Immigration Law Commons^™

Should They Stay Or Should They Go: Rethinking The Use Of Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude In Immigration Law, Sara Salem

Florida Law Review

Although absent from modern English conversation, the words moral turpitude continue to carry devastating consequences for undocumented aliens living in the United States. Under federal immigration law, an alien convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude may be deported or denied entry into the United States. Perhaps most significantly, nearly all immigration relief is conditioned on an alien having never been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. So the question becomes, what is a crime involving moral turpitude? There is currently no clear answer. No one standard exists for determining whether a conviction qualifies as a crime involving moral …

Redefining “Particularly Serious Crimes” In Refugee Law, Mary Holper

Florida Law Review

Refugees are not protected from deportation if they have been convicted of a “particularly serious crime” (PSC) which renders them a danger to the community. This raises questions about the meaning of “particularly serious” and “danger to the community.” The Board of Immigration Appeals, Attorney General, and Congress have interpreted PSC quite broadly, leaving many refugees vulnerable to deportation without any consideration of the risk of persecution in their cases. This trend is disturbing as a matter of refugee law, but it is even more disturbing because it demonstrates how certain criminal law trends have played out in immigration law. …

Policing The Immigrant Identity, Eda Katharine Tinto

Florida Law Review

Information concerning an immigrant’s “identity” is critical evidence used by the government in a deportation proceeding. Today, the government collects immigrant identity evidence in a variety of ways: a local police officer conducts a traffic stop and obtains a driver’s name and date of birth, fingerprints taken at booking link to previously acquired biographical information, and a search of a national database reveals a person’s country of origin. Data suggests that in an increasing number of cases, police collect immigrant identity evidence following an unlawful search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In immigration …

Disaggregating "Immigration Law", Mathew J. Lindsay

Florida Law Review

Courts and scholars have long noted the constitutional exceptionalism of the federal immigration power, decried the injustice it produces, and appealed for greater constitutional protection for noncitizens. This Article builds on this robust literature while focusing on a particularly critical conceptual and doctrinal obstacle to legal reform—the notion that laws governing the rights of noncitizens to enter and remain within the United States comprise a distinct body of “immigration laws” presumed to be part and parcel of foreign affairs and national security.

This Article argues that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent immigration jurisprudence suggests a willingness to temper, and perhaps …

The President And Immigration Federalism, Pratheepan Gulasekaram, S. Karthick Ramakrishnan

Florida Law Review

This Article lays out a systematic, conceptual framework to better understand the relationship between federal executive action and state- level legislation in immigration. Prior immigration law scholarship has focused on structural power questions between the U.S. federal government—as a unitary entity—and the states, while newer scholarship has examined separation of powers concerns between the President and Congress. This Article builds on both of these traditions, focusing on the intersectional relationship between the federal Executive and subfederal lawmaking, which is an important yet overlooked dynamic in the resurgence of immigration federalism. First, this Article explains the relationship between presidential action and …

Rethinking Removability, Jennifer Lee Koh

Florida Law Review

Removability, in the context of immigration law, refers to the government’s legal authority to seek deportation for violations of the federal immigration statute. Removability matters now more than ever before, both for individuals facing possible deportation as well as for the many governmental institutions charged with assessing removability. Using four areas of emerging law—claims to U.S. citizenship, the categorical approach to determining the immigration consequences of crime, the application of the exclusionary rule in removal proceedings, and the exercise of administrative discretion—this Article places removability at the center of its analysis and presents a framework for better understanding removability. Under …

Illegitimate Harm: Law, Stigma, And Discrimination Against Nonmarital Children, Solangel Maldonado

Florida Law Review

No one would dispute that for most of U.S. history, nonmarital children suffered significant legal and societal discrimination. Although many individuals believe that the legal disadvantages attached to “illegitimate” status have disappeared in the last forty years, this Article demonstrates that the law continues to discriminate against nonmarital children in a number of areas, including intestate succession, citizenship, and child support. Societal biases against nonmarital children also remain. A majority of Americans believe that the increase in nonmarital births is a significant societal problem and almost 50% believe that unmarried women should not have children. Some courts are aware of …