Immigration and the State Courts: Findings Are Emerging

SJI’s Strategic Initiatives Grants (SIG) Program is focusing on the impact of immigration in the state courts.  As part of this effort, the Center for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) is identifying the key issues for state courts surrounding the complicated interplay of federal, state, and local immigration law, policy, and practice.  As part of their work, CPPS has recruited three pilot learning sites: the Maricopa County (Phoenix, Arizona) Superior Court; the 11th Judicial Circuit Courts in Florida (Miami-Dade); and the Courts of the 8th Judicial Circuit in rural, western Minnesota.  CPPS’s initial work with these sites has revealed that, in general:

1. The intersection of federal immigration law and practice, and state law and practice, can impact civil, family, juvenile, and dependency cases, as well as criminal cases;
2. The U.S. citizenship eligibility status, and U.S. residency status, of the nation’s nearly 12 million legal permanent residents can be affected by numerous types of local justice system and state court activities such as criminal charges, convictions, and imposed and suspended sentences;
3. Court caseloads and case complexity may increase as a result of both the intersections of federal, state, and local law and practice, and the increased presence of state laws regarding immigrants (e.g., bail eligibility, document forgery, human smuggling, employer sanctions laws);
4. There are several mechanisms used by local justice systems and the courts to protect immigrant victims and children.

In addition, CPPS’s work also discovered the following in regard to day-to-day court operations:

1. Language difficulties in cases involving new immigrants can impact trial scheduling and length, and make it difficult to identify correct names for a court’s case management system;
2. Immigrant litigants who do not understand the legal system may demand trials in lieu of plea bargaining;
3. The exercise of discretion by prosecutors in regard to charges filed, and by judges in regard to pleas accepted, and length of sentences, can have a substantial impact on a defendant’s immigration status;
4. The sharing of evidence between Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and local prosecutors may give rise to issues of admissibility of evidence;

There may be limited availability of culturally appropriate probation services for immigrants.