Juridical Framings of Immigrants in France and the United States.

This paper argues that divergent discourses about immigration during the 1970s and early 1980s in France and the United States played a significant role in shaping immigration jurisprudence in these countries and that liberal legal professional networks were central to this process. During a formative period for the rights of non-citizens, Mitterrandist discourse about immigration avoided ethnic and racial categories, while Great Society immigration discourse treated ethnicity as a legitimate category within a broader framework of pluralist politics. Court decisions translated these discursive framings into principles that structured legislative debates on immigration, further institutionalizing these nationally-distinct conceptualizations of immigrant rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]