The Intersection of Immigration Law and Civil Rights Law: Non Citizen Workers and the International Human Rights Paradigm

This article examines the failure of the U.S. civil rights regime, in particular, antidiscrimination law to redress the inequitable fashion in which our domestic legal system treats undocumented workers in the United States. The article posits that the future of the civil rights of noncitizens in the United States lies in an international human rights paradigm. Using the theory set forth in the book EYES OFF THE PRIZE, where historian Carol Anderson analyzes the reasons why, during Civil Rights Movement, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People leadership was not able to articulate a human rights case for their struggles, I compare the Civil Rights Movement to the emerging Immigrant Rights Movement of today. In doing so, I make the case that the use of international human rights law to redress the rights of undocumented workers will take advantage of the opportunity that the leaders of the Civil Rights movement missed. My conclusion is that the use of an international human rights paradigm will not only address the shortcoming of civil rights law, but that, in the face of the currently existing lowered social citizenship of immigrants and the poor, this will be the only way to ensure equal social citizenship for all in our country.