In response to the perceived growing problem of the influx of illegal immigrants, Congress passed the Illegal Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). The IIRIRA was enacted to address the legal and illegal aspects of immigration. Signifcantly, the IIRIRA is an attempt to elminiate the ability of federal courts from reviewing agency decisions regarding the removal of aliens convicted of crimes (Medina, 1997, p. 1525). While a criminal alient could previously appeal an adverse agency decision to a federal court, the IIRIRA largely serves to prevent courts from granting such discretionary relief from agency removal orders (Medina, 1997, p. 1525).
While immigration policy is usually a federal matter, a provision of the IIRIRA encourages cooperation between federal, state, and local law enforement in immigration enforcement (Larson, 2012, p. 815). The IIRIRA enables state and local governments to assist the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency in identifying illegal immigrants (Illegal Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, § 287(g)). In response to the IIRIRA, numerous US cities have adopted sanctuary policies. Cities such as Chicago, Illinois, San Francisco, California and Katy, Texas enacted these sanctuary policies to prevent police from inquiring about the immigration status of arrestees and to help prevent prosecution of undocumented immigrants in the United States.
The problem with these sanctuary policies is that they have significant political, social and economic implications. There is inherent tension between federal immigration law and state sanctuary policies that bar police from inquiring about the legal status of aliens. For example, the IIRIRA expressly prevents government officials from “prohibit[ing], orrestrict[ing], any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration statusof any individual” (Illegal Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, § 642(a)). Because the federal immigration law and these state-enacted sanctuary policies are potentially in conflict with each other, the future of immigration law is unclear. A policy analysis will address the current and potential problems that these sanctuary policies have on the United States’ current illegal immigration dilemma and will propose feasible solutions as to what can be done to establish policies that are more consistent with the goals of federal immigration law.
References
Illegal Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Pub.L. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546
(1996).
Larson, M.J. (2012). The right u.s. immigration enforcement solutioin: “Make haste slowly.”
Medina, M.I. (1997). Judicial review—A nice thing? Article III, separation of powers and the
illegal immigrant reform and immigrant responsibility act of 1996. Connecticut Law
Review, 1525-1562.
