The Legal-Domestic Sources of Immigrant Rights - the United States, Germany, and the European Union

Abstract

This article traces the evolution of two types of immigrant rights-alien rights and the right to citizenship-across three polities (the United States, Germany, and the European Union). It argues that the sources of rights expansion are mostly legal and domestic: Rights expansion originates in independent and activist courts, which mobilize domestic law (especially constitutional law) and domestic legitimatory discourses, often against restriction-minded, democratically accountable governments. The legal-domestic hypothesis is qualified and differentiated according to polity, migrant group, and type of immigrant right.