ARE NONCITIZEN PERMANENT RESIDENTS DISCRIMINATED AGAINST FOR ECONOMIC PURPOSES TODAY?
Spiro J. P. 2020, in their book, Citizenship What Everyone Needs To Know, outlines that,
For the most part, permanent residents in the United States have no significant legal disadvantages as a consequence of their citizenship status.
Market pressures contributed to the shift away from alienage laws. Frontier states anxious to recruit immigrant settlers enacted non-discriminatory state constitutional amendments.
In 1915, the US Supreme Court overturned an anomalous state legislation requiring at least 80% of some enterprises' workers to be US citizens. In 1948, the Court overturned a California rule that barred persons who were ineligible for citizenship (read: Japanese immigrants) from having commercial fishing permits.
The main case in terms of jurisprudence was the Supreme Court's 1971 decision in Graham V. Richardson, which determined that state acts discriminating against immigrants should be subject to careful judicial examination based on the concept that noncitizens cannot participate in the democratic process.
According to that logic, the Supreme Court has overturned state statutes prohibiting noncitizens from practising law and engineering, as well as broad civil service restrictions.
Following these judgements, most state limitations on non-citizen employment and licensure have been overturned or are no longer enforced.
The courts have made an exemption for certain public-sector jobs in which states may continue to need citizenship.
"Some state duties are so intricately intertwined with the functioning of the State as a governmental institution," the Supreme Court said in Ambach V. Norwick in 1979, "that they authorise the exclusion from those activities of all people who have not been part of the process of self-government."
The Court has accepted the exclusion of noncitizens from employment as police officers, probation officials, and teachers under this "public duty" standard. However, these judgements are just permissive; the law enables governments to engage in discrimination but does not require it.
Most states, for example, allow noncitizens to teach in public schools, ostensibly to address curriculum gaps that would otherwise be unfilled.
Noncitizens may serve as police officers in several areas, including Chicago, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles, however it is less prevalent.
Citizenship remains a requirement for employment in the federal civil service, a criteria to which the courts have deferred.
Permanent residents may work in any profession in the private sector.
Prospective employers may only consider citizenship as a deciding factor among equally qualified job applicants; that is, green card holders may only be discriminated against if a citizen applicant has the same credentials.
Despite the near-equality of economic opportunities, social scientists have discovered a "citizenship premium."
According to a 2012 analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, naturalisation results in a 5% pay increase. A study of the French labour market indicated that naturalisation resulted in a 20% boost in employment results.
While permanent residents or their counterparts enjoy near-equality in the economic sector, non-immigrants and undocumented immigrants do not.
Non-immigrants are normally allowed for a short time and, in many situations, are not permitted to work.
Even individuals with job authorization, such as US H1B visa holders, are often limited to working for a single firm.
Although illegal immigrants might occasionally attain a startling level of economic wealth, the extent of their economic activity is obviously restricted, since it is not legally protected.
References:
Comments
Post a Comment