Crimmigration: The Intersection of Immigration and Criminal Law Tuesdays: 1:30-4:15pm Room 306 Professor Yolanda Vázquez 513-556-0022 (office) Office: 402 Office Hours: by appointment yolanda.vazquez@uc.edu This course will focus on the historical and current relationship between criminal and immigration law. The seminar will look at the intersection both in the criminal justice system as well as immigration court system. It will proceed in two parts. First, it will focus on procedural and substantive law. The goal during this part of the seminar is for students to gain a practical knowledge to take a non-citizen defendant from his arrest in the criminal system through his immigration proceeding with the ability to understand the consequences of the criminal conviction to his immigration status. Therefore, this part will focus on specific grounds of deportation and inadmissibility related to criminal conduct; analyzing the Immigration and Nationality Act, criminal law, and pertinent case law. This part will include topics such as mandatory detention, aggravated felonies, divisible statutes, crimes of moral turpitude, and Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Second, it will focus on policy. The course will discuss current federal, state and local governmental immigration policies; including immigration raids, cooperation between local law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security as well as and local ordinances aimed at businesses and employers. Policy discussions will include issues of race, national origin, and ethnicity and its relationship, if any, to the increased use of the criminal justice system to enforce immigration law on national security and public safety grounds. This section will address topics including Secure Communities, 287(g), Operation Streamline and state and local immigration legislation such as Arizona s SB 1070. Course Objective This course will provide students with an understanding of the substance and application of federal immigration law and its intersection with criminal law. In addition, the course will allow students to explore the policy choices that influence the current structure of crimmigration and to consider possible options for reform. By the end of the course, students should be comfortable working through the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) as it pertains to criminal violations as well as federal violations that incorporate immigration violations as an element of the crime. Students should be able to answer questions about the likely options and outcomes in crimmigration cases.
Page 2 of 6 1. Required Course Material ALEINIKOFF, MARTIN AND MOTOMURA, EDS., IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES: SELECTED STATUTES, REGULATIONS AND FORMS (West Publishing 2012) (must be purchased) Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations (may be purchased or obtained electronically) There is no casebook for this emerging area of law. In some parts of the course, for example, when we study the criminal inadmissibility and deportation grounds under the U.S. s Immigration and Nationality Act, you can expect to read statutes and cases; in other segments, we will rely more heavily on secondary material such as cases, law review and newspaper articles. All these materials will be accessible to download electronically on Westlaw or TWEN. You should note that the reading may be substantial at times. 2. Websites There are several websites that might be of interest to you as you progress through the course: Bender s Immigration Bulletin (http://www.bibdaily.com/) a. Contains a mix of immigration news, opinions, and case law updates. Interpreter Releases (available on Westlaw) a. Analyzes the legislative, judicial and administrative weekly developments concerning immigration and nationality law. The Law Offices of Norton Tooby website (http://nortontooby.com/resources) a. Provides a collection of information on the intersection of criminal and immigration law. CrImmigration Blog (http://crimmigration.com/) a. Practical analysis about the immigration consequences of criminal violations. Immigration Blog (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/) a. Provides information on legal developments in immigration, policy developments affecting immigrants and immigrant communities, and immigration humor. The Migration Policy Institute (http://www.migrationpolicy.org) a. Provides a number of useful reports on immigration. Pew Research Hispanic Center (http://www.pewhispanic.org/) a. Nonpartisan source of data and analysis on issues affecting Latinos such as immigration, citizenship, and education. 2
Page 3 of 6 3. TWEN and Clickers As stated above, materials will be available on TWEN. You will also turn in assignments via the assignments page on TWEN. All students are required to register for the course s TWEN website during the first week of class. Important class announcements also will be emailed via TWEN, so when you register please use an email address that you check regularly. Some classes will be using materials that require the use of clickers. Please be sure to have your clickers with you in every class. 4. Laptops Laptops are NOT permitted in class. In addition, use of cellphones or other electronic devices is prohibited. Use of cell phones or other technological devices during class will result in penalties to a student s participation grade. 5. Office Hours and Emailing the Professor My office hours are by appointment. I am happy to meet with you at any time. To schedule an appointment email me with a few times that you are available. Feel free to contact me by email with logistical questions such as expected absences or scheduling an appointment to see me. However, substantive questions always require a longer and deeper explanation than can be appropriately addressed in an email. For this reason, no substantive questions sent to me via email will be answered but I will happily discuss them with you in person during a scheduled appointment. 6. Grades Your grade will consist of four components, explained more fully below: Engagement 25% Questions (5 questions) 10% 5 Reflective Response Papers 25% In-Class Presentation 40% A. Engagement: I am using this term in lieu of the usual attendance and participation, because I think it better describes what is being assessed with this component of your grade. Each student is expected to be appropriately engaged as a participant throughout the semester. This includes being present, doing the assigned reading, participating in class discussion, and meeting deadlines. Please notify me in advance if you know you will be absent from class; if you are unable to do so, let me know after class of the reason you were absent. Unexcused late attendance is disruptive to the class and will count as an absence. I reserve the 3
Page 4 of 6 discretion to refuse to give credit for the course if you have missed more than two scheduled classes. B. Questions: All students are required to post a thoughtful question about the week s reading to the course discussion board by 10:00 AM on Monday of the week it is written for. Your question should present an issue for the week s inclass discussion. Late questions will not count toward your five question total. For those writing a response paper for that week s reading, your question can be derived from your reflective response paper for that week. C. Reflective Response Papers: Each student will be required to submit five reflective papers during the semester. Because these are reflective papers, it will be graded on a 1 to 5 scale. Only one response paper is allowed per week. Each week s response paper must be submitted to the seminar s online document drop box by 10:00 AM on Tuesday of the week it is written for. In order to get credit for a response paper, you must attend the class when we discuss the reading. D. Classroom Presentation: Each student will select a topic to present either an alternative solution to an area of crimmigration that you feel needs to be changed or a particular law, policy or topic that you have learned during class that particularly draws your attention. The presentation will be 20 minutes; 15 minutes for the presentation itself and 5 minutes for questions. You also may work with a partner. The team presentation will be 30 minutes: 25 minutes for the presentation with 5 minutes for questions. You will be required to submit your topic and a brief abstract to me by March 13, 2013. You will be responsible for distributing any materials in advance and a copy of all the materials that you wish to be used in your presentation grade prior to your presentation. 7. Deadlines and Paper Submissions Please note that late work will not be accepted. Therefore, any assignments received after the deadline will be given a zero (0). For written work, see the Paper Assignment Expectations handout for further instructions. 8. Reading Assignments The course schedule (posted on TWEN) is designed as a guide to the class. I may, at times, need to change class assignments and I will do so by an in-class announcement or revision to the course schedule. As a general rule, we will cover one assignment in each class period, although I may cover less or more, depending on class discussion. Unless I instruct you otherwise, you are expected to read the next day s assignment even if we do not completely cover the previous day s assignment in class. 4
Page 5 of 6 Due to time constraints, we may not discuss everything that you have read. However, you are still responsible for all assigned reading. You are also responsible for understanding the sections of the INA that I have included as part of certain reading assignments. As noted above, readings may be substantial at times. 9. Course Outline Introduction Basics of Immigration Law Surveying the Intersection of Immigration Law and Criminal Law A. Unit 1: Criminals in the Immigration System Criminal Violations and the Immigration Statute Overview: Structure of the Statute; Criminal Grounds of Inadmissibility and Deportation Drug Offenses Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude Aggravated Felony Convictions Relief from crime-based removal Prosecutorial Discretion Cancellation of Removal Waivers Adjustment of Status 212(c) relief Spring Break No Class B. Unit II: Immigrants in the Criminal Justice System Federal Immigration Crimes: Immigration Violations and the Criminal Code (Week 5) Prosecuting Noncitizens for Immigration Violations and Other Offenses Smuggling and Harboring Federal Littering Statutes Operation Streamline The Constitutional Import of the Civil Regulatory and Criminal Justice Models (Week 6) Preventive Detention Right to Counsel in Criminal and Immigration Proceedings Padilla v. Kentucky Chaidez v. United States 5
Page 6 of 6 C. Unit III: Enforcing Crimmigration Introduction of the History of Race, Immigration Status and Crime in Immigration Law The Constitutional Backdrop: Introduction to the Plenary Power Doctrine Citizenship History and Criminalization of Unauthorized Migration Historical Overview of the Unauthorized Immigrant Militarization of the Border Labor and Unauthorized Immigration i. Prosecuting Employees 1. The Raids: New Bedford, Pilgrims Pride and Postville ii. Prosecuting Employers: Obama s Alternative to Workplace Raids Unauthorized Immigrants and Birthright Citizenship Unauthorized Immigrants and Marriage Unauthorized Minors in the United States and at the border i. Education State Involvement in Immigration Law and its Enforcement The role of state and local law enforcement in arrest and removal of immigration violators Secure Communities Sanctuary Cities Criminal Alien Program Arizona s SB 1070 Alabama HB 56 Hazelton s Ordinance DHS 287(g) Memorandum of Understanding between DHS and local law enforcement Racial Profiling in Enforcement Immigration Imprisonment Private Prison Growth of Immigration Imprisonment Alternatives to Detention Deportees, Receiving Countries, and Their Families After Removal Employment Remittances Incarceration Treatment Socioeconomic Status 6