United States Immigration Legislation and Constitutional Defense of Undocumented Workers

The Act governing reform of illegal immigration and liability of the immigrant, promulgated in September 1996, establishes more obstacles for correcting the immigration situation of undocumented individuals to stay legally in the United States. This essay examines the provisions of the new law that affect undocumented workers in particular; it tries to identify the legal aspects that could be questioned constitutionally in the American federal courts. The essay is divided into five sections. The first describes the sources of American immigration law and underlines the importance of the constitutional dispute in order to have this right adapt to the precepts of the United States Constitution. The second and third explain how, when the “expeditious removal” process was introduced, the 1996 law limited the scope of rights and recourses protected by “due process”. The fourth one explains how the 1996 law is applied in the work place and how it attacks the Fourth Amendment to the American Constitution. The fifth highlights the practical effect of the 1996 law of repealing different administrative rules whereby city officials are prohibited from requesting information on the immigration status of individuals who provide public services or from sending this type of information to the American Immigration and Naturalization Service.