Law Commons^™

The “Right To Remain Here” As An Evolving Component Of Global Refugee Protection: Current Initiatives And Critical Questions, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Immigration Enforcement And State Post-Conviction Adjudications: Towards Nuanced Preemption And True Dialogical Federalism, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

The relationship between federal immigration enforcement and state criminal, post-conviction law exemplifies certain inevitable complexities of preemption and federalism. Because neither perfect uniformity nor complete preemption is possible, we must consider two questions: First, whether (and, if so, how) state courts adjudicating rights should account for legitimate federal immigration law goals, such as uniformity and finality? Second, how should federal courts deploy preemption and federalism principles when faced with challenges by federal authorities to such state court actions? This article offers a framework of “dialogical federalism,” seeking to normalize certain tensions under a rubric of dialogue, rather than formal hierarchy …

Deportation As A Global Phenomenon: Reflections On The Draft Articles On The Expulsion Of Aliens, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Smart(Er) Enforcement: Rethinking Removal, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

Substantial interior immigration enforcement will undoubtedly continue in the United States, whether or not the legislative and executive branches can craft a legalization program. Though some enforcement is undoubtedly necessary, the system’s continuity will also be due in part to inertia. The size of the current enforcement system is stunning, affecting many millions of noncitizens and removing many hundreds of thousands annually. Equally impressive are its costs and its complexity. One recent study aptly described the system as “formidable machinery,” involving a “complex, cross-agency system that is interconnected in an unprecedented fashion.” Spending on immigration enforcement was about $18 billion …

The Forgotten Deported: A Declaration On The Rights Of Expelled And Deported Persons, Daniel Kanstroom, Jessica Chicco

Daniel Kanstroom

"Alien" Litigation As Polity-Participation: The Positive Power Of A "Voteless Class Of Litigants", Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Panel Two: Should There Be Remote Public Access To Court Filings In Immigration Cases?, The Honorable Robert Hinkle, David Mccraw, Daniel Kanstroom, Eleanor Acer

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Panel Two: Should There Be Remote Public Access To Court Filings In Immigration Cases?, The Honorable Robert Hinkle, David Mccraw, Daniel Kanstroom, Eleanor Acer

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Law, Torture, And The “Task Of The Good Lawyer” – Mukasey Agonistes , Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

Following September 11, 2001, there was a challenge to the role of law as a regulator of military action and executive power. Government lawyers produced legal interpretations designed to authorize, legitimize, and facilitate interrogation tactics widely considered to be illegal. This raises a fundamental question: how should law respond to such flawed interpretation and its consequences, even if the ends might have seemed necessary or just? This Symposium examines deep tensions between competing visions of the rule of law and the role of lawyers. Spurred by a controversy over the selection of then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey as commencement speaker, the …

The Better Part Of Valor: The Real Id Act, Discretion, And The “Rule” Of Immigration Law, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

This article considers the problems raised by a federal law--the “REAL ID Act”--that seeks to preclude judicial review of discretionary immigration law decisions. Discretion, the flexible shock absorber of the administrative state, must be respected by our legal system. However, as Justice Felix Frankfurter once wrote, discretion is, “only to be respected when it is conscious of the traditions which surround it and of the limits which an informed conscience sets to its exercise.” The article suggests that judicial construction of the REAL ID Act will plumb the deep meaning of this qualification. The new law states, essentially, that constitutional …

Legal Lines In Shifting Sand: Immigration Law And Human Rights In The Wake Of September 11th, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

In March of 2004, a group of legal scholars gathered at Boston College Law School to examine the doctrinal implications of the events of September 11, 2001. They reconsidered the lines drawn between citizens and noncitizens, war and peace, the civil and criminal systems, as well as the U.S. territorial line. Participants responded to the proposition that certain entrenched historical matrices no longer adequately answer the complex questions raised in the “war on terror.” They examined the importance of government disclosure and the public’s right to know; the deportation system’s habeas corpus practices; racial profiling; the convergence of immigration and …

The Shining City And The Fortress: Reflections On The “Euro-Solution” To The German Immigration Dilemma, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

On “Waterboarding”: Legal Interpretation And The Continuing Struggle For Human Rights , Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

While some aspects of the “waterboarding” debate are largely political, the practice also implicates deeply normative underpinnings of human rights and law. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has steadfastly declined to declare waterboarding illegal or to launch an investigation into past waterboarding. His equivocations have generated anguished controversy because they raise a fundamental question: should we balance “heinousness and cruelty” against information that we “might get”? Mr. Mukasey’s approach appears to be careful lawyering. However, it portends a radical and dangerous departure from a fundamental premise of human rights law: the inherent dignity of each person. Although there is some lack …

Legal Lines In Shifting Sand: Immigration Law And Human Rights In The Wake Of September 11, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

In March of 2004, a group of legal scholars gathered at Boston College Law School to examine the doctrinal implications of the events of September 11, 2001. They reconsidered the lines drawn between citizens and noncitizens, war and peace, the civil and criminal systems, as well as the U.S. territorial line. Participants responded to the proposition that certain entrenched historical matrices no longer adequately answer the complex questions raised in the “war on terror.” They examined the importance of government disclosure and the public’s right to know; the deportation system’s habeas corpus practices; racial profiling; the convergence of immigration and …

Criminalizing The Undocumented: Ironic Boundaries Of The Post-September 11th ‘Pale Of Law.’, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

The general hypothesis put forth in this Article is that well-accepted historical matrices are increasingly inadequate to address the complex issues raised by various U.S. government practices in the so-called “war on terrorism.” The Article describes certain stresses that have recently built upon two major legal dichotomies: the citizen/non-citizen and criminal/civil lines. Professor Kanstroom reviews the use of the citizen/non-citizen dichotomies as part of the post-September 11th enforcement regime and considers the increasing convergence between the immigration and criminal justice systems. Professor Kanstroom concludes by suggesting the potential emergence of a disturbing new legal system, which contains the worst features …

"Passed Beyond Our Aid:" U.S. Deportation, Integrity, And The Rule Of Law, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

The United States is still in the midst of a massive deportation experiment that is exceptionally sweeping and harsh by virtually any historical or comparative measure. In the last twenty-five years, the number of non-citizen deportations has exceeded 25 million. It is therefore important to think critically about how deportation is really working, especially as to many hundreds of thousands of green-card holders. These individuals have grown up, been fully acculturated, attended school, and raised families in the United States. Upon deportation, they are separated from their families and sent to places where they frequently have few acquaintances, do not …

The Right To Deportation Counsel In Padilla V. Kentucky: The Challenging Construction Of The Fifth-And-A-Half Amendment, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

The U.S. Supreme Court’s pathbreaking decision in Padilla v. Kentucky seems reasonably simple and exact: Sixth Amendment norms were applied to noncitizen Jose Padilla’s claim that his criminal defense counsel was ineffective due to allegedly incorrect advice concerning the risk of deportation. This was a very significant move with virtues of both logic and justice. It will likely prevent many avoidable and wrongful deportations. It may also help some deportees who have been wrongly or unjustly deported in the past. However, the apparent exactness of the case, as a Sixth Amendment decision, raises fundamental constitutional questions. For more than a …

Sharpening The Cutting Edge Of International Human Rights Law: Unresolved Issues Of War Crimes Tribunals, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

International criminal tribunals have emerged as the most tangible and well-known mechanism for seeking justice in the wake of atrocious human rights violations. As the enterprise has developed, the need to ask fundamental questions is obvious, compelling, and essential. In March, 2006, the Boston College International and Comparative Law Re-view, together with The Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College and the Owen M. Kupferschmid Holocaust/Human Rights Project convened a diverse and impressive group of speakers from academia, the judiciary, and legal practice to evaluate: the development of “common law” of the tribunals, the function and limits …

Deportation And Justice: A Constitutional Dialogue, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

Recent statutory changes to United States immigration law have resulted in a large increase in the number, of lawful permanent resident noncitizens who are deported because of prior criminal conduct. Now, deportation is often a virtually automatic consequence of conviction for an increasingly minor array of crimes including possessory drug offenses and shoplifting. Under current statutory law, permanent resident noncitizens may be deported for crimes that were not grounds for deportation when they were committed and there may be no possibility of mercy or humanitarian relief. This Dialogue explores arguments for and against this system. Specifically, it examines the idea, …

Padilla V. Kentucky And The Evolving Right To Deportation Counsel: Watershed Or Work-In-Progress?, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

Though widely heralded by immigration and human rights lawyers as a “landmark,” possible “watershed,” and even “Gideon decision” for immigrants, Padilla v. Kentucky is perhaps better understood as a Rorschach test, than as a clear constitutional precedent. It is surely a very interesting and important U.S. Supreme Court case in the (rapidly converging) fields of immigration and criminal law in which the Court struggles with the functional relationship between ostensibly “civil” deportation proceedings and criminal convictions. This is a gratifying development, for reasons not only of justice, fairness, proportionality, and basic human decency, but also (perhaps) of doctrinal consistency. The …

Deportation, Social Control, And Punishment: Some Thoughts About Why Hard Laws Make Bad Cases, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

From the Author’s Introduction: We live in a time of unusual vigor, efficiency, and strictness in the deportation of long-term permanent resident aliens convicted of crimes. This situation is the result of some fifteen years of relatively sustained attention to this issue, which culminated in two exceptionally harsh laws: the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). In many cases, these laws have brought about a rather complete convergence between the criminal justice and deportation systems. Deportation is now often a virtually automatic consequence of criminal …

Reaping The Harvest: The Long, Complicated, Crucial Rhetorical Struggle Over Deportation, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Deportation And Justice: A Constitutional Dialogue, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

Recent statutory changes to the United States immigration law have resulted in a large increase in the number of lawful permanent resident noncitizens who are deported because of prior criminal conduct. Now, deportation is often a virtually automatic consequence of conviction for an increasingly minor array of crimes including possessory drug offenses and shoplifting. Under current statutory law, permanent resident noncitizens may be deported for crimes that were not grounds for deportation when they were committed and there may be no possibiilty of mercy or humanitarian relief. This Dialogue explores arguments for and against this system. Specifically, it examines the …

America Goes Global, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Stories From Immigration Practice, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

"Unlawful Combatants' In The United States: Drawing The Fine Line Between Law And War, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

St. Cyr Or Insincere: The Strange Quality Of Supreme Court Victory, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Surrounding The Hole In The Doughnut: Discretion And Deference In U.S. Immigration Law, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Wer Sind Wir Wieder? Laws Of Asylum, Immigration, And Citizenship In The Struggle For The Soul Of The New Germany, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.