Available From UC Press

How the immigration courts became part of the nation’s law enforcement agency—and how to reshape them.

During the Trump administration, the immigration courts were decried as more politicized enforcement weapon than impartial tribunal. Yet few people are aware of a fundamental flaw in the system that has long pre-dated that administration: The immigration courts are not really “courts” but an office of the Department of Justice—the nation’s law enforcement agency.
 
Alison Peck's original and surprising account shows how paranoia sparked by World War II and the War on Terror drove the structure of the immigration courts. Focusing on previously unstudied decisions in the Roosevelt and Bush administrations, the narrative laid out in this book divulges both the human tragedy of our current immigration court system and the human crises that led to its creation. Moving the reader from understanding to action, Alison Peck offers a lens through which to evaluate contemporary bills and proposals to reform our immigration court system. Peck provides an accessible legal analysis of recent events to make the case for independent immigration courts, proposing that the courts be moved into an independent, Article I court system. As long as the immigration courts remain under the authority of the attorney general, the administration of immigration justice will remain a game of political football—with people’s very lives on the line.
 

Alison Peck is Professor of Law and Codirector of the Immigration Law Clinic at West Virginia University College of Law.

"Americans take pride in their courts and the rule of law. Unfortunately, the U.S. immigration courts, with the awesome power to remove immigrants from this country, are in crisis, with endless backlogs, little judicial independence, and a lack of legitimacy among immigrants and the general public. The Accidental History of the U.S. Immigration Courts tells the surprising story of the evolution of the immigration courts and what we need to do to make the immigration courts independent and deserving of the respect befitting legal institutions"—Kevin R. Johnson, Dean, University of California, Davis School of Law

"How did our immigration courts become part of our law enforcement apparatus—and what can we do about it? This pathbreaking book shows us both what is wrong with our current system of deciding immigration cases and how we can fix it. Important and eye-opening."—Kermit Roosevelt, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School

"Alison Peck’s innovative history of the immigration courts teaches us that they were not designed to be neutral decision-makers. Political machinations led to their placement inside the Justice Department, so political outcomes are what we get. To free the immigration courts from political pressures, Peck argues, Congress must give them the independence they deserve."—César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, author of Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants