Immigration Article of the Day: Federalism, Family Unity, And Keeping Families Together by Kristina Campbell

Federalism, Family Unity, And Keeping Families Together by Kristina Campbell, 61 Idaho Law Review (2025)

Abstract

This Article will explore the use of federalism to enforce the right to family unity as expressed in both domestic and international migration law. Part I will give an overview of the humanitarian origins of federal immigration law in the United States. Part II will discuss the Parole in Place program (PIP), a discretionary humanitarian remedy used to keep mixed-status families together using agency discretion. Part III will discuss the Deferred Action of Parents of Americans (DAPA) program, which was proposed, but never implemented, by the Obama Administration. Part IV will discuss the recent attempt by the Biden Administration to create the humanitarian Keeping Families Together (KFT) program, and the challenges to its constitutionality. The Article concludes with a framework for arguing that the federal government can, and should, continue to use its plenary power over immigration for the humanitarian purpose of preventing family separation. By analyzing and critiquing the arguments made by the states against the DAPA and KFT programs in particular, I will argue that the United States must use federalism to protect a family’s right to live together, which is a human right protected by international humanitarian law, and that this right must be vindicated by the federal government despite enforcement challenges against family unity policies brought by the several states in the past.