Qudsiya Naqui, Nermeen Arastu (CUNY), Standing on Our Own Two Feet: Disability Justice As A Frame for Reimagining Our Ableist Immigration System, 71 UCLA L. Rev. (2024):
Ableism forms the scaffolding of our immigration laws, policies, and practices, but the operation of this pervasive form of exclusion has been grossly unacknowledged and understudied until now. In 1882, Congress first codified the exclusion of defective bodies by declaring that, “any lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge,” was unworthy of admission onto U.S. shores. These ability-based hierarchies remain in today’s immigration system which rewards productivity, educational attainment, and high-skilled labor with regularized immigration status, an array of public benefits, work authorization, and other advantages. We argue that immigration legal and policy frameworks must be reimagined in order to decouple the process of migration from this system of body valuation.