“When Did U.S. Migration Enforcement Begin?”

About the event: In the Supreme Court’s recent Trump v Barbara opinion on birthright citizenship, Justice Alito’s asserted in his dissent that before and soon after the Civil War “immigration was unrestricted, so aliens could come and stay as long as they wanted.” Historical evidence does not confirm his claim. Though there were few federal laws in that period, a phalanx of state-level laws restricted the international and interstate migration of free and enslaved Black people and indigent migrants. Professor Anna Law, a scholar of US immigration and constitutional history, is the author of a timely new book that addresses these subjects.

About Anna Law: 

Anna O. Law is the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights and Professor of Political Science at the City of University of New York, Brooklyn College. Her PhD in Government is from the University of Texas, Austin. She is an interdisciplinary scholar of U.S. migration and constitutional law and history. Her research is published in political science, history, and law journals. Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship, her recent book, was cited in a “friend of the court” brief in defense of birthright citizenship in Trump v Barbara. 

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Sponsored By:

• William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law
• Bernard & Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights & Justice
• Immigration Clinic