Publication Date
1-2025
Journal
Columbia Law Review
Abstract
For over a century, the federal government has wielded the immigration subpoena power in darkness, forcing private individuals, subfederal governments, and others to help it detain and deport. This vast administrative power has remained opaque even to those who receive these subpoenas and invisible to those it affects most. Indeed, the very people targeted by these subpoenas often don’t know they exist, much less how they facilitate arrest and deportation. For these reasons—and more—this power has escaped the legal battles raging over other immigration enforcement tactics and the scrutiny of journalists, scholars, and courts. Thus, as state- and locality-held information has become central to immigration enforcement, this power raises urgent questions about when, how, and with what constraints the federal government uses it more broadly.
This Article provides the first comprehensive account of the immigration subpoena power. Drawing upon previously undisclosed agency records and an original dataset reflecting thousands of subpoenas issued nationwide, this Article shows how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deploys a power created to facilitate racial exclusion at the border to reach deep into our communities and people’s lives. It demonstrates how ICE uses subpoenas to pierce state and local sanctuary laws and force subfederal governments—and others—to become unwilling partners in arrests, detention, and removal. And it exposes a range of other unlawful practices.
These findings shed vital light on the immigration subpoena regime. They help resolve important constitutional questions, illuminate new constraints, and offer lessons that transcend the immigration realm.
Volume
125
Issue
1
First Page
1
Last Page
100
Publisher
Columbia Law School
Keywords
Immigration, Administrative Subpoenas, Administrative Law, Federalism, Constitutional Law
Disciplines
Administrative Law | Constitutional Law | Immigration Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Lindsay Nash,
The Immigration Subpoena Power,
125
Colum. L. Rev.
1
(2025).
https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/faculty-articles/953
