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The growing centrality of "criminal aliens" to American immigration enforcement is one of the most significant historical shifts in the federal immigration system. However, little is known about how this dramatic restructuring of federal immigration priorities affects local criminal justice systems. Do noncitizens experience the same type of criminal justice as citizens? This Article seeks to answer this question by offering the first empirical study of how local criminal process is organized around immigration enforcement and citizenship status. It accomplishes this task by analyzing the criminal justice systems of the three urban counties that prosecute the highest number of noncitizens: Los Angeles County, California; Harris County, Texas; and Maricopa County, Arizona. Comparative review of law, procedure, and practice in these three counties reveals that immigration's interaction with criminal law has a far more powerful impact on local criminal practice than previously understood. Across all three counties, the practical effects of the federal government's reliance on arrests and convictions in making enforcement decisions are felt at every stage of the criminal process: Immigration status is part of routine booking at local jails, "immigration detainers" impede release on criminal bail, immigration officials encourage criminal prosecutors to secure plea agreements that guarantee removal, and noncitizens are sometimes deported before their criminal cases are completed. Yet, there is surprising variation in how these three counties have structured their criminal practices in light of the consistently deep connections between criminal process and immigration enforcement. As this Article develops, the three jurisdictions have adopted distinct models of noncitizen criminal justice — what I term alienage neutral, illegal-alien punishment, and immigration enforcement. Each model reflects significant agreement across county agencies about the appropriate role of noncitizen status in criminal case adjudication and of local involvement in deportation outcomes. These findings have important implications for the institutional design of both local criminal systems and federal immigration enforcement.

For the past fifty years, immigration law has resisted integration of Gideon v.Wainwright's legacy of appointed counsel for the poor. Today, however, this resistance has given way to Gideon's migration. At the level of everyday practice, criminal defense attorneys appointed pursuant to Gideon now advise clients on the immigration consequences of convictions, negotiate "immigration safe" plea bargains, defend clients charged with immigration crimes, and, in some model programs, even represent criminal defendants in immigration court. A formal right to appointed counsel in immigration proceedings has yet to be established, but proposals grounded in the constitution, statutes, and expanded government funding are gaining momentum. From the perspective of criminal defense, the changing role of Gideon-appointed counsel raises questions about the breadth and depth of immigration assistance that should develop under the defense umbrella. From the perspective of immigration legal services, the potential importation of a Gideon-inspired right to counsel requires consideration of the appropriate scope and design for an immigration defender system. This Essay does not attempt to resolve these challenging questions, but rather provides a framework for further reflection grounded in lessons learned from the criminal system's implementation of Gideon.

Should it be a crime to cross the border into the United States? This Article explores the growing resistance to the politics and practices of mass border criminalization. In doing so, it makes three central contributions. First, it dissects the varied strands of the punitive practices of the U.S. Department of Justice, including policies of zero-tolerance prosecution for first-time unauthorized border crossers and enhanced punishments for those who reenter after deportation. Second, it traces how growing public awareness of the previously hidden practices occurring in Border Patrol holding cells and federal criminal courts along the Southwest border have sparked new and outspoken criticism of the illegal entry and reentry laws. These laws have resulted in the forced separation of families, interfered with the rights of asylum seekers, and fostered a racially segregated and substandard court process. Third, this Article analyzes the nascent movement by immigrant rights groups, prominent politicians, and grassroots coalitions of community members to decriminalize border crossing by repealing Sections 1325 and 1326 of the immigration law that have punished unauthorized border crossing since 1929. Although critics maintain that such a legislative change would create so-called open borders, irregular entry would remain a civil violation of the immigration law and be handled by the civil deportation system. As this Article argues, the call to decriminalize border crossing exposes the racialized harm imposed by current policing practices and inspires discussion of additional reforms that would make the civil side of immigration law more humane and equitable.

The growing centrality of "criminal aliens" to American immigration enforcement is one of the most significant historical shifts in the federal immigration system. However, little is known about how this dramatic restructuring of federal immigration priorities affects local criminal justice systems. Do noncitizens experience the same type of criminal justice as citizens? This Article seeks to answer this question by offering the first empirical study of how local criminal process is organized around immigration enforcement and citizenship status. It accomplishes this task by analyzing the criminal justice systems of the three urban counties that prosecute the highest number of noncitizens: Los Angeles County, California; Harris County, Texas; and Maricopa County, Arizona. Comparative review of law, procedure, and practice in these three counties reveals that immigration's interaction with criminal law has a far more powerful impact on local criminal practice than previously understood. Across all three counties, the practical effects of the federal government's reliance on arrests and convictions in making enforcement decisions are felt at every stage of the criminal process: Immigration status is part of routine booking at local jails, "immigration detainers" impede release on criminal bail, immigration officials encourage criminal prosecutors to secure plea agreements that guarantee removal, and noncitizens are sometimes deported before their criminal cases are completed. Yet, there is surprising variation in how these three counties have structured their criminal practices in light of the consistently deep connections between criminal process and immigration enforcement. As this Article develops, the three jurisdictions have adopted distinct models of noncitizen criminal justice—what I term alienage neutral, illegal- alien punishment, and immigration enforcement. Each model reflects significant agreement across county agencies about the appropriate role of noncitizen status in criminal case adjudication and of local involvement in deportation outcomes. These findings have important implications for the institutional design of both local criminal systems and federal immigration enforcement.

For the past fifty years, immigration law has resisted integration ofGideon v. Wainwright's legacy of appointed counsel for the poor. Today, however, this resistance has given way toGideon's migration. At the level of everyday practice, criminal defense attorneys appointed pursuant to Gideon now advise clients on the immigration consequences of convictions, negotiate"immigration safe" plea bargains, defend clients charged with immigration crimes, and, in some model programs, even represent criminal defendants in immigration court. A formal right to appointed counsel in immigration proceedings has yet to be established, but proposals grounded in the constitution, statutes, and expanded government funding are gaining momentum.From the perspective of criminal defense, the changing role of Gideon-appointed counsel raises questions about the breadth and depth of immigration assistance that should developunder the defense umbrella. From the perspective of immigration legal services, the potential importation of aGideon-inspired right to counsel requires consideration of the appropriate scope and design for an immigration defender system. This Essay does not attempt to resolve these challenging questions, but rather provides a framework for further reflection grounded in lessons learned from the criminal system's implementation ofGideon.

In 2006, mobile catering vendors in Los Angeles — known colloquially as lunch truck vendors orloncheros— found themselves subject to a municipal ordinance that severely limited the amount of time that they could sell food in public streets. Under the new local law, catering trucks were required to move every thirty minutes (if parked in a residential zone) or sixty minutes (if parked in a commercial zone) to a location at least one-half mile away. Vendors who did not comply were subject to steep fines. This Essay examines the work of the UCLA criminal defense clinic on behalf of a grassroots group of lunch truck operators that formed to contest, and ultimately invalidate, the Los Angeles ordinance. Specifically, this Essay assesses the clinic's effort to link an individual client's defense to a broader community-based campaign to organize immigrant workers around legal reform. Toward this end, Part I offers a descriptive account of theloncheros' political mobilization to challenge the Los Angeles durational restriction and of the clinic's legal work on behalf of an individual vendor to advance that goal. Part II draws on theloncherocase study to examine three underappreciated aspects of criminal defense practice and, by extension, criminal clinics: law reform, problem solving across the civil-criminal line, and community mobilization. In sum, this Essay contributes the story of theloncherosas a case study in clinical process, while also using it to explore alternative conceptions of the criminal defense attorney's role.