The New Immigration Federalism Quotes

“Continued reliance on preemption analysis suppresses judicial attention to the discrimination and equality concerns that should be motivating courts' consideration of subfederal immigration regulations.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism

“This mostly restrictionist trend reached an important pivot in 2012. Three major developments prompted this change in direction and momentum. First, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Arizona v. United States opinion, delivering its most consequential decision on the limits of state authority in immigration in three decades. Rejecting several provisions of Arizona's controversial omnibus immigration enforcement bill, SB 1070, the opinion nevertheless still left open possibilities for state and local involvement. Second, President Barack Obama, against the backdrop of a stalemate in comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) in Congress and contentious debates over the role of the federal executive in immigration enforcement, instituted the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) program, providing administrative relief and a form of lawful presence to hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth. Finally, Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate whose platform supported laws like Arizona's and called them a model for the rest of the country, lost his bid for the White House with especially steep losses among Latinos and immigrant voters. After these events in 2012, restrictive legislation at the state level waned in frequency, and a growing number of states began to pass laws aimed at the integration of unauthorized immigrants. As this book goes to press, this integrationist trend is still continuing.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism

“During the summer of 2001, [FAIR] played a supportive role in advising local activists in Iowa who were mobilizing against Governor Tom Vilsack's Model Cities program to create "immigration enterprise zones" to address the state's chronic labor shortages.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism

“Through the prism of national security and homeland sanctity, entrepreneurs successfully moved explicit racial and cultural reasons for restriction from the fringe of political discussion to the mainstream.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism

“NumbersUSA's work was critical to derailing the 2007 comprehensive federal immigration bill, which had, at that point, received the support of President Buch, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the high-tech industry, the Catholic Church, immigrant-advocacy organizations, and several industries reliant on immigration labor, including farming, food services, and construction. During the weeks leading up to the floor vote on the bill, NumbersUSA coordinated weekly phone calls with the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, mobilized its members to engage key senators, and provided those senators with information and arguments necessary to oppose the bill. Several actors, including pro-immigrant advocates, restrictionists, and members of Congress, have credited NumbersUSA with causing the collapse of the bill in the Senate.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism

“Laws ostensibly directed at undocumented immigrants inevitably affect the treatment of lawfully present immigrants and citizens who share the ethnic, racial, or national origin characteristics of undocumented immigrants.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism

“Notably, during this era, the notion of illegal immigration did not conjure the same political and legal consequences that it would after 1965 [...] The southern border of the United States was not militarized or guarded in the manner it would become in the late twentieth century, and seasonal, uncapped migration from Mexico was an accepted and expected labor reality.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism

“States were barred from financing their immigration systems with specific taxes on immigrants and transportation companies, leaving the continued existence of these state institutions to the general state fisc or the generosity of private charitable organizations interested in immigrant welfare and integration. The resource strain on states and charitable organizations placed enormous pressure on Congress to enact federal law.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism

“The 1790 Naturalization law determined that "free white persons" could naturalize after two years of residency, and established that the children of citizens would also be citizens. Soon after, in 1795, Congress extended the residency period to five years, and in 1798 extended the residency requirement even further, to fourteen years.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism

“[...] we argue against the false equivalency of viewing anti-immigrant and pro-integration laws in the same light: the former often play on misperception and group stereotypes and explicitly call out particular groups for differential treatment. By contrast, many of the integrationist measures passed by state legislatures have couched their policies in universalistic terms, and often do not make reference to particular classes of persons.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism

“[...] equality and nondiscrimination norms should play a greater role in assessments of both federal and subfederal immigration law. As such, we view certain restrictionist laws with greater skepticism than integrationist efforts.”
― Pratheepan Gulasekaram, The New Immigration Federalism