Objectives:

This study seeks to understand how national origin and legal migration status of noncitizen defendants in federal criminal courts shape incarceration and sentence length decisions.

Method:

The authors use annual United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) Monitoring of Federal Criminal Sentences (MFCS) datasets (2011–2016) to examine the impact of defendant’s (1) national origin and (2) legal versus illegal migration status on incarceration and sentence length decisions in federal criminal courts. In addition, in order to account for effects of immigration cases, supplemental analyses are conducted for (1) non-immigration offenses and (2) immigration-only offenses.

Results:

For the incarceration decision, noncitizen defendants have higher odds of incarceration than U.S. citizens, net of other factors. These effects are less consistent in the sentence length decision. These relationships systemically differ across national origin and legal migration status.

Conclusions:

Punishment disadvantages based on one’s citizenship are particularly pronounced for defendants from Mexico, Latin America, and Africa and especially for those with “illegal” migration status. As noncitizen populations continue to grow in federal courts and in the U.S. more broadly, understanding and addressing these citizenship disparities in punishment will be increasingly important.

中文翻译：

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公民身份和量刑：评估国籍和合法移民状况对联邦量刑结果的交叉性

目标：

本研究旨在了解联邦刑事法院中非公民被告的国籍和合法移民身份如何影响监禁和刑期判决。

方法：

作者使用年度美国量刑委员会 (USSC) 联邦刑事判决监测 (MFCS) 数据集（2011-2016 年）来检查被告的 (1)国籍和 (2)合法与非法移民状态对监禁和刑期的影响联邦刑事法院的决定。此外，为了说明移民案件的影响，对 (1) 非移民犯罪和 (2) 仅移民犯罪进行了补充分析。

结果：

对于监禁决定，扣除其他因素后，非公民被告被监禁的几率高于美国公民。这些影响在句子长度决定中不太一致。这些关系因国籍和合法移民身份而存在系统差异。

结论：

对于来自墨西哥、拉丁美洲和非洲的被告，尤其是那些具有“非法”移民身份的被告，基于公民身份的惩罚劣势尤为明显。随着非公民人口在联邦法院和更广泛的美国继续增长，理解和解决这些公民在惩罚方面的差异将变得越来越重要。