Santa Clara Law Santa Clara Law Digital Commons Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 1-1-2012 The mpI ortance of the Political in Immigration Federalism Pratheepan Gulasekaram Santa Clara University School of Law,
[email protected] S. Karthick Ramakrishnan Arizona State University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/facpubs Part of the Law Commons Automated Citation Pratheepan Gulasekaram and S. Karthick Ramakrishnan, The Importance of the Political in Immigration Federalism (2012), Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/facpubs/602 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE POLITICAL IN IMMIGRATION FEDERALISM S. Karthick Ramakrishnan* ** Pratheepan Gulasekaram ABSTRACT This Article provides a systematic, empirical investigation of the genesis of state and local immigration regulations, discrediting the popular notion that they are caused by uneven demographic pressures across the country. It also proffers a novel theory to explain the proliferation of these policies and queries the implications of this new model for federalism analysis. The story we tell in this paper is both political and legal; understanding immigration politics uncovers vital truths about the recent rise of subnational involvement in a policy arena that courts and commentators have traditionally ascribed to the federal government. Thus, this article connects the proliferation of state and local regulation with the extra- constitutional political institutions and key policy actors who prominently influence both federal and subfederal immigration lawmaking but who remain obscured in traditional, apolitical accounts.