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Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

Abstract

Why are sanctuary states and cities in the present moment largely failing to protect immigrants and other vulnerable people from federal enforcement of an agenda based on mass deportation and fear? While federalism was painted during the Civil Rights Era as a weapon of states to protect policies of discrimination and segregation, federalism was also a powerful tool used by Northern States before the Civil War to resist Southern and federal laws enabling the dehumanizing capture and transport offugitive slaves (or suspected fugitive slaves). What has changed in the passing years to make federalism seem like such a thin concept, with federal policies and personnel aggressively targeting sanctuary jurisdictions? Certainly, part of the story is that states and cities today are far more dependent upon federal funds than in the past and are wary of being cut offfrom necessary resources. But this cannot be the full story. During the first Trump administration, states and cities had much more success in resisting federal immigration overreach and rejecting unconstitutional conditions on federal funding. This Article argues that a less examined dimension of the current federal deportation agenda is its increasing reliance on data infrastructure and artificial intelligence. The rise of data-driven enforcement has fundamentally changed what cooperation and resistance look like within afederalist structure. The expanding use oftechnology has exposed the need for states and cities to reconsider their relationship to data if they hope to preserve meaningful sovereignty. At the same time, it places new pressures on courts and citizens alike to consider what resistance entails in an era of data-driven governance.

Disciplines

Constitutional Law | Criminal Law | Criminal Procedure | Immigration Law | Law | Law and Politics | Law Enforcement and Corrections | State and Local Government Law

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