Circles of Exile: A Response to Professor Forbath
7 Pages Posted: 20 Oct 2008 Last revised: 24 Oct 2008
Date Written: October 20, 2008
Abstract
This brief essay responds to a sustained essay by the estimable Professor William Forbath of the University of Texas in which Professor Forbath recounts the lost narrative of American citizenship proposed by the New Deal. It was a vision of citizenship that included more than negative liberties and passive obligations. As someone who finds a more robust conception of democratic citizenship deeply appealing, however, I suggest that in the present moment we are seeing not a re-invigoration of the idea but a hollowing-out of citizenship's present meaning, largely because of our willingess to tolerate a legal structure in which significant numbers of human beings resident on our soil - the undocumented aliens who increasingly power our workforce - are viewed as occupying a status subordinate to that of lawful citizens.
Keywords: Constitutional law, Forbath, immigration, citizenship
JEL Classification: k49
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation