new program, even taking the typical fee-for-service model into account. Thus, the paper identifies a pressing need for “upfront” funding as early in the program as possible for outreach, public education, combating notario fraud, advocacy, and assistance to self-filers. In terms of the financial resources needed, the Working Group’s analysis shows that about $83 million, net after collection of fees, is a reasonable estimate for the potential nonprofit sector “funding gap” required to assure effective application assistance services to the eligible low-income people likely to apply for the expanded DACA and DAPA programs. Wise front-loaded investments can help to maximize coordination and minimize duplication, ensure education and outreach, and channel applicants to the most appropriate sources of assistance. While investments required to build the necessary infrastructure are significant, the costs will be far outweighed by the benefits, not just to the DACA/DAPA population but to the society at large.

Racial Profiling in the War on Drugs Meets the Immigration Removal Process: The Case of Moncrieffe v. Holder

In Moncrieffe v. Holder, the Supreme Court held that the Board of Immigration Appeals could not remove a long-term lawful permanent resident from the United States based on a single misdemeanor conviction for possession of a small amount of marijuana. The decision clarified the meaning of an “aggravated felony” for purposes of removal, an important question under the U.S. immigration laws. In the removal proceedings, Adrian Moncrieffe, a black immigrant from Jamaica, did not challenge his arrest and drug conviction. Consequently, the Supreme Court did not review the facts surrounding, or the lawfulness of, the criminal prosecution. Nonetheless, the traffic stop resulting in Moncrieffe’s initial arrest, and the subsequent interactions with police, strongly suggest that race influenced the events leading to the criminal conviction. An examination of the facts of his case highlights how the modern criminal justice system works in combination with immigration removal proceedings to disparately impact communities of color in the United States. Over the last few decades, modern immigration enforcement has evolved into a tough, fast-moving criminal-immigration removal system. As Moncrieffe’s case attests, undocumented immigrants are not the only noncitizens subject to possible removal from the United States. The U.S. government frequently threatens to remove long-term lawful permanent residents convicted of relatively minor crimes. Many of these lawful permanent residents have deep ties to the community—ties that include children who are U.S. citizens.

Unlocking Human Dignity: A Plan to Transform the US Immigrant Detention System

Unlocking Human Dignity: A Plan to Transform the US Immigrant Detention System

Citizens, Residents, and the Body Politic

For more than a century, courts and policymakers have described citizenship as a necessary marker of the political community, defining the boundaries of who participates in our democracy and on what terms. State and federal prohibitions on noncitizen voting remain largely unchallenged and immune from public controversy or scholarly scrutiny. Yet recent jurisprudence on citizenship and voting rights may open the doctrinal door for enfranchisement claims brought by lawful permanent residents— those noncitizens with the greatest national stake and standing.

Russian Wives in America: A Sketchy Portrait

As more and more people around the globe join the transnational marriage market, marriage is becoming an increasingly global affair. Yet, transnational marriage migration has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. The present study is focused on post-migration experiences of twenty female marriage migrants from the former Soviet Union married to the U.S. nationals and lawful permanent residents. Through participant observation, the present study investigates the issues related to transnational partner choice and immigrant adjustment of these women. While the majority of informants identified the lack of local marriageable men as the major push factor, women tended to differ significantly with respect to the factors important for their choice of partner. While some stressed the importance of ethnicity and race of their spouse, others did not. The most important finding is that, in order to legitimize their marriage and resist gender oppression both in the domestic and public domains, women produced discourses shaped by the mainstream gender ideology that stigmatizes transnational marriage migrants.

The Use and Abuse of Jus Nexi

This paper uses Shachar’s conception of jus nexi to explore three interrelated ideas. I first contend that Shachar’s analysis of the monetary value of birthright citizenship may be applied to temporary workers, lawful permanent residents and naturalized citizens as an exposé of inherited privilege in diverse communities and as a means of identifying which forms of membership and belonging are worth owning. Second, I use the idea of jus nexi to question which additional work relationships and identity networks that might qualify as genuine connections to a given state. Finally, I question whether an operationalized version of jus nexi, that is an alternative category of citizenship, would supplant or complement existing jus soli and jus sanguinis rules. Here, I seek to apply Shachar’s theoretical contributions to current political debates and warn that a genuine connection test is increasingly being misused to support a nativist agenda.

THE IMPACT OF THE U-VISA ON STOPPING VIOLENCE AGAINST IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN THE USA

BackgroundThe Violence Against Women Act created the U-visa to strengthen the ability of law enforcement to prosecute cases of domestic violence and other violent crimes committed against immigrants who are...

The Relationship of Language Acculturation (English Proficiency) to Current Self-Rated Health Among African Immigrant Adults

Although over 1.5 million African immigrants live in the US, few studies have examined the relationship of language acculturation to health outcomes among African immigrant adults. The primary objective of this research was to investigate the relationship between English proficiency and current self-rated health among African immigrant adults. Using a cross-sectional design, a secondary data analysis was performed on baseline data from the African immigrant adult subsample (n = 763) of the 2003 New Immigrant Survey, a longitudinal study of lawful permanent residents. Limited English proficiency (LEP), increased duration of US residence, older age at immigration, being male, less than 12 years of education, poor pre-migration health, and chronic disease were associated with good/fair/poor current self-rated health. Findings support consideration of pre-migration health and chronic disease in future acculturation and health studies, and provision of linguistically competent interventions for LEP African immigrants at risk for poor health outcomes.