Town Hall

The President and Immigration Law

October 8, 2020

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The biggest immigration controversies of the last decade have all involved policies produced by the president, such as President Obama's decision to protect Dreamers from deportation and President Trump's proclamation banning immigrants from several majority-Muslim nations. But should the president be America’s immigration policymaker-in-chief? Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School joins Adam Cox and Cristina Rodríguez, authors of The President and Immigration Law, for a deep dive into the history of American immigration policy and debate about who should control immigration policy today. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.

 

 

Participants

  • Adam Cox is the Robert A. Kindler Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. Before coming to NYU, he was a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. He is the author of The President and Immigration Law (co-authored with Cristina Rodríguez). His writing has appeared in the Yale Law JournalStanford Law JournalJournal of Law and Economics, and many other scholarly publications, and has been covered by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and others. Cox previously served as the Karpatkin Civil Rights Fellow for the American Civil Liberties Union and practiced at Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering, where he first litigated immigration cases.

  • Michael McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His new book is The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution and his upcoming book, Establishment of Religion: Neutrality, Accommodation, and Separation, will be published in 2021. His other books include, Scalia's Constitution: Essays on Law and Education and Religion and the Constitution. McConnell has argued 15 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • Cristina Rodríguez is the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She is the author of The President and Immigration Law (co-authored with Adam Cox). Rodríguez previously served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, was on the faculty at the New York University School of Law, and has been Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia Law Schools. She is a non-resident fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., a member of the American Law Institute, and a past member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

  • Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.

Resources from the Program

The President and Immigration Law, Adam Cox and Cristina Rodríguez

The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power under the Constitution, Michael McConnell

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