FEDERAL IMMIGRATION POLICY & THE STATE COURTS

The Center for Public Policy Studies (CPPS), has recently released a document that includes essential questions and answers on federal immigration law/policy and the impact on state courts. Specifically, the Q&A document addresses: 1) the impact of state and local court actions have on the effectiveness of federal immigration policy; 2) the impact of federal immigration law/policy on the state courts and other local justice agencies; 3) why it is difficult to get the immigrant composition of state and local court cases; 4) what the SJI Strategic Initiatives Grants (SIG) program is doing to help the state courts with immigration issues; and 5) the projected outputs from the SIG pilot sites.

The document can be found on the SJI website:

http://www.sji.gov/PDF/Federal_Immigration_Policy_and_the_State_Courts.pdf

SJI began using the Strategic Initiatives Grants (SIG) program in FY 2008 to address immigration issues in the courts at a national impact level. Two grants were awarded; one to the CPPS; and another to support a collaborative effort between the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the National Judicial College (NJC).