2011 Articles

Deportation, Due Process, and Deference: Recent Developments in Immigration Law

Paige, Sarah

The American immigration adjudication system has witnessed profound change in recent years. Starting in the 1980s, a series of legislative and administrative shifts has produced an immigration adjudication system that increasingly mirrors the criminal justice system. This phenomenon, termed the "criminalization of immigration,” reflects a paradigm shift in the discourse on immigration law and policy. Historically focused on the exclusion and removal of the undocumented, immigration law and policy now increasingly prioritize removal of non-citizens with any criminal history. These developments have both revealed and exacerbated internal tensions in the Supreme Court’s treatment of immigration law, leading to a moment of unparalleled dissonance between the Supreme Court’s doctrine on immigration and the reality of the American immigration enforcement and adjudication systems.