Immigration Law

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 forms the basis of immigration law in the United States. Substantially amended since its initial passage, the INA is codified in Title 8—Aliens and Nationality of the United States Code. The text of the law is widely available:

• Westlaw: United States Code Annotated (Temple Law access)  

• Lexis: United States Code Service (Temple Law access)   

• U.S. Government Publishing Office’s govinfo (free access)  

• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (free access)  

HeinOnline (Temple University access) offers compiled legislative histories of the INA:

• Immigration and Nationality Acts. Legislative Histories and Related Documents 1950-1978
• Immigration and Nationality Acts - Legislative Histories and Related Documents 1977-1986 First Series
• Immigration Act of 1990: A Legislative History of Pub. L. No. 101-649

A free resource available for researching relatively recent legislative history is Congress.gov, though it does not include coverage as far back in time as the commercial databases. Throughout this site, you can search for committee reports, committee hearings, etc. to find relevant information to legislation of interest.