Against the Flow: Differentiating Between Public Opposition to the Immigration Stock and Flow

Vast research on immigration lumps together native citizens' attitudes toward two different groups: the immigrant stock of non-naturalized resident aliens, and the immigrant flow, that is, the future arrival of foreigners seeking to enter and live in the country. Does popular opposition to immigration distinguish between the two, and if so, how? This article analyzes theoretically the reasons the stock and flow might induce different views among natives, and presents experimental evidence from the United States showing that natives are systematically more accepting of the former. The analysis indicates that this ‘stock premium’ partly stems from a sense of moral obligation toward people residing in the country. Replicating two widely cited experiments, the study shows that the stock–flow distinction has important implications for the interpretation of earlier findings on immigration attitudes, and for understanding voter preferences regarding policies designed to curtail immigration.

Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security for Whom? IRS Overreaches in Denying CARES Act Economic Impact Payments to Migrant Workers and Incarcerated Individuals

Individuals who received advance refunds under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act met the eligibility criteria in their 2019 tax filings (or 2018 filings if they had not yet filed 2019 taxes). Advance refunds are treated as a refund of an overpayment of 2018 or 2019 taxes. Subsequent changes in tax filing status in 2020 do not retroactively make one ineligible for an advance refund. On May 6, the IRS issued guidance on its Economic Impact Payment Information Center website instructing incarcerated individuals and certain resident aliens that they should return the economic impact payments (also called advance refunds or stimulus payments) they received from the IRS. This guidance is not legally binding for two distinct reasons. First, it was issued without conforming to the procedural requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. Second, the guidance exceeded the IRS’s rule-making authority because it contradicts unambiguous statutory language.

Apportionment, Allegiance, and Birthright Citizenship

Trump v. New York appears to present the Supreme Court with a simple question of statutory construction: do federal statutes allow the President to exclude unlawfully resident aliens from the apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives? The President claims that they do. A three-judge District Court ruled that they do not.However, many arguments for the President go further and assert that the Constitution supports or even compels the exclusion. Some are historical, like the argument that no federal law restricted immigration before 1875, or that apportionment historically included aliens only because they were on a path to citizenship. Others assert that unlawfully present aliens should not be counted because they are outside the allegiance, jurisdiction, and polity of the United States. Some even utilize discredited theories that reject birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of aliens. This Article rebuts those arguments and shows constitutional history supporting inclusion in the decennial apportionment. It demonstrates that the arguments ignore early federal, state, and colonial restrictions on immigration and naturalization and are inconsistent with fundamental constitutional principles governing apportionment, liability for treason, and birthright citizenship.Because these arguments reach far beyond the apportionment issue and threaten to surreptitiously alter longstanding constitutional law, the Court should disregard them and decide the case on statutory rather than constitutional grounds. If instead the Court addresses these arguments, it should reject them and reaffirm longstanding principles governing apportionment, liability for treason, and birthright citizenship.

Latin American Liberation Theology as a Response to Deuteronomy

A conversation leading to a mutual conversion between Deuteronomy and its readers in Latin America is no more than fifty years old. Most scholars in South America—and from these, an overwhelming majority of males—have looked at certain texts in search of answers for their concerns—poverty, tithing, resident aliens, migrants, ecology, or interreligious relationships—rather than at Deuteronomy in its own right: Both Deuteronomy and Latin American biblical scholars have conversed with each other and have undergone conversion because of such conversations. That Deuteronomy has the potential to convert us does not need much explanation within churchgoers or theological people. That Latin American scholars make Deuteronomy’s conversion possible might not be self-evident. I mean it in two ways. First, in order to have a conversation, both partners must listen to each other, and such listening brings in possible changes or, at least, respect for the dialogue partner. Secondly, Deuteronomy becomes the object of multiple readings and in that sense, when read from Latin America, it becomes a different Deuteronomy, so to speak, from an African, European, queer, or any other Deuteronomy.

Resident Aliens

This chapter opens up with a short story written in 1941 by a Dutch writer, which tells of a young Javanese man named Karto and his encounter with an old Arabian. The depiction of the Arab man as a vulture suggests that Arabs in the Dutch Indies were opportunistic scavengers always ready to pounce on the spoils of Natives' misfortunes and prey on their presumed naiveté. The chapter sees how the identities of the Arabs became more rooted in prejudice as Dutch jurisdictions hardened. Drawing upon these prejudices, Dutch legal authorities intensely cultivated the exclusion of Arabs from the bulk of the Native population from the mid-nineteenth century onward. The chapter also outlines the impact of divided Foreign Orientals and scattered Arabs in the Netherlands Indies over a huge geographical expanse across several thousand islands in the colony. Ultimately, the chapter analyses how the property fell into the hands of Foreign Orientals through various mechanisms such as inheritance, powers of attorney, and transfer of debt.

Identities, Quandaries, and Emotions

The issue of transborder mobility posed a dilemma for U.S. labor organizations and for border communities that embraced workers, customers, and family connections from Mexico. Labor leaders including Ernesto Galarza of the National Farm Labor Union (NFLU) and César Chávez of the United Farm Workers (UFW) had to find ways of protecting U.S. citizen workers and yet humanely addressing the plight of resident aliens, permitted commuters, and undocumented workers from Mexico. Their strategies involved knowledge production and had to accommodate emotions. The article focuses on the Imperial-Mexicali borderlands, 1950s–1970s.

Social Justice

This chapter surveys biblical laws relevant to social power and the distribution of resources and addresses challenges of assessing the legislation and finding potential for the application of its principles within the modern world. The goal of social justice in biblical law is not to overturn the existing social order but to preserve pre-existing privileges of individuals within their respective socioeconomic statuses. Thus, laws protect and aid persons who are socially, legally, and/or economically vulnerable (e.g. poor, widows, fatherless, and resident aliens), and remedy problems of those who are already suffering from loss of their status (e.g. debt slaves). Biblical law fosters a society in which people enjoy fair representation and have access to resources with which to independently support themselves. Social justice is based on ethical values that must be taught, encouraged, and accepted as part of the collective world view; it is not enough to legislate and enforce them.