William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice
Abstract
My prior work argued for the decriminalization of border crossings without proof of specific intent to violate another law (like drug trafficking), which is even less likely to happen now than it was when the piece was published, given the current presidential administration’s zealous deportation strategy and Congress’s seeming acquiescence. As such, I advocate for a second-best solution involving federal-state cooperative agreements wherein border states abutting both Mexico and Canada are given the option by the federal government to pass local legislation decriminalizing border crossings into their states as their communities desire. To the extent that the current presidential administration is trying to shrink the federal government in significant ways, such experimentation among these border states might be both politically and economically desirable as a way to develop a set of best practices for the entire country moving forward.