ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the fundamental, distinctive ideological basis and doctrinal elements of classical immigration law that were developed by the Supreme Court as early as the 1880's and confirmed by it well into the 1970's. It suggests some structural and ideological changes that are beginning to cause different principles to penetrate immigration law. The chapter examines the lines along which the basic elements of immigration law are being transformed today, and discusses some of the implications of these transformations for the future character and consequences of immigration law. No single development has animated and shaped the current transformation of immigration law more powerfully than the massive influx and subsequent detention of aliens from Cuba, Haiti, El Salvador, and other Caribbean Basin countries since 1980. The transformation of immigration law has significantly increased its indeterminacy by aggravating certain tensions and contradictions long embedded within the classical structure, and by creating new ones peculiar to a communitarian legal system.
