Immigration, Migration, and Refugee History & Rights

Immigration law refers to the rules established by the federal government for determining who is allowed to enter the country, and for how long.

Learn about United States immigration law from the NYC Bar Legal Referral Service. Find the right immigration lawyer to answer your questions.

Make the Road New York builds the power of immigrant and working class communities to achieve dignity and justice.

Motion Law. Your Immigration Attorneys in Washington DC. For all your Family or Business immigration needs. Schedule your Free Consultation (202) 918-1799

Indiana and Chicago immigration lawyers provide legal aid for immigrants and asylum seekers, fight for fair immigration reform and an end to inhumane immigration detention.

Established in 1979, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) is one of the leading organizations in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of immigrants with low income. At NILC, we believe that all people who live in the U.S. should have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Over the years, we’ve been at the forefront of many of the country’s greatest challenges when it comes to immigration issues, and we play a major leadership role in addressing the real-life impact of policies that affect the ability of low-income immigrants to prosper and thrive. In April 2019, NILC finalized a new strategic framework, which will govern our work over the next five years. This framework represents a shift in our strategy orientation in recognition of the fact that legal and policy strategies alone are not enough to achieve the long-term transformational change we believe the times require. We will continue to use our litigation and policy expertise to challenge unjust laws and policies that marginalize low-income and other vulnerable immigrant communities and advance systemic policy solutions that make it possible for immigrants and their loved ones to thrive. But we are now also focusing on building a stronger, more inclusive immigrant justice movement and fostering intersectional alliances with other communities in order to amass the political power necessary to hold decisionmakers accountable for making policy changes real and lasting. And we will also engage in narrative and culture change to shift public debate toward the notion that—no matter where a person is born or how much money they have—everyone has a stake and constructive role to play in shaping the country’s future.

Northwest Immigrant Rights Project promotes justice by defending and advancing the rights of immigrants through direct legal services, systemic/Users/miguel/Local Documents/nwirp-temp/index.html advocacy, and community education.

The Council strives for a fair and just immigration system.

A Criminal Defense article by Ilona Bray.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is charged with enforcing U.S. federal laws concerning border control, customs, trade, and immigration. Immigrants dealing

"In many countries around the world persons with disabilities still suffer torture, ill- treatment and severe discrimination. Sometimes they are persecuted directly by the state, but frequently it is their family members, society or religious institutions that expose them to serious harm, while the state turns a blind eye to it. Persons with disabilities make up approximately 15% of the world population and an estimated 20% of the population of refugees and internally displaced persons. This book examines when persons with disabilities, who are being persecuted for reasons of their disability, are refugees and thus entitled to the protection of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol"--

"In 2007, Saket Soni received an anonymous phone call from an Indian migrant worker inside a Mississippi labor camp. He and 500 other men were living in squalor in Gulf Coast "man camps," surrounded by barbed wire, watched by armed guards, crammed into cold trailers with putrid portable toilets, forced to eat moldy bread and frozen rice. Worse, lured by the promise of good work and green cards, the men had desperately scraped together up to 20,000 dollars each to apply for this "opportunity" to rebuild oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina, putting their families into impossible debt. Soni traces the workers' extraordinary escape; their march on foot to Washington, DC; and their 31-day hunger strike to bring attention to their cause"--

Documents obtained by a coalition of immigrant rights groups reveal ICE has contracted with the third-party data broker LexisNexis, allowing it to receive real-time jail booking data from sheriff’s offices in the state of Colorado. The move to track the whereabouts of immigrants curtails Colorado’s sanctuary policies, which are meant to prevent state and local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. Jacinta González of Mijente’s #NoTechForICE campaign said, ”ICE agents once relied on the police to help them track us, arrest us, and deport us. Now, tech companies, by selling our personal data, are helping them instead.”

"More than a quarter of a million LGBTQ-identified migrants in the United States lack documentation and constantly risk detention and deportation. LGBTQ migrants around the world endure similarly precarious situations. Eithne Luibheid's and Karma R. Chavez's edited collection provides a first-of-its-kind look at LGBTQ migrants and communities. The academics, activists, and artists in the volume center illegalization, detention, and deportation in national and transnational contexts, and examine how migrants and allies negotiate, resist, refuse, and critique these processes. The works contribute to the fields of gender and sexuality studies, critical race and ethnic studies, borders and migration studies, and decolonial studies. Bridging voices and works from inside and outside of the academy, and international in scope, Queer and Trans Migrations illuminates new perspectives in the field of queer and trans migration studies"--

Migrants at the US-Mexico border say the new app often struggles to recognise darker-skinned faces.

A nation of immigrants: This is a convenient myth developed as a response to the 1960s movements against colonialism, neocolonialism, and white supremacy. The ruling class and its brain trust offered multiculturalism, diversity, and affirmative action in response to demands for decolonization, justice, reparations, social equality, an end of imperialism, and the rewriting of history -- not to be "inclusive" -- but to be accurate. What emerged to replace the liberal melting pot idea and the nationalist triumphal interpretation of the "greatest country on earth and in history," was the "nation of immigrants" story.

Over the course of less than a century, the U.S. transformed from a nation that excluded Asians from immigration and citizenship to one that receives more immigrants from Asia than from anywhere else in the world. Yet questions of how that dramatic shift took place have long gone unanswered. In this first comprehensive history of Asian exclusion repeal, Jane H. Hong unearths the transpacific movement that successfully ended restrictions on Asian immigration. The mid-twentieth century repeal of Asian exclusion, Hong shows, was part of the price of America's postwar empire in Asia. The demands of U.S. empire-building during an era of decolonization created new opportunities for advocates from both the U.S. and Asia to lobby U.S. Congress for repeal. Drawing from sources in the United States, India, and the Philippines, Opening the Gates to Asia charts a movement more than twenty years in the making. Positioning repeal at the intersection of U.S. civil rights struggles and Asian decolonization, Hong raises thorny questions about the meanings of nation, independence, and citizenship on the global stage.

Debunks the pervasive and self-congratulatory myth that our country is proudly founded by and for immigrants, and urges readers to embrace a more complex and honest history of the United States Whether in political debates or discussions about immigration around the kitchen table, many Americans, regardless of party affiliation, will say proudly that we are a nation of immigrants. In this bold new book, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz asserts this ideology is harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the US's history of settler colonialism, genocide, white supremacy, slavery, and structural inequality, all of which we still grapple with today. She explains that the idea that we are living in a land of opportunity--founded and built by immigrants--was a convenient response by the ruling class and its brain trust to the 1960s demands for decolonialization, justice, reparations, and social equality. Moreover, Dunbar-Ortiz charges that this feel good--but inaccurate--story promotes a benign narrative of progress, obscuring that the country was founded in violence as a settler state, and imperialist since its inception. While some of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, others are descendants of white settlers who arrived as colonizers to displace those who were here since time immemorial, and still others are descendants of those who were kidnapped and forced here against their will. This paradigm shifting new book from the highly acclaimed author of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States charges that we need to stop believing and perpetuating this simplistic and a historical idea and embrace the real (and often horrific) history of the United States.

"Conventionally, US immigration history has been understood through the lens of restriction and those who have been barred from getting in. In contrast, The Good Immigrants considers immigration from the perspective of Chinese elites--intellectuals, businessmen, and students--who gained entrance because of immigration exemptions. Exploring a century of Chinese migrations, Madeline Hsu looks at how the model minority characteristics of many Asian Americans resulted from US policies that screened for those with the highest credentials in the most employable fields, enhancing American economic competitiveness. The earliest US immigration restrictions targeted Chinese people but exempted students as well as individuals who might extend America's influence in China. Western-educated Chinese such as Madame Chiang Kai-shek became symbols of the US impact on China, even as they patriotically advocated for China's modernization. World War II and the rise of communism transformed Chinese students abroad into refugees, and the Cold War magnified the importance of their talent and training. As a result, Congress legislated piecemeal legal measures to enable Chinese of good standing with professional skills to become citizens. Pressures mounted to reform American discriminatory immigration laws, culminating with the 1965 Immigration Act. Filled with narratives featuring such renowned Chinese immigrants as I. M. Pei, The Good Immigrants examines the shifts in immigration laws and perceptions of cultural traits that enabled Asians to remain in the United States as exemplary, productive Americans"--

"Some half million Chinese immigrants settled in the American West in the nineteenth century. In spite of their vital contributions to the economy in gold mining, railroad construction, the founding of small businesses, and land reclamation, the Chinese were targets of systematic political discrimination and widespread violence. The author's lifetime of research in legal sources all over the West--from California to Montana to New Mexico--serves as a basic account of the legal treatment of Chinese immigrants."--Back cover.

Rodriguez's acclaimed first book, Hunger of Memory raised a fierce controversy with its views on bilingualism and alternative action. Now, in a series of intelligent and candid essays, Rodriguez ranges over five centuries to consider the moral and spiritual landscapes of Mexico and the US and their impact on his soul.

"Frost explores how the United States' concept of citizenship and the rights of citizens has evolved, and especially how it has been challenged"--

"Islamophobia and the Law brings together leading legal scholars in the United States to explore the emergence and rise of Islamophobia since the 9/11 terror attacks. It is the first book to focus on the use of the law to promulgate Islamophobia through state policies and institutions, and also to authorize private discrimination by constructing Muslims and Islam as perpetually alien and suspicious. The volume addresses Islamophobia in race, immigration and citizenship, and criminal law and national security in the use of courts to advance anti-Muslim projects and in law and society"--

A monthly podcast featuring Tanzila 'Taz' Ahmed and Zahra Noorkbakhsh about the good and the bad about the American Muslim female experience. But you know, satirically & disturbingly hilarious.