Sovereignty and Its Alternatives: On the Terms of (Illegal) Alienage in U.S. Law

Abstract

Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, this essay seeks to show (illegal) alienage in U.S. law in new lights. First, this essay demonstrates how the emergence of a positive law of citizenship, through which the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the importance of citizenship for rights, is a relatively recent and historically contingent development in U.S. law. Second, this essay shows how the concept of “sovereignty” plays different roles in the U.S. positive law of citizenship and (illegal) alienage. This essay seeks also to evaluate the limits and possibilities of alternatives to “sovereignty” as grounds for the rights of noncitizens in the United States. And it seeks to make the point that the apolitical valences of “territoriality” and “social productivity” vis-à-vis “sovereignty” in U.S. law render illegal alienage in particular misleadingly outside the realm of the political. Ultimately, this essay seeks also to challenge understandings of “sovereignty” in political theory by integrating law and political theory, and to recast legal discourse on illegal alienage by turning attention to “sovereignty.”

Citation

Murthy, H.M. (2013), "Sovereignty and Its Alternatives: On the Terms of (Illegal) Alienage in U.S. Law", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Special Issue: Who Belongs? Immigration, Citizenship, and the Constitution of Legality (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 60), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2013)0000060005

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