Politics

In this article, we trace the expansion of interior immigration enforcement measures since the 1990s, focusing on the period after the creation of the DHS in 2003. We consider the rationale for escalation of enforcement and its expansion to include local and state law enforcement agencies during this period. We will examine who benefits economically and politically, detailing the role of local jails, private corrections corporations, and the communities that are financially dependent on the prisons industry. Throughout, we consider how the expansion of immigration enforcement has affected US citizen children and spouses of unauthorized immigrants.  We question whether ICE is fulfilling its mandate under the 2011 Morton memo to de-emphasize enforcement against parents, guardians, and children given that the number of detentions and removals in these categories continue to increase. This is imposing unnecessary costs and burdens on ICE’s citizen stakeholders while benefiting private corrections corporations.

In this article, I consider the implications of an ethic of care for reforming U.S. family-based immigration admissions and waiver policies. Using an ethic of care as a starting point, I make a normative argument for extending family-based immigration benefits to the primary caregivers of resident and citizen-children. This policy reform would provide a basis for recognizing the social membership of the children of immigrants and rewarding the dependency work of their deportable parents or other primary caregivers. It would also broaden the definition of family in immigration law to encompass a wider range of caregiving relationships beyond blood and kinship relations.

In this paper, I argue for a restorative justice approach towards regularising the status of long-term residents who entered a country without authorisation or overstayed their visas. Citizens have an interest in enforcing their immigration laws. However, I question the benefit of incarcerating and deporting long-term unauthorised immigrant residents who are willing to make amends for their immigration offences. Here, I examine two possible applications of restorative justice processes as alternatives to deportation for immigration offences: victim-offender mediation where there is an individual victim who is directly harmed by an unauthorised immigrant's use of false documents, and community reparative boards to address the more diffuse harms arising from entering and remaining in a country without authorisation. As alternatives to detention and deportation, these processes may provide unauthorised immigrants an opportunity to make amends for immigration offences and further integrate into their adopted communities.

Canada has stood out for its formal constitutional commitments to equal and expansive citizenship protections (Winter 2013, 100). Canada grants citizenship expansively to most persons born subject to its territorial jurisdiction. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms also treats naturalized and native-born citizens as equals with the same democratic and mobility rights. But new distinctions are emerging that are threatening the equal status and rights of Canadian citizens, regardless of where they live and how they acquired their citizenship. Here, I argue that the reemergence of the dormant norm of citizenship as allegiance has become the primary mechanism for eroding equal citizenship status in Canada. This raises the specter of casting citizens deemed disloyal out from Canada’s protection and supervision. I document the erosion of equal citizenship status and rights in Canada under the guise of protecting native-born mono-citizens from security threats. Dual nationals convicted under treason or terrorism charges by foreign governments for anti-regime activities in that country can be subject to expedited citizenship revocation in Canada. These measures raise the danger of denaturalizing native-born citizens without due process. They also run the risk of exporting Canadian citizens charged with war crimes or terrorism-related offenses to countries that lack the capacity or will to prevent them from reoffending. In the interest of justice, national and international security, Canada has a responsibility not to denaturalize war criminals and terrorists, but rather to ensure they are tried in Canadian courts and detained, if convicted, in Canadian prisons. I conclude by arguing for an amendment to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms explicitly protecting the citizenship rights of all Canadians, whether they received their citizenship by birth or naturalization, or possess another citizenship status.

English: This article highlights the role that US Chamber of Commerce lobbyists and border politicians played in limiting restrictions on Mexican labour migration to the United States in the 1920s. Together, they successfully resisted calls for stricter statutory limitations on the admission of Mexican migrants by emphasizing their economic and civic contributions.

Français: Cet article met en relief le rôle joué par les lobbyistes de la Chambre de commerce des États-Unis et les politiciens des régions frontalières dans la question des restrictions migratoires à la main-d'œuvre mexicaine dans les années 1920. Ensemble, ils ont réussi à empêcher le resserrement des restrictions statutaires touchant l'admission de migrants mexicains, en faisant valoir la contribution économique et civique de ceux-ci.

Today, immigrant individuals toiling with their citizen colleagues in insecure employment that Guy Standing describes as the post-industrial precariat make up the vanguard of the struggle to protect labor rights. 1 Government officials have honored care workers as essential service employees in the COVID-19 pandemic even as they continue to lack many basic labor protections. 2 Immigrant care workers on the frontlines in the service and health care sectors face occupational illness and death with minimal safeguards provided by employers. 3 This paper argues that labor movement activists of the immigrant community are motivated beyond their own self-interest. These workers are motivated by the well-being of the mixed-citizenship communities where they have laid down roots. 4 Their exemplary citizenship is exhibited by their willingness to assume the risks that come with labor organizing, including wage losses, termination of

In this article we trace the expansion of interior immigration enforcement measures since the 1990s, focusing on the period after the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003. We consider the rationale for the escalation of enforcement during this period, as well as the expansion of enforcement to include local and state law enforcement agencies. Detailing in particular the role of local jails, private corrections corporations, and the communities that are financially dependent on the prison industry, the article also examines who benefits economically and politically from these changes. Throughout, we consider how the expansion of immigration enforcement has affected U.S. citizen children and spouses of unauthorized immigrants. We question whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is fulfilling its mandate to de-emphasize enforcement against parents, guardians, and children given that the number of detentions and removals in these categories c...

Birthright citizenship is the subject of intense political debate in the United States because of its connection to the debate over unauthorised immigration and the inclusion of national minorities. Similar debates have taken place in other common law countries, leading to the restriction of jus soli birthright citizenship in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. The Supreme Court of the United States and United States Department of State's interpretation of the Citizenship Clause in § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment ensures that all 'persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States', including the children of unauthorised immigrants. This article argues that the rule of jus soli birthright citizenship in the United States is rooted in an older understanding of the birthright of native-born British subjects, and later, American citizens, to enjoy the birthright of protections and an ever-expanding set of rights based on where they were born, regardless of the status of their parents. Stated in a way that included the children of slaves and immigrants as citizens based on their birthplace alone, jus soli birthright citizenship in the United States remains a powerful tool of inclusion for marginalised minority groups.

In North America, a major impediment to Indigenous sovereignty and treaty rights to free movement involves the reticence of the Canadian government on the U.S.-Canada border, and the U.S. government on the U.S.-Mexico border, to allow Indigenous people the right to travel to live and work on both sides of a frontier imposed by settler states. In this article, I argue for enhanced mobility rights for all members of Indigenous polities in North America across the borders that divide their ancestral homelands, with the option to acquire citizenship in each country that has jurisdiction over their nation’s territory. This policy intervention would facilitate interaction, cultural exchange, and trade across militarized frontiers. Enhanced mobility rights across settler state borders for Indigenous peoples would serve as a form of rectification for past treatment that coercively constituted the identities of the affected tribes, without forcing them to accept another settler state’s sovereignty claims.

The political theology of Rev. John Witherspoon (1723-1794) had a profound impact on the development of ideas on religion and government during the Founding Period as a prominent educator, clergyman, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence. This paper uncovers the far-reaching impact of Witherspoon's political theology during America's struggle for independence. Witherspoon shaped the views on religious liberty of his prominent students and colleagues including James Madison and Benjamin Rush. Witherspoon's understanding of religious liberty was shaped by his view that the government should encourage popular piety through moral education while avoiding sectarian religious establishments.

With a focus on immigration regulation policies and their impact on vulnerable populations, our primary task is to interrogate and explore the ways in which the state mediates and controls the membership and movement of people across national boundaries and within the territory of the nation-state, both historically and in the contemporary era. We will also consider the impact of migrant settlement and state bordering practices on the Indigenous nations of North America, including those who remain in their territories, and those forced to seek asylum in the US or Canada.

Constraining high emissions discretionary travel is an essential part of climate change mitigation. This working paper contends that the time has come for governments to require businesses and private citizens to reduce discretionary travel and minimize emissions where travel cannot be avoided. In the near-term, technology alone cannot solve the problem when alternative energy projects often rely on resource extraction projects that have their own ecological and public health costs, particularly for disadvantaged mining communities. To limit emissions resulting from discretionary travel, we must apply the lessons we have learned from pandemic mitigation practices about how to work and meet for business purposes remotely. Here, I begin by surveying the scientific evidence about the damage caused by travel related greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Second, I examine the lessons that we can apply from pandemic mitigation practices towards combating transport emissions. In the process, I draw distinctions between discretionary and necessary travel that serves human rights interests that should be exempt from quotas and rations. Third, I cover the challenges of reducing ground transport emissions in countries with low population densities like Canada that are dependent on automobile transportation. Fourth, I highlight the contribution of wealthy knowledge workers to overall travel emissions and proposals for reducing the environmental impact of their activities with remote work and flight rationing. I conclude by considering the implications of maintaining features of a remote work-based economy to meet the exigencies of the climate emergency.