Unsettling Immigration Laws: Settler Colonialism and the U.S. Immigration Legal System

This Article flows from the premise that the United States is a present-day settler colonial society whose laws and policies function to support an ongoing structure of invasion called settler colonialism, which operates through the processes of Indigenous elimination and the subordination of racialized outsiders. At a time when U.S. immigration laws continue to be used to oppress, exclude, subordinate, racialize, and dehumanize, this Article seeks to broaden the understanding of the U.S. immigration system using a settler colonialism lens. The Article analyzes contemporary U.S. immigration laws and policies such as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) and Trump\u27s immigration policies within a settler colonialism framework in order to locate the U.S. immigration system at the heart of settler colonialism\u27s ongoing project of elimination and subordination. The Article showcases solidarity movements between Indigenous and immigrant communities that protest the enduring structures of settler colonialism and engender transformative visions that defy the boundaries of the U.S. immigration legal system. Finally, the Article offers pedagogies that disrupt traditional immigration law pedagogy and that are designed to increase awareness of settler colonialism in the immigration law classroom