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Tip
Sheet: Business, Law & Economics Tip sheets highlight timely news and events at Washington University in St. Louis. For more information on any of the stories below or for assistance in arranging interviews, please see the contact information listed with each story. For comments on the Business, Law & Economics news tips service, please contact the editor, Robert Batterson at (314) 935-5202 or batterson@olin.wustl.edu. Sept. 11 impact on U.S. immigration policy is far-reaching Media assistance: Jessica Roberts - (314) 935-5251 Source: Stephen Legomsky's Web page - (314) 935-6469 [St. Louis, Mo., September 2002] - In the United States, few areas of public policy have been as fundamentally transformed as immigration since the events of Sept. 11, says Stephen H. Legomsky, J.D., D.Phil., the Charles F. Nagel Professor of International and Comparative Law at Washington University in St. Louis and an internationally recognized expert on immigration and refugee law and policy.
"In one day, all of that changed. Never has there been a time when counterterrorism has so monopolized public decisionmaking in this vital area." Legomsky offers numerous examples. "One consequence of Sept. 11 is what didn't happen," says Legomsky. "Before that day, the persistent efforts of President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox appeared likely to produce both an expanded U.S.-Mexico guest worker program and some form of amnesty for several million undocumented migrants. In the space of hours, those projects crumbled." But it is the new or refocused changes in immigration policy since Sept. 11 that most concern Legomsky, who is the author of one of the nation's leading course books on immigration law, Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy. Under the Bush administration's proposal, a new Department of Homeland Security would absorb the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Legomsky appreciates the importance of coordinating all the national counterterrorism efforts, including immigration. He doubts, however, that a department whose sole concern is security would appropriately balance the myriad missions that immigration entails and accord proper respect to the fundamental individual liberties at stake for both U.S. citizens and immigrants. Sept. 11 also has renewed the volatile debate over racial profiling, a practice that before that date had attracted increased public disapproval. Since Sept. 11, various forms of racial profiling have become core elements of the government's counterterrorism strategies. In June 2002 Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that temporary visitors from certain Middle East countries would be routinely fingerprinted upon arrival and thereafter required to report periodically to the INS for inspection. "The issue is not an easy one," Legomsky acknowledges. "Crediting the statistical correlations between acts of terrorism and particular groups is not irrational, but the gains have to be balanced against the stigma and unfairness to the innocent individuals who bear the brunt of the profiling." Some of the responses to Sept. 11 have targeted foreign students. Upon learning that one of the 19 hijackers had entered the United States on a student visa, California Sen. Diane Feinstein proposed a six-month moratorium on the admission of all foreign students. "While cooler heads prevailed," Legomsky says, the government dramatically slowed down the processing of student visas, with the result that large numbers of applicants have been unable to attend the U.S. schools to which they had been accepted. The INS also has proposed limiting the stays of most foreign tourists to 30 days, rather than the present norm of six months. Using a combination of old and new powers, the Bush administration also has begun to detain noncitizens for indefinite time periods on suspicion of terrorist involvement, refusing to reveal the identities of the detainees, notes Legomsky. "Like President Bush's order to prosecute certain alleged terrorists in military tribunals rather than civilian courts, the indefinite detention of noncitizens, including lawful permanent residents, without charges or trial is troubling," Legomsky adds. Of all the immigration-related aftereffects of Sept. 11, Legomsky is most concerned about the implications for refugees. "Refugee processing ground to a halt after Sept. 11," he notes. "At a time when millions of refugees are at risk of death and malnutrition overseas, the United States is on track to admit the fewest refugees since the inception of the program in 1980." |
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