Immigration Enforcement, Plenary Power Doctrine and Withering Constitutional Norms: Appraisal through Philosophy of Immigration

• In Event: Legal Doctrines and Their Political Effects

Abstract

The paper appraises the perceptions of procedural justice in the United States (US) towards non-citizens regarding immigration enforcement and detention. The paper argues that sovereign states’ immigration enforcement and detention should be qualified by constitutional norms and in compliance with international bill of human rights. The paper brings discussion about violations of the US Constitution, and the international human rights law given the present crisis of border mostly created by local government state of the US. Hence, to develop the formation of paper’s arguments, the issues of plenary power doctrine and constitutional democracy are brought into discussion.

In the United States, the immigration issues are mostly adjudicated by the administrative courts. Furthermore, the courts’ decisions on immigration cases and local state legislatures’ aggressive Senate bills and laws against non-citizens enumerate a bitter backdrop that constitutional rights enshrined in the Constitution of the United States are not available nor affordable to non-citizens. With this in mind, paper further argues that plenary power doctrine is exercised in unjustifiable manner regarding immigration enforcement and immigration detention.

With an aim to contribute to the literature of public law and political philosophy, the prospective paper focuses on the lesser explored notion of internal immigration enforcement qualified by international bill of human rights and constitutional norms. The arguments of the prospective paper take up two issues in discussion. Border and immigration policy should be compliance with constitutional norms and principles of human rights; and constitutional democracy should be given priority over immigration and non-citizen issues.

Author

• Mohammad Rubaiyat Rahman, University of Texas at El Paso