Immigration Law Commons^™

2017 Symposium Discussion: The Life Of An Immigration Attorney, Cori Alonso-Yoder

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Building Bridges: Why Expanding Optional Practical Training Is A Valid Exercise Of Agency Authority And How It Helps F-1 Students Transition To H-1b Worker Status, Pia Nitzschke

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Damaged Bodies, Damaged Lives: Immigrant Worker Injuries As Dignity Takings, Jayesh Rathod, Rachel Nadas

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Government data consistently affirm that foreign-born workers in the U.S. experience high rates of on-the-job illness and injury. This article explores whether—and under what circumstances—these occupational harms suffered by immigrant workers constitute a dignity taking. The article argues that some injuries suffered by foreign-born workers are indirect takings by the state due to the government’s lackluster oversight and limited penalties for violations of occupational safety and health laws. Using a framework of the body as property, the article then explores when work-related injury constitutes an infringement upon a property right. The article contends that the government’s weak enforcement apparatus, coupled …

Exploited At The Intersection: A Critical Race Feminist Analysis Of Undocumented Latina Workers And The Role Of The Private Attorney General, Llezlie Green

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Undocumented Latina workers experience wage theft and other workplace exploitation at alarmingly high rates. The stock stories associated with immigrant workers often involve male day laborers or female domestic workers and fail to capture the experiences of women toiling in the farms, restaurants, factories, and home and business cleaning services that employ hundreds of thousands of immigrant women. The resulting invisibility of undocumented Latina women in the typical narratives parallels the paucity of undocumented Latina workers who make legal claims against their exploitative employers. Their distinct experiences are characterized by multiple intersecting vulnerabilities based upon their ethnicity, gender, and immigration …

Riding The Wave: Uplifting Labor Organizations Through Immigration Reform, Jayesh Rathod

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In recent years, labor unions in the United States have embraced the immigrants’ rights movement, cognizant that the very future of organized labor depends on its ability to attract immigrant workers and integrate them into union ranks. At the same time, the immigrants’ rights movement has been lauded for its successful organizing models, often drawing upon the vitality and ingenuity of immigrant-based worker centers, which themselves have emerged as alternatives to traditional labor unions. And while the labor and immigrants’ rights movements have engaged in some fruitful collaborations, their mutual support has failed to radically reshape the trajectory of either …

Procedural Hurdles And Thwarted Efficiency: Immigration Relief In Wage And Hour Collective Actions, Llezlie Green

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Wage theft and its frequent exploitative companions, trafficking and involuntary servitude, have seen substantial increases in recent years. Low-wage workers often bear the brunt of these practices. Vulnerable populations, such as immigrant workers, and more specifically, undocumented workers, experience wage theft and other forms of workplace-related exploitation at alarmingly high rates. Individual adjudications of these claims are neither efficient nor, in many cases, feasible, given attorneys’ aversion to shouldering the risks and costs in cases that may yield only limited attorneys’ fees. The collective adjudication of Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) claims, however, largely resolves these challenges and provides an …

Further Considerations: Immigrant Entrepreneurs - Contributions And Challenges, Jayesh Rathod

Contributions to Books

An overview of the contributions made by immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States, and the challenges they face.

A Season Of Change: Reforming The H2b Guest Worker Program, Jayesh Rathod

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

INTRODUCTION: Each year, as spring and summer arrive, Americans partake in range of seasonal traditions: beautifying their lawns and gardens; enjoying harvests of fresh fruits, vegetables, and seafood; and attending local fairs and festivals. Although these rituals have become part of the American cultural fabric, few know that they are supported by thousands of temporary guest workers who enter the United States each year under the H-2 visa program.' The H-a program allows U.S employers to petition for seasonal agricultural workers (via the H-2A program) and seasonal nonagricultural workers (via the H-2B program) to work in this country on a …

Protecting Immigrant Workers Through Interagency Cooperation, Jayesh Rathod

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Stephen Lee’s Monitoring Immigration Enforcement offers a promising prescription for resolving the long-standing tension between the workplace enforcement priorities of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and the efforts by the Department of Labor (“DOL”) to protect the rights of immigrant workers. Lee convincingly describes - often with the aid of rich historical examples - the origins of the chronic imbalance of power between DHS and the DOL, and the limitations of past efforts to synchronize the work of the respective agencies. Lee’s proposal for interagency coordination, in the form of ex ante monitoring by the DOL of worksite enforcement …

Picked Apart: The Hidden Struggles Of Migrant Worker Women In The Maryland Crab Industry., Jayesh Rathod, Adrienne Lockie

Reports

Every year, hundreds of Mexican women travel thousands of miles from their impoverished, rural home communities to work on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the state’s historic crab industry. Maryland crab companies have increasingly come to rely on these women, who enter the U.S. on temporary guestworker visas known as H-2B visas. This report describes these women’s experiences as H-2B migrant workers, and is the result of over 40 formal interviews conducted in both the U.S. and Mexico since 2008. By obtaining first-hand accounts from the workers, the report documents the forces and conditions that give rise to this …

Conference Highlight: Fifteenth Annual Lat.Crit. Conference, Alex Bernshteyn

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

Achieving Accountability For Migrant Domestic Worker Abuse, Janie Chuang

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Domestic work has become increasingly commoditized in the global economy. Migrant domestic workers' remittances constitute a rich source of revenues for their countries of origin, while their labor ameliorates the “care deficit” experienced in wealthier countries of destination. Despite the importance of their work, migrant domestic workers are some of the most exploited workers in the world. They are often discriminated against based on their gender, class, race, nationality, and immigration status, and they are excluded from labor law protections in most countries of destination.

This essay examines some of the underlying reasons for this mistreatment and neglect. After describing …

Beyond The 'Chilling Effect': Immigrant Worker Behavior And The Regulation Of Occupational Safety & Health, Jayesh Rathod

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This article forms part of a broader scholarly project that seeks to understand the root causes of immigrant worker injury and fatality trends in the U.S., and the ways in which legal norms and regulatory practices shape these trends. This particular contribution examines the broad range of attributes and experiences that influence immigrant worker behavior relating to occupational safety and health -- in the context of interactions with employers and regulatory bodies, and relating to the choices that workers themselves make about how to perform their work.

Drawing upon scholarship from multiple disciplines, the article encourages a more robust understanding …

Immigrant Labor And The Occupational Safety & Health Regime; Part I: A New Vision For Workplace Regulation, Jayesh Rathod

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This article is the first in a series of three articles that together form a scholarly project that unearths the causes of recent trends in immigrant worker fatalities and injuries in the U.S., and presents recommendations for reversing it. The article examines how the history, structure, and operations of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have, at times, obscured the workplace safety concerns of immigrant workers and have left these workers with no meaningful voice in the regulatory process. The article presents a set of regulatory imperatives to guide OSHA’s future work with respect to immigrant workers. These …

Legislative Updates, Shiwali Patel

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

All In A Day's Work: Advocating The Employment Rights Of Day Laborers , Liza Zamd

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

The Pursuit Of Justice Is Without Borders: Binational Strategies For Defending Migrants’ Rights, Victoria Gavito

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

The Day Laborer Debate: Small-Town, U.S.A. Takes On Federal Immigration Law Regarding Undocumented Workers, Margaret Hobbins

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

Protecting The Labor And Employment Rights Of Immigrant Workers, Anita Sinha, Rebecca Smith, Cynthia Mark

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Barriers To Immigrant Laborers' Access To Workplace Rights, Anita Sinha

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

A Wink And A Nod: The Hoffman Case And Its Effects On Freedom Of Association For Undocumented Workers, Jill Borak

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.