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110 Colum. L. Rev. Sidebar 1 (2010)

handle is hein.journals/sidbarc110 and id is 1 raw text is: COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW SIDEBAR VOL. 110 FEBRUARY 10, 2010 PAGES 1-11 BUILDING CAPACITY FOR THE TRANSNATIONAL REGULATION OF MIGRATION Cristina M. Rodriguez* Two significant conceptual errors frame the public debate concerning labor migration and the related phenomenon of illegal immigration. Each error sterns from lawmakers' failure or refusal to recognize the ongoing and transnational nature of migration. First, the immigration debate occurs largely within a domestic political framework, and the assumption that the United States can address immigration issues, particularly illegal immigration, through the perfection of domestic enforcement mechanisms pervades the discourse. But migration is inherently international, and its management requires engagement with other governments and with social facts beyond U.S. control. Second, the rhetorical emphasis placed on fixing our broken regime reflects a conception of immigration as a problem to be solved. But migration is a cross-border phenomenon produced by structural and historical factors that will only evolve, rather than disappear, and it therefore requires transnational management, rather than a one-time comprehensive legislative solution. Regulating immigration ultimately requires lawmakers to reach beyond a unilateral gatekeeping strategy defined by efforts to stop migration through law enforcement and economic coercion. Because states cannot effectively manage migration in isolation from one another,' the United States must approach the issue by prioritizing cooperation with actors outside the United States. In their contributions to the policy debate, scholars increasingly have emphasized the importance of addressing labor and illegal migration through bilateral and transnational frameworks2-through accords that would recognize * Henry L. Stimson Visiting Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Professor of Law, NYU School of Law. I am grateful for outstanding research assistance froin Amelia Rawls and Casey Schwarz. 1. Bimal Ghosh, Managing Migration: Interstate Cooperation at the Global Level, in Interstate Cooperation and Migration 109, 111 (2005). 2. See, e.g., Jorge A. Bustamante, Mexico-United States Labor Migration Flows, 31 Int'l Migration Rev. 1112, 1112 (1997) (noting that outmigration in Mexico is perceived as economic and labor phenomenon froin which United States reaps benefits, whereas in I

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