When it comes to U.S. punishment, noncitizens may be the newface of legal inequality

While there has a been a great deal of discussion and commentary on the recent increase in the numbers of undocumented immigrants coming to the U.S., there is little understanding of their experiences in America, especially within the justice system. In new research, Michael T. Light finds that nearly half of those sentenced in a U.S. district court are noncitizens, and that they are given harsher sentences. He writes that noncitizens are far more likely to be imprisoned than U.S. citizens, and that this sentencing gap is larger than the gap between racial/ethnic minorities and whites, between men and women, and between college-educated offenders and high school dropouts. In addition, he finds that on average, noncitizens receive sentences that are 3-4 months longer than citizens, when imprisoned