Plenary Power: Teaching The Immigration Law Of The Territories

Abstract

Immigration law dominates national headlines and policy debates while immigrant communities struggle to secure legal representation. Law students are increasingly aware of these issues, often bringing lived experiences of the immigration system into the classroom. As immigration law professors seek to engage these students with doctrinal and clinical coursework, they often struggle to incorporate policy priorities and executive actions that shift with the political winds. In this tumult, many immigration law professors fail to realize that there is an entire body of U.S. immigration law they are not teaching-the immigration law of the U.S. territories. Indeed, many professors may not know that two of the five territories are not even subject to U.S. immigration law. Yet, the operation of immigration law in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands offers a wealth of examples that reinforce existing themes and concepts in immigration law. This essay lays forward some of the central concepts taught in immigration legal doctrine and describes the immigration systems of the U.S. territories, including those that are exempt from federal immigration law. It then ties the legal principles at play in each system, including the central concept of the federal political branches' "plenary power" over the territories and noncitizens alike, to topics presently taught in immigration law coursework.