Immigration and Prosecutorial Discretion

Immigration has become an increasingly salient national issue in the US, and the Department of Justice recently increased federal efforts to prosecute immigration offenses. This shift, however, relies on the cooperation of US attorneys and their assistants. Traditionally federal prosecutors have enjoyed enormous discretion and have been responsive to local concerns. To consider how the centralized goal of immigration enforcement may have influenced federal prosecutors in regional offices, we review their prosecution of immigration offenses in California using over a decade's worth of data. Our findings suggest that although centralizing forces influence immigration prosecutions, individual US attorneys' offices retain distinct characteristics. Local factors influence federal prosecutors' behavior in different ways depending on the office. Contrary to expectations, unemployment rates did not affect prosecutors' willingness to pursue immigration offenses, nor did local popular opinion about illegal immigration