Law Commons^™

Third Country Deportation, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

The large-scale deportation of noncitizens from the United States is not new. However, the speed, and secrecy, by which many of these deportations are carried out is unprecedented. Deportations are, increasingly, executed not through a legal court process, but rather, extrajudicially—in detention centers and at border crossings, outside the purview of judges or neutral adjudicators. One kind of this “shadow deportation” is what I term “third country deportation”—the removal of noncitizens to a country other than that designated by an Immigration Judge, after relief to the designated country has been granted, and after the court proceeding has concluded.

This article …

No Restoration, No Rehabilitation: Shadow Detention Of Mentally Incompetent Noncitizens, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the burgeoning mental competency regime in immigration removal proceedings, as well as its shortcomings. While some strides have been made in the last six years to identify noncitizen detainees who are incompetent, and to implement safeguards, including appointed counsel, to protect their rights, the current mental competency framework fails to protect some of the most vulnerable. Specifically, this article explains that mentally incompetent, noncitizen detainees for whom no adequate safeguards are available, face a kind of shadow, prolonged and potentially indefinite detention. These detainees’ continued detention is wholly without process – despite their incompetence, they are not …

Scheherezade Meets Kafka: Two Dozen Sordid Tales Of Ideological Exclusion, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

More than two dozen immigrants' in the United States are facing deportation² or removal ³ proceedings based primarily on evidence that the Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS") has refused to disclose because it is "classified.", ⁴ The use of secret evidence in deportation proceedings is the most powerful tool in an apparently systematic attack by U.S. governmental agencies on the speech, association and religious activities of a very defined group of people: Muslims, Arabs, and U.S. lawful permanent residents of Arab origin residing in this country. Evidence emerging from these cases indicates that the government is spending thousands of …