On Tuesday, Sept. 18, Professor Anna Law of Brooklyn College spoke to the Hamilton community about immigration and its significance on Constitution Day. Law is the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights at CUNY Brooklyn and is an expert on issues in immigration, legal institutions, and gender-based asylum. Her lecture, titled “A Nation of Immigrants No More?: Trump, Immigration, and the Constitution,” drew on her previous research.
Law has worked extensively on topics involving immigration reform and the federal judiciary. Her first book,
The Immigration Battle in American Courts
, examines the relationship between the federal judiciary and legal institutions and U.S. immigration policy. She used her research from this book to examine how the Supreme Court interacts with the Trump administration. Her second book explores immigration federalism and slavery, featuring recent research on gender-based asylum and the number of women applying for protection, which was funded by the National Science Foundation.
Law has also worked with the Department of Homeland Security reviewing grant proposals for universities to study immigration, presented research on immigration policy to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and served as a program analyst for the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform in the 1990s.
Law’s lecture established a critical framework through which to assess the constitutionality of President Trump’s immigration policies. Focusing on two of the Trump administration’s controversial proposals, the border wall and the migrant detention, Law argued that mere constitutionality is too low a bar for assessing policies. The policies, she said, should instead be assessed in terms of their effectiveness and opportunity costs.
Law began her lecture by differentiating between Trump’s restrictionist agenda and prior administrations, arguing that Trump’s presidency diverges from those of past presidents, as it was built completely on an anti-immigrant platform. She noted that the Trump administration has already carried out 100 administrative changes to U.S. immigrant proposals and continues to push for stricter policies. Trump, she said, has framed immigration as a largely punitive issue and ignores the economic and cultural factors also at play.
“Immigration is a billion-dollar industry,” said Law. “The industry includes tourism, student exchange programs, and cultural exchange. Rather than trying to keep out those who will do harm, Trump aims to keep everyone out, which will largely eliminate the positive aspects of immigration.”
Law was also critical of Congress’s response to Trump’s immigration policies, saying, “The framers who wrote our U.S. Constitution anticipated someone like Trump — someone who is vain, someone who does not have the country’s best interest in mind. What they did not anticipate was a Senate that refuses to do their job and remains complacent throughout Trump’s immigration ‘reform.’”
Law argued that Trump’s administration has shown disregard for the rule of law, as the president believes himself to be above it and able to escape accountability.
One of Trump’s hallmark policies is the border wall. After claiming that drug dealers and terrorists are crossing the southern border into the U.S., Trump has argued that a border wall would halt the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country. Law argued that Trump’s approach to building the wall disregards the rule of law, citing his declaration of a national emergency in February 2019 that allowed him to pull funds from different areas of the government to fund the wall.
Law also took issue with the idea that illegal border crossings are the source of undocumented immigration. “40 percent of undocumented immigrants are immigration ‘reform.’”
Law argued that Trump’s administration has shown disregard for the rule of law, as the president believes himself to be above it and able to escape accountability.
One of Trump’s hallmark policies is the border wall. After claiming that drug dealers and terrorists are crossing the southern border into the U.S., Trump has argued that a border wall would halt the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country. Law argued that Trump’s approach to building the wall disregards the rule of law, citing his declaration of a national emergency in February 2019 that allowed him to pull funds from different areas of the government to fund the wall.
Law also took issue with the idea that illegal border crossings are the source of undocumented immigration. “40 percent of undocumented immigrants are from visa overstays. Building a wall will not stop undocumented immigration, but impose a massive cost on U.S. taxpayers,” she said. “Additionally, most of the mass shooters we see everyday are domestic terrorists and white nationalists. 73 percent of mass shootings are right-wing extremists. The $15–25 billion dollar wall will not make us safer.”
Law argued that the constitutionality of an act is too low of a standard if the policy is neither effective in stopping illegal immigration nor making the country safer.
The lecture then switched its focus to migrant detention at the border. Detention centers, she argues, do not deter migrants from arriving at the border. Rather, they divert large sums of money to the costs of detention and cause extensive psychological damage to those who are incarcerated. Detaining migrants at the border, she said, does not address the reasons why people are leaving their countries.
Law reiterated that most migrants who arrive at the border seek asylum and are desperate to leave their home countries in Central America to escape violence. Much of the money used to support the detention centers comes from FEMA disaster relief funds, which limits the funds available to respond to natural disasters.
“Each child detained by the U.S. government is costing taxpayers $775 per person every single day,” said Law. “$271 million has already been shifted from FEMA to Border Operations right at the onslaught of Puerto Rico’s catastrophic storms. He is intentionally separating families and telling detained children that their parents abandoned them. This has drastic psychological consequences.”
After discussing the two main immigration policies of the Trump administration, Law briefly compared Trump’s policies to those of the Obama administration. While President Obama deported almost 3 million immigrants during his time in office, Law said these actions differ from Trump’s agenda, which is defined by its anti-immigrant stance and rhetoric to dehumanize those seeking asylum. Law added that Trump has taken advantage of existing issues in the U.S.’s immigration system to push his policy agenda.
“Trump broke an already broken system by taking advantage of partisan disagreements. What does effective immigration reform look like after this?” she said. “Immigrant judges don’t have job security — they aren’t appointed for life and they can be removed from their position if the Attorney General disagrees with their stances. The judiciary is the only branch that is striking down his extreme policies, but the system is working against them.”
Law argued that it will take an egregious due process violation for the Supreme Court to contradict the President or Congress. She stated her belief that immigrants have a better chance of winning in a lower court, but acknowledged that the cost of appeals and attorneys remains a barrier for many immigrants.
At the end of her lecture, Law implored the Hamilton community to remain involved and engaged in immigration issues. Despite the consistent attention the topic requires, she said the only way to fix the broken immigration system is to vote in elections, lobby to congresspeople, and peacefully protest, adding that the families most affected by immigration policies are those that do not have the privilege of tuning it out.
Law’s final remark was a call to action, noting that for many in the area in and around the College, these issues are increasingly visible. Utica and the surrounding communities have large refugee populations whose livelihoods could be threatened by current and proposed policies of the Trump administration.
Constitution Day commemorates the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787 and recognizes the importance of active citizenship. At Hamilton, the Constitution Day lecture is sponsored by the Office of the President, the Government Department, and the Victor S. “Torry” Johnson ’71 Fund.
