Immigration Law - An Introduction to Legislative History Research
This page includes information about how to find legislative history documents for immigration statutes and regulations. It includes print resources available in the Hastings Law Library, Lexis & Westlaw online resources, and the key Internet links.
How to Find Legislative History - - Statutes
For a detailed explanation of statutory legislative history research in general, consult the Hastings Law Library Research Guide: How to Compile a Federal Legislative History.
Locate the Public Law Number
When you begin your legislative history research, you should usually start by finding the public law number:
- Look at the short historical notes following the text of law in U.S.C.A. (United States Code Annotated) or U.S.C.S. (United States Code Service),
- Check the subject index of the U.S.C.A. or U.S.C.S.,
- Search the name of the act using the "popular name table" in U.S.C.A. or U.S.C.S.,
- Locate
the act in Shepard's Acts and Cases by Popular Name [KF80.S5,
Reference Desk].
Determine if someone has already compiled a legislative history covering your topic.
ONLINE SOURCES:
Congressional Information Service (CIS) Legislative Histories are offered on the Congressional Universe Internet database. Congressional Universe offers the compiled legislative histories for all federal acts since 1970, with links to the full-text of many of the legislative documents.
On Lexis, start by going to Legal > Area of Law - By Topic > Immigration > Statutes & Legislative Materials. There you can search databases such as the Congressional Record, Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Immigration Reform Act - Public Law 101-649, United States Statutes at Large, US - CIS Legislative Histories - Immigration Law, and USCS - Immigration - Titles 8, 18, 29 and 42.
The Federal Immigration Materials-Legislative History database on Westlaw (database = FIM-LH) contains congressional committee reports setting out the legislative history of congressional bills and public laws relating to immigration law. You can also search the partial legislative histories from the United States Code, Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN) publication, (database = LH).
Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories, by Nancy P. Johnson
[KF42.2.J55, Also available in print at the Reference Desk]
Many major pieces of legislation get their histories compiled into a
book or article; you can find citations to these sources organized by
public law number in this 3-ring binder.
PRINT SOURCES:
CIS
Annual Legislative Histories, 1970 - present.
[KF49 .C62 - Micrographics]
This print index includes complete legislative histories with references
to the full-text documents available in the library's CIS microfiche
collection. From the 91st to 98th Congresses (1970 - 1983) legislative
histories are found at the end of the Abstracts volume. Beginning
in 1984, an Annual Legislative History volume lists histories
by public law number. Each history contains an abstract of the public
law and full bibliographic citations to relevant documents.
IIRIRA
: selected legislative history of the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996
[KF4800 .I4 1996, 5th Stacks]
Immigration
and Nationality Acts: legislative histories and related documents,
2nd series
[KF4805.8 .I56 1997, 5th Stacks]
This 23-volume set covers the major immigration acts. (For example,
there are four volumes specially titled The Immigration Act of 1990:
a legislative history of Pub. L. No. 101-649.)
The
Immigration Reform Law of 1986: analysis, text, and legislative history,
by Nancy Humel Montwieler
[KF4806.56.A16 M66 1987, Reserve Stacks]
Legislative
History of American Immigration Policy, 1798-1965, by Edward Prince
Hutchinson
[KF4805.8 1981, Reserve Stacks]
PARTIAL COMPILATIONS:
United
States Code Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN)
[KF48, Kresge and 5th Core]
Checking USCCAN in print or on Westlaw (database
= LH) is a quick way to find a few of the most important legislative
history documents for acts from 1948 through the current Congress.
United
States Statutes at Large
[KF50, Kresge and 5th Core]
This source (also available
on Lexis) includes select history notes.
MICROFICHE:
CIS Legislative Documents -- The lists of historical documents for each public law are included in the printed index, and the actual legislative documents are available in the library on microfiche.
CASE LAW SOURCES:
You may be able to find good legislative history research reported in judicial opinions.
Lexis - The best thing to do on Lexis is to Shepardize the code section. (Using 8 U.S.C. 1153 (b) as an example, there are 19 citing references with links to court cases, agency decisions, and law reviews.)
Westlaw - You can Keycite the citation on Westlaw and click on the citing references tab. Then you can limit by document type and make sure that only the highest court box is checked. Another way is to search the federal cases. (For example, if you were looking for cases that discussed 8 U.S.C. 1153(b) regarding visas for aliens with extraordinary ability, you could use the following search: 8 +5 1153(b) & visa & extraordinary.)
Additional Steps for Locating Detailed Legislative History Documents
The additional steps for locating detailed legislative history documents are covered in more depth in the Hastings Law Library Research Guide: Compiling A Federal Legislative History.
These steps include information on locating:
Bills
The bills are the original document; the proposed law that was submitted by (usually) one or more members of Congress.
Congressional Hearings
You may be able to find hearings from the committees whose responsibilities are applicable to the topic of the bill. Not all bills have hearings, and not all hearings get published.
House, Senate and Joint Reports
The report is where you will find the most detail about the purpose of the bill along with an explanation and analysis. These can get tricky because the House Report may look just like the Senate one so check the date.
Committee Prints
Committee Prints may be reprints of other documents, they may include hearing excerpts, or they might be special studies. As in the case with Congressional Hearings, there may or may not be any available Committee Prints.
Congressional Record
Look in the Congressional Record for debates. Hearings are before committees, but debates are before the entire Congress. (They actually take place on the floor of the House or the Senate.)
Presidential Documents
If so inclined, the President might say why a law was signed or vetoed.
How to Find Legislative History - - Regulations
First of all, what exactly are regulations? If you think how statutes are a product of the legislative branch, and cases are a product of the judicial branch, then it follows that regulations are a product of the executive branch. You can think of them as rules of the executive departments and agencies. Agencies issue regulations to guide the activitiy of those regulated by the agency and of their own employees, and to ensure uniform application of the law.
The Federal Register is the official publication for any proposed rules, interim rules, final rules, proclamations, orders, and notices that come from the President, departments of the executive branch, and administrative agencies. For instance, a federal agency with administrative jurisdiction over the Immigration and Naturalization Act is the Immigration and Naturalization Service (the INS).
Later, the general and permanent rules published by the Federal Register are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). (Think of the CFR as being the subject arrangement for the chronological Federal Register, just as the United States Code is arranged by subject for the public laws which are numbered chronologically in the Statutes At Large.)
Once you have a citation to a regulation in the CFR, you can look in the Federal Register to get background information and comments about that regulation. Here's how to find immigration regulations and information about these regulations.
Find the CFR citation
ONLINE SOURCES:
The CFR is online on both Westlaw and Lexis. Using Lexis, access the Federal Register and CFR - Immigration file to search Title 8-Aliens and Nationality, Title 20-Employee's Benefits, Title 22-Foreign Relations, Title 28-Judicial Administration Act, Title 29-Labor, and Title 42-Public Health all together.
Use a United States Code title and section number (for instance, 8 u.s.c. 1153) as a search term in the CFR file, and you will get regulations related to that statute.
Still using
Lexis, experienced searchers can perform a more specific search by using
the AUTHORITY segment: authority (8 u.s.c. PRE/25 1153). This retrieves
a list of the sections from the U.S. Code that have been cited as the
authority of the regulation.
PRINT SOURCES:
Using the "Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules" section of the index volume of the CFR, look up the USC citation. (For example, looking up 8 USC 1153 points you to 8 CFR 204, 205. Part 204 covers Immigrant Petitions.)
You can also search the "Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules" by Statutes at Large citation, by Public Law number, or by the number of a Presidential Proclamation, Executive Order or other presidential document.
Look at the Federal Register
The Federal Register is a chronological listing of the rules and rule-making activities which get published in the CFR. The citations to the Federal Register are found at the end of the CFR sections in [square brackets] listing volume number, page number and date of publication.
ONLINE SOURCES:
The Federal Register is available on both Lexis and Westlaw. On Westlaw, start in the FIM-FR database for Federal Immigration Materials-Federal Register. Continuing with the example above, I will use "8 cfr 204" as the search term to see where and when that citation appeared in the Federal Register.
Power searchers can use the caption and preliminary fields specifically, such as: ca,pr (8 +5 cfr +5 204), to limit their results to documents that mention the CFR citation in the sub-title or heading of the document.
PRINT SOURCES:
The online sources begin around 1980 so for research before then, Hastings Library has volumes 1-66 of the Federal Register on the 6th floor. Use the annual index and search by topic. You can also access volumes 59-71 of the Federal Register through GPO Access.
Other
sources for regulatory history:
PRINT SOURCES:
Administrative
Decisions under Immigration & Nationality Laws
[KF4821 .A55, Reserve Stacks]
The decisions of the Attorney General, Commissioner of Immigration and
Naturalization,
and Board of Immigration Appeals.
Interpreter
Releases
[JK1751 .C55, 5th Stacks]
An information service on immigration, naturalization and related problems.
ONLINE SOURCES:
U.S. Department of Justice's Immigration and Naturalization Service, some immigration legislation, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs, and the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.
You may
even find something at the U.S.
Department of Labor.
Immigration Law Research Guides
Germain's
Transnational Law Research: a guide for attorneys, by Claire M.
Germain
[K85 .G47, Reference Desk & 5th Stacks]
This widely-used guide is a great starting place for those troubling
transnational legal questions. Use it to find what kind of EU information
is available in English and where to find it.
Specialized
Legal Research, Penny A. Hazelton, general editor
[KF240 .S64, Reference]
A good survey of many subjects are covered in this continuously-updated
single volume. Chapter eight covers immigration law.
Immigration
Law on the Web, by Beth Smith.
This is a useful guide to immigration law published on the web at LLRX.com.
FCIL
Librarian