Immigration Law Commons^™

Why The Legal Strategy Of Exploiting Immigrant Families Should Worry Us All, Jamie Abrams

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This article applies a family law lens to explore the systemic and traumatic effects of modern laws and policies on immigrant families. A family law lens widens the scope of individuals harmed by recent immigration laws and policies to show why all families are affected and harmed by shifts in state power, state action, and state rhetoric. The family law lens reveals a worrisome shift in intentionality that has moved the state from a bystander to family-based immigration trauma to an incendiary agent perpetrating family trauma.

Modern immigration laws and policies are deploying legal and political strategies that intentionally sever …

Publicly Charged: A Critical Examination Of Immigration Public Benefit Restrictions, Cori Alonso-Yoder

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Since the early days of the Trump Administration, reports of the President’s controversial and dramatic immigration policies have dominated the news. Yet, despite the intensity of this coverage, an immigration policy with far broader implications for millions of immigrants and their U.S.citizen family members has dodged the same media glare. By expanding the definition of who constitutes a “public charge” under immigration law, the Administration has begun a process to restrict legal immigration and chill the use of welfare benefits around the country. The doctrine of public charge exclusion developed from colonial times and has reemerged in Trump Administration policies …

What Matters More: Preserving A Fundamental Right To Privacy Or Tampering With Another's Dignity Through Searches Because Of "Reasonable Suspicion", Darianne De Leon

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Broken Bones And Pepper Spray: The State-Sanctioned Abuse Of Immigrant Juveniles In Custody, Alex Bruce

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

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

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Think Of An Elephant? Tweeting As "Framing" Executive Power, Fernando R. Laguarda

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Criminalization And The Politics Of Migration In Brazil, Jayesh Rathod

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In May 2017, the government of Brazil enacted a new immigration law, replacing a statute introduced in 1980 during the country’s military dictatorship with progressive legislation that advances human rights principles and adopts innovative approaches to migration management. One of the most notable features of the new law is its explicit rejection of the criminalization of migration, and its promotion of efforts to regularize undocumented migrants. Although the law itself is new, the values embedded in the law reflect recent trends in Brazilian immigration policy, which has embraced legalization, and has generally resisted the use of criminal law to punish …

Equity In Contemporary Immigration Enforcement: Defining Contributions And Countering Criminalization, Jayesh Rathod, Alia Al-Khatib

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Since the 2016 Presidential election, discussions of immigration policy and enforcement have taken center stage in the public debate. In contrast to the Obama administration, which had articulated specific priorities for removal, the Trump administration has significantly expanded its enforcement targets. Indeed, high-level officials have confirmed that virtually anyone who is in the country without authorization is susceptible to removal. To make its case for enhanced immigration enforcement, the current administration has deployed familiar tropes regarding immigrant criminality and dangerousness. This rhetoric, operationalized through varied structures of criminalization, has shrunk the pool of individuals who can argue against removal, notwithstanding …

Brief Of International Law Scholars And Non-Governmental Organizations As Amici Curiae In Support Of Appellees In International Refugee Assistance Project V. Trump, 2017 U.S. 4th Cir., Amanda Frost

Amicus Briefs

No abstract provided.

Cooperative Enforcement In Immigration Law, Amanda Frost

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

ABSTRACT: Immigration officials take two approaches to unauthorized immigrants: Either they seek to deport them, or they exercise prosecutorial discretion, allowing certain categories of unauthorized immigrants to remain in the United States without legal status. Neither method is working. The executive lacks the resources to remove more than a small percentage of the unauthorized population each year, and prosecutorial discretion is by definition an impermanent solution that leaves unauthorized immigrants vulnerable to exploitation at both work and home - harming not just them, but also the legal immigrants and U.S. citizens with whom they live and work.This Article: suggests a …

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.

Birthright Citizenship Under Attack: How Dominican Nationality Laws May Be The Future Of U.S. Exclusion, Ediberto Roman, Ernesto Sagas

American University Law Review

Attacks on birthright citizenship periodically emerge in the United States, particularly during presidential election cycles. Indeed, blaming immigrants for the country's woes is a common strategy for conservative politicians, and the campaign leading up to the 2016 presidential election was not an exception. Several of the Republican presidential candidates raised the issue, with President Donald Trump making it the hallmark of his immigration reform platform. Trump promised that, if elected, his administration would "end birthright citizenship."

In the Dominican Republic, ending birthright citizenship and curbing immigration are now enshrined into law, resulting from a significant constitutional redefinition of Dominican citizenship …

Fundamentally Unfair: Databases, Deportation, And The Crimmigrant Gang Member, Katherine Conway

American University Law Review

Provocative language painting immigrants as dangerous criminals and promises of increased immigration enforcement were cornerstones of Donald j Trump's presidential candidacy. As president, he has maintained this rhetoric and made good on many of his promises by broadening the definition of "criminal conduct" for immigration enforcement purposes, touting a renewed focus on immigrant gangs and cartels, and conducting several nation-wide anti-gang sweeps that placed an estimated 1095 "known" gang members in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. But the Trump Administration did not create the specter of the criminal immigrant, or "crimmigrant," gang member, nor did it create the detection …

Amicus Brief In Jae Lee V. United States, Jenny M. Roberts

Amicus Briefs

This amicus brief was filed on behalf of the Immigrant Defense Project, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild in support of the petitioner in Jae Lee v United States, No. 16-327. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mr. Lee, holding that Lee met his burden of showing that his attorney's erroneous advice about deportation prejudiced him. The Court found that it would not have been irrational for Lee to reject the plea he accepted and go to trial, despite the fact that he was "almost certain" to lose at trial. …

Brief For Amici Curiae Scholars Of Immigration Law In Support Of Plaintiffs-Appellees And Affirmance In Hawaii V. Trump, 2017 U.S. 9th Cir., Anita Sinha

Amicus Briefs

No abstract provided.

Blog: Immigration Reform, Aishwarya Shesh

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

Unconventional Refugees, Elizabeth Keyes

American University Law Review

Refugees are a flash point for political divisions in the United States and abroad. The enormous personal, moral, and legal challenges posed by the displacement of refugees around the world reveal the dire inadequacies of our current policies toward refugee protection. Children running to border agents at the U.S. southern border are treated as a security threat to be deterred, instead of a vulnerable population needing some level of protection. The numbers of people seeking safety in the United States, while not objectively high, places further strain on an already under-resourced and heavily burdened immigration system, which at the end …

The Role And Impact Of Nationwide Injunctions: Written Testimony For The House Committee On The Judiciary, Subcommittee On The Courts, Intellectual Property, And The Internet, Amanda Frost

Congressional and Other Testimony

This document is the written testimony submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. My testimony examines the authority of federal district courts to issue nationwide injunctions, defined as injunctions that bar the defendant from taking action against individuals who are not parties to the lawsuit. Such injunctions have been used frequently over the past few years to halt executive policies, particularly in immigration cases. My testimony explains that nationwide injunctions are sometimes essential to provide complete relief to the plaintiff, to avoid irreparable injury to those similarly …

The Perils And Possibilities Of Refugee Federalism, Burch Elias

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can We Act Globally While Thinking Locally? Responding To Stella Burch Elias, The Perils And Possibilities Of Refugee Federalism, Kit Johnson

American University Law Review

In The Perils and Possibilities of Refugee Federalism, Professor Stella Burch Elias skillfully exposes both the dangers and the opportunities presented by state responses to the resettlement of refugees within their borders. She concludes that states are prohibited from excluding refugees from their territory, but she argues that states have a previously untapped opportunity to legislate at the local level in an effort to promote the integration of refugees into their communities.

This Response does not challenge those conclusions. Rather, this Response seeks to provide context to the idea of refugee federalism by further discussing the problem, acknowledged by Professor …

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 …

As A Matter Of Fact, No: Appellate Jurisdiction To Review Denials Of Deferral Of Removal Under The Convention Against Torture, Sarah M. Vogt

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Australia's Guantanamo Bay: How Australian Migration Laws Violate The United Nations Convention Against Torture, Katelin Morales

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

No Due Process, No Asylum, And No Accountability: The Dissonance Between Refugee Due Process And International Obligations In The United States, Marissa Hill

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Arbitrary Detention? The Immigration Detention Bed Quota, Anita Sinha

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

When President Obama took office in 2009, Congress through appropriations linked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) funding to “maintaining” 33,400 immigration detention beds a day. This provision, what this Article refers to as the bed quota, remains in effect, except now the mandate is 34,000 beds a day. Since 2009, DHS detentions of non-citizens have gone up by nearly 25 percent. To accommodate for this significant spike over a relatively short period of time, the federal government has relied considerably on private prison corporations to build and operate immigration detention facilities.

This Article takes a comprehensive look at …

Independence And Immigration, Amanda Frost

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Danger And Dignity: Immigrant Day Laborers And Occupational Risk, Jayesh Rathod

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The plight of immigrant workers in the United States has captured significant scholarly attention in recent years. Despite the prevalence of discourses regarding this population, one set of issues has received relatively little attention: immigrant workers’ exposure to unhealthy and unsafe working conditions, and their corresponding susceptibility to workplace injuries and illnesses. Researchers have consistently found that immigrant workers suffer disproportionately from occupational injuries and fatalities, even when controlling for industry and occupation. Why, then, are foreign-born workers at greater risk for workplace injuries and fatalities, when compared with their native-born counterparts? This Article seeks to develop answers to that …

The Status Of Nonstatus, Geoggrey Heeren

American University Law Review

Millions of unauthorized immigrants in the United States have no legal immigration status and live in constant fear of deportation. There are millions more who do have some sort of status, like lawful permanent residency, asylum, or a nonimmigrant visa. In between is the netherworld of nonstatus. Here live noncitizens who possess government documentation but few rights. They have no pathway to lawful permanent residence or citizenship and cannot receive most public benefits. If nonstatus is denied or revoked by a prosecutor or bureaucrat, there is no right to a hearing or an appeal. If the Executive Branch discriminates in …

The Boundaries Of Executive Discretion: Deferred Action, Unlawful Presence, And Immigration Law, Peter Margulies

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bordering Persecution: Why Asylum Seekers Should Not Be Subject To Expedited Removal, Alvaro Peralta

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.