LAW 5072: Crimes and Immigration
Fall 2023 • Section 21 • CRN 45325

Course Description

Non-citizens who have contact with the criminal justice system face a range of unique consequences, including arrest by immigration authorities, deportation, and detention without a bond hearing. This course explores multiple points of intersection between criminal law and immigration law. Topics include the immigration consequences of criminal convictions, the constitutional limitations on detention and deportation of non-citizens with convictions, and the federal government’s use of state and local criminal justice systems to enforce immigration laws. This course will familiarize students with the substantive law necessary to represent clients facing the immigration consequences of criminal convictions in both the criminal and immigration systems. It will also give students the opportunity to discuss the policy implications of predicating immigration consequences on a criminal justice system that disparately impacts poor people and people of color. The course will also familiarize students with the role constitutional law and the federal courts should play in limiting the political branches’ power over non-citizens with convictions.

Book List/Materials