New from New York University Press:
Beyond Deportation: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases (June 2015), by
Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia (Faculty Scholar and Director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights, Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law). Here's a description from the Press:
When
Beatles star John Lennon faced deportation from the U.S. in the 1970s, his
lawyer Leon Wildes made a groundbreaking argument. He argued that Lennon should
be granted “nonpriority” status pursuant to INS’s (now DHS’s) policy of
prosecutorial discretion. In U.S.
immigration law, the
agency exercises prosecutorial discretion favorably when it refrains from enforcing
the full scope of immigration law. A prosecutorial discretion grant is
important to an agency seeking to focus its priorities on the “truly dangerous”
in order to conserve resources and to bring compassion into immigration
enforcement. The Lennon case marked the first moment that the immigration
agency’s prosecutorial discretion policy became public knowledge. Today,
the concept of prosecutorial discretion is more widely known in light of the
Obama Administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA program,
a record number of deportations and a stalemate in Congress to move immigration
reform.
Beyond
Deportation is
the first book to comprehensively describe the history, theory, and application
of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law. It provides a rich
history of the role of
prosecutorial discretion in the immigration system and unveils the powerful
role it plays in protecting
individuals from deportation and saving the government resources. Shoba
Sivaprasad Wadhia draws on her years of experience as an immigration attorney,
policy leader, and law
professor to advocate for a bolder standard on prosecutorial discretion,
greater mechanisms for accountability when such standards are ignored, improved
transparency about the cases involving prosecutorial discretion, and
recognition of “deferred action” in the law as a formal benefit.
A blurb of note:
"The definitive word on the all-important tool of
prosecutorial discretion in immigration enforcement. Wadhia traces the
fascinating history of the exercise of such discretion under U.S.
immigration law, which includes careful study of the famous case of John
Lennon and Yoko Ono through to the use of such discretion in President
Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Rather than
simply describing the history, Beyond Deportation offers
concrete recommendations about prosecutorial discretion in immigration
enforcement, including greater transparency in decisionmaking and rules
that limit government attorneys in the exercise of discretion. Wadhia
has written an important analysis of the most significant positive
immigration development of the Obama administration." — Kevin R. Johnson, University of California, Davis
More information is available
here.
