Pursuing the American dream is a costly endeavor. From the initial
journey to the United States, to navigating the complicated immigration
system, to labor exploitation, to scams targeting recent arrivals, immigrants
pay heavily into the formal and informal sectors. As explored in this Essay,
however, their pay-out does not stop there: the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) also charges and retains funds in unjustified ways, resulting
in tens of millions of dollars transferred from the pockets of vulnerable
immigrants and their families to the sprawling immigration bureaucracy. This
Essay introduces the term immigraft to capture this phenomenon, defined as
the unjust transfer of funds from individuals to the state in the context of
efforts to obtain immigration benefits or relief from the state.
This Essay highlights four examples of immigraft in the U.S.
immigration system, describing how sub-agencies of DHS have illegally
and/or unjustly retained funds in the context of biometric services fees,
humanitarian parole applications filed by Afghan nationals, immigration bond
for noncitizens in removal proceedings, and administrative appeals filed due
to obvious agency mistakes. This Essay concludes by exploring theoretical
implications of immigraft, including the normalization of extraction of value
from noncitizens and its corrosive effect on the relationship among citizens,
noncitizens, and the state. By way of a path forward, this Essay also offers
practical recommendations to address immigraft through executive action and
congressional oversight.