Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Administrative Law

External Link

Selected Works

Immigration Law

Articles 1 - 21 of 21

Full-Text Articles in Law

An Unexceptional Aspect Of President Obama's Immigration Executive Actions, Jill Family Jan 2015

An Unexceptional Aspect Of President Obama's Immigration Executive Actions, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

Discussing Obama's recent immigration executive actions and the Obama administration's exercises of executive power.

Go to article

Constructing Illegality In America: Immigrant Experiences, Critiques, And Resistance, Daniel Kanstroom, Cecilia Menjívar Oct 2013

Constructing Illegality In America: Immigrant Experiences, Critiques, And Resistance, Daniel Kanstroom, Cecilia Menjívar

Daniel Kanstroom

The topic of 'illegal' immigration has been a major aspect of public discourse in the United States and many other immigrant-receiving countries. From the beginning of its modern invocation in the early twentieth century, the often ill-defined epithet of human 'illegality' has figured prominently in the media; in vigorous public debates at the national, state, and local levels; and in presidential campaigns. In this collection of essays, contributors from a variety of disciplines - anthropology, law, political science, religious studies, and sociology - examine how immigration law shapes immigrant illegality, how the concept of immigrant illegality is deployed and lived, …

Go to article

Easing The Guidance Document Dilemma Agency By Agency: Immigration Law And Not Really Binding Rules, Jill Family Dec 2012

Easing The Guidance Document Dilemma Agency By Agency: Immigration Law And Not Really Binding Rules, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

Immigration law relies on rules that bind effectively, but not legally, to adjudicate millions of applications for immigration benefits every year. This article provides a blueprint for immigration law to improve its use of these practically binding rules, often called guidance documents. The agency that adjudicates immigration benefit applications, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), should develop and adopt its own Good Guidance Practices to govern how it uses guidance documents. This article recommends both a mechanism for reform, the Good Guidance Practices, and tackles many complex issues that USCIS will need to address in creating its practices. The …

Go to article

Opinion Analysis: Deferring To (Even More) Limited Relief From Removal, Jill Family May 2012

Opinion Analysis: Deferring To (Even More) Limited Relief From Removal, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

In a unanimous decision on Monday, the Court held that the Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) reasonably construed a statute to forbid the imputation of a parent’s U.S. residency and immigration status to a child to compute the child’s eligibility for relief from removal (deportation).  The Court reversed the decision of the Ninth Circuit in Holder v. Gutierrez, consolidated with Holder v. Sawyers.

Go to article

Argument Recap: Imputing Eligibility For Relief From Removal, Jill Family Jan 2012

Argument Recap: Imputing Eligibility For Relief From Removal, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

At oral argument on January 18, the Court questioned the attorneys in Holder v. Gutierrez and Holder v. Sawyers about calculating relief from removal.  At issue in these consolidated cases is whether a parent’s immigration status and residency in the United States may be imputed to a minor child to calculate eligibility for relief from removal.  The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) said no; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said yes.

Go to article

Argument Preview: Calculating Relief From Removal, Jill Family Jan 2012

Argument Preview: Calculating Relief From Removal, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

Holder v. Gutierrez and Holder v. Sawyers call into question the BIA’s decision to forbid the imputation of a parent’s immigration status and residency in the United States to a minor child for the purpose of calculating eligibility for relief from removal.  Scratching that simple surface reveals a complex history of imputation and relief from removal.

Go to article

Administrative Law Through The Lens Of Immigration Law, Jill Family Dec 2011

Administrative Law Through The Lens Of Immigration Law, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

Immigration law does lag behind in the advancement of public law, but not in all respects. While immigration law is idiosyncratic in many ways, this article finds immigration law in the administrative law mainstream when it comes to its troubles with nonlegislative rules (sometimes called guidance documents). There are concerns throughout administrative law that agencies use such rules to bind regulated parties practically, even if not legally, without the procedural protections of notice and comment.
This article analyzes immigration troubles with nonlegislative rules and makes three main contributions. First, it casts new light on the negative effects of guidance documents …

Go to article

Immigration Law: Current Challenges And The Elusive Search For Legal Integrity, Daniel Kanstroom Dec 2011

Immigration Law: Current Challenges And The Elusive Search For Legal Integrity, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

This chapter offers an overview of deep questions about immigration and deportation law and practice. It includes a discussion of recent deportation policies and Supreme Court precedents.

Go to article

Beyond Decisional Independence: Uncovering Contributors To The Immigration Adjudication Crisis, Jill Family Feb 2011

Beyond Decisional Independence: Uncovering Contributors To The Immigration Adjudication Crisis, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

The conversation about immigration adjudication has shifted from one detailing shortcomings to one addressing solutions. When formulating solutions, it is important to look beyond any one contributor to the crisis and to promote a holistic view. Recent proposals for immigration adjudication reform acknowledge that fixing the system requires a multi-faceted approach. This article confirms the need for such an approach by showing how one popular cause of the crisis - a lack of decisional independence - only scratches the surface of what ails the immigration adjudication system. Along the way, the article uncovers and evaluates underappreciated crisis contributors.
While decisional …

Go to article

Murky Immigration Law And The Challenges Facing Immigration Removal And Benefits Adjudication, Jill Family Dec 2010

Murky Immigration Law And The Challenges Facing Immigration Removal And Benefits Adjudication, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

Immigration adjudication is more diverse than it may seem. Scholars tend to focus on one aspect of administrative immigration adjudication, the decision-making process established to determine whether an individual may be removed (deported) from the United States. But there is a whole other function of administrative immigration adjudication that relatively is ignored in the legal literature. Immigration adjudicators are also tasked with determining whether to grant immigration benefits, such as whether to grant lawful permanent resident (green card) status.
Both types of administrative immigration adjudication, removal and benefits, are in crisis. This article explores the challenges facing each and argues …

Go to article

Fitting The Formula For Judicial Review: The Law-Fact Distinction In Immigration Law, Rebecca Sharpless Dec 2009

Fitting The Formula For Judicial Review: The Law-Fact Distinction In Immigration Law, Rebecca Sharpless

Rebecca Sharpless

The ill-defined law-fact distinction often stands as the gatekeeper to judicial review of an agency deportation order, restricting non-citizens facing deportation to raising only questions of law when appearing before an appellate court. The restriction on review most affects cases whose dispositions typically turn on the resolution of factual issues, including claims under Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture and claims for discretionary relief from deportation like cancellation of removal. Convention Against Torture claims, for example, often involve extensive fact-finding on the part of the immigration judge regarding conditions in the applicant’s home country and the applicant’s personal circumstances. …

Go to article

A Broader View Of The Immigration Adjudication Problem, Jill Family Dec 2008

A Broader View Of The Immigration Adjudication Problem, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

Are too many individuals diverted from civil immigration adjudication? Each year, the government completes millions of diversions from civil immigration adjudication through explicit and implicit waivers, the expedited removal program and the increasing criminalization of immigration law.
By uncovering and analyzing this diversion phenomenon, this article exposes an important piece of the immigration adjudication problem that has been largely undiagnosed. While judges, scholars, government officials and practitioners have acknowledged serious problems within the civil immigration adjudication system, this article widens the view to incorporate the issue of whether too many are being sidetracked from the system altogether.
This article concludes …

Go to article

Immigration, Daniel Kanstroom Dec 2008

Immigration, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Toward A True Elements Test: Taylor And The Categorical Analysis Of Crimes In Immigration Law, Rebecca Sharpless Dec 2007

Toward A True Elements Test: Taylor And The Categorical Analysis Of Crimes In Immigration Law, Rebecca Sharpless

Rebecca Sharpless

When determining the legal effect of a conviction under immigration law, adjudicators claim to apply a uniform, federal standard that prohibits fact finding regarding the underlying circumstances that gave rise to the conviction. This categorical analysis of crimes is firmly rooted in all levels of administrative and federal court case law. Yet fundamental confusion exists concerning what it means to apply a categorical approach to evaluating when a criminal conviction is of a type that triggers deportation. This article demonstrates that a source of this confusion is a misunderstanding of the nature of a conviction and the difference between a …

Go to article

Deportation Nation: Outsiders In American History, Daniel Kanstroom Dec 2006

Deportation Nation: Outsiders In American History, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

The danger of deportation hangs over the head of virtually every noncitizen in the United States. In the complexities and inconsistencies of immigration law, one can find a reason to deport almost any noncitizen at almost any time. In recent years, the system has been used with unprecedented vigor against millions of deportees.

We are a nation of immigrants--but which ones do we want, and what do we do with those that we don’t? These questions have troubled American law and politics since colonial times.

Deportation Nation is a chilling history of communal self-idealization and self-protection. The post-Revolutionary Alien and …

Go to article

The Long, Complex, And Futile Deportation Saga Of Carlos Marcello, Daniel Kanstroom Dec 2004

The Long, Complex, And Futile Deportation Saga Of Carlos Marcello, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Immigration, Daniel Kanstroom Dec 2001

Immigration, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Immigration Litigation In Federal Court, Daniel Kanstroom Dec 2001

Immigration Litigation In Federal Court, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Immigration Consequences Of Criminal Convictions, Daniel Kanstroom Dec 2000

Immigration Consequences Of Criminal Convictions, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Dangerous Undertones Of The New Nativism: Peter Brimelow And The Decline Of The West, Daniel Kanstroom Dec 1996

Dangerous Undertones Of The New Nativism: Peter Brimelow And The Decline Of The West, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

Nativism - an intense opposition to immigrants and other non-native members of society - has been deeply imbedded in the American character from the earliest days of the nation. Dating from the Alien and Sedition controversy of 1798 to California's recent Proposition 187, nativism has long been a driving force in policy making, a particular irony in a country founded and populated by immigrants.

This anthology of original, specially commissioned essays is informed at its core by George Santayana's famous edict that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Examining the current surge in nativism in …

Go to article

Federal Court Litigation And Review, Daniel Kanstroom Dec 1988

Federal Court Litigation And Review, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Go to article