Immigration, Justice Remittances, and US Courts

Abstract

Many immigrants to the United States are victims of crimes that occurred in their home countries. US courts usually will not rule on legal violations that occur outside of US territory. However, starting in 1980, US federal courts sometimes allow foreign nationals to use the Alien Tort Statute to seek civil remedies for international law violations on foreign territory. We argue that these civil remedies are justice remittances from the United States to the foreign countries where the violations occurred. We additionally argue that immigrants are a key driving force in generating the demand for these justice remittances. We identify the filing districts for legal complaints that yield Alien Tort Statute judicial opinions. We then use individual-level immigration data from the US Census that we aggregate to match federal judicial districts. We find compelling evidence that immigrants are agents of justice who demand justice remittances from US courts.