Immigration Law Commons^™

The Classic Arguments For Free Speech 1644-1927, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines the classic arguments for freedom of speech. It traces the first comprehensive argument for freedom of speech as a limiting principle of government to John Milton’s Areopagitica, a polemic against censorship by a requirement of prior licensing in which Milton develops an argument for the pursuit of truth through exposure to false and heretical ideas rather than the passive reception of orthodoxy. Despite Milton’s belief in the advancement of understanding through free inquiry, he was far from liberal in the modern sense of that term and he did not, for instance, extend the tolerance he advocated to …

Deported Veterans: The Unintended Consequences Of “Good Moral Character”, Jonathan Deras

Master's Theses

The purpose of this research is to argue that U.S. immigration policy, specifically the 1996 IIRIRA (also known as IIRAIRA), needs to change regarding the legal treatment of immigrant U.S. military veteran deportees due to the following concepts. The first concept is to articulate how the criminalization of immigration, and how the military system intersects to facilitate the Deportation of U.S veterans. A key concept in this analysis is the standard of “good moral character” set by the U.S. government that enlistees need to meet to be accepted into the military; this standard is also used against immigrant veterans during …

Proposed Federal Osha Standards For Wildfire Smoke, Keenan Layton

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

With the rise of global temperatures, climatologists predict a corresponding increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires in the Pacific Northwest. Rising temperatures are expected to create drier conditions in forests, thereby creating environmental conditions more prone to forest fires. Wildfires have become a common enough occurrence in the Pacific Northwest that summers have become synonymous with smoky conditions, but the issue is not constrained to this region. Though the Pacific Northwest has recently acted as a harbinger of increasing wildfires, environmental scientists forecast an increase in fire risk throughout the Western United States. The predicted rise in forest …

The Problem Of Foreign Convictions In U.S. Immigration Law, Geoff Cebula

Notre Dame Law Review

Part I argues that the definition of “conviction” in the INA implicitly leaves room for courts to inquire into the procedural fairness underlying a foreign conviction. Part II surveys the traditional standards for evaluating the sufficiency of foreign convictions in the contexts of extradition and international comity, two areas where U.S. courts have had to decide when to honor foreign judgments for centuries. These longstanding criteria formed the background against which the INA definition was adopted and may provide guidance on how to apply this definition. Accordingly, Part III derives from this analysis suggestions for how the Department of State …

Health Insurance And The Undocumented Immigrant, Anja Diercks

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to perform a comparative analysis on how seven different countries (USA, South Africa, Germany, England, Canada, France and Singapore) organize their healthcare system to cope with the issue of undocumented immigrants and whether or not these systems in place were “fair.” The thesis will also explore the possible ways the United States could change to be more inclusive and fairer in the world of healthcare and health insurance for the undocumented immigrant. A study on what fairness means both in ethical and economical terms is done to suggest a new basis of a fair …

Crisis Within A Crisis: A Comparative Analysis Of Covid-19’S Implications On Greece And Spain’S Migrant And Refugee Processing Policies, Injy Elhabrouk

Undergraduate Honors Theses

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic came a collective global panic regarding health, safety, and security. Since the major outbreak of the coronavirus in March of 2020, few issues have received scrutiny and attention in the public sphere. Yet, the problems that existed before COVID-19 have not become obsolete, however, they were removed from the public eye. One such issue to receive less scrutiny is the treatment of the most vulnerable populations in the world—migrants and refugees. Spain and Greece’s locations on the Mediterranean Sea mean they are often the first place migrants seek refuge in their journey to …

A Poll Tax By Another Name: Considering The Constitutionality Of Conditioning Naturalization And The “Right To Have Rights” On An Ability To Pay, John Harland Giammatteo

Journal Articles

Permanent residents must naturalize to enjoy full access to constitutional rights, particularly the right to vote. However, new regulations from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), finalized in early August and originally slated to go into effect one month before the 2020 election, would drastically increase the cost of naturalization, moving it out of reach for many otherwise-qualified permanent residents, while at the same time abolishing any meaningful fee waiver for low-income applicants. In doing so, USCIS has sought to condition naturalization and its attendant rights on an individual’s financial status. In this Essay, I juxtapose the new fee regulations …

Global Apathy And The Need For A New, Cooperative International Refugee Response, Emily Gleichert

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

While an increasing number of nations move toward isolationist, nationalist policies, the number of refugees worldwide is climbing to its highest levels since World War II. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the international body tasked with protecting this population. However, the office’s traditional solutions for refugees – local integration, resettlement in a third country, and voluntary repatriation – have mostly eluded refugees who spend an average of twenty years in exile. The limitations UNHCR’s structure imposes on the office, specifically in its ability to fund its operations and compel nations to act, have contributed to its …

Prenatal Care For Undocumented Women In The United States, Cristina Mendoza

Nursing | Senior Theses

Background: While prenatal care is an essential preventive service, access is not equal. Undocumented immigrants in the United States face many barriers that prevent them from accessing primary health care needs, including adequate prenatal care. Throughout the United States, standard Medicaid provides coverage for all pregnancy-related care, encompassing the antenatal period, childbirth, and postpartum. However, undocumented women do not qualify to receive these services. Many studies showed that lack of prenatal care for undocumented pregnant women jeopardizes their health and their neonates’ health by increasing their risk of complications related to pregnancy and birth. Objective: To bring awareness of the …

Laboratories Of Exclusion: Medicaid, Federalism & Immigrants, Medha D. Makhlouf

Faculty Scholarly Works

Medicaid’s cooperative federalism structure gives states significant discretion to include or exclude various categories of immigrants. This has created extreme geographic variability in immigrants’ access to health coverage. This Article describes federalism’s role in influencing state policies on immigrant eligibility for Medicaid and its implications for national health policy. Although there are disagreements over the extent to which public funds should be used to subsidize immigrant health coverage, this Article reveals that decentralized policymaking on immigrant access to Medicaid has weakened national health policy. It has failed to incentivize the type of state policy experimentation and replication that justifies federalism …

Asylum Ruling Halts Restrictions In New Rule, Peter Margulies

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Case Against Prosecuting Refugees, Evan J. Criddle

Northwestern University Law Review

Within the past several years, the U.S. Department of Justice has pledged to prosecute asylum-seekers who enter the United States outside an official port of entry without inspection. This practice has contributed to mass incarceration and family separation at the U.S.–Mexico border, and it has prevented bona fide refugees from accessing relief in immigration court. Yet, federal judges have taken refugee prosecution in stride, assuming that refugees, like other foreign migrants, are subject to the full force of American criminal justice if they skirt domestic border controls. This assumption is gravely mistaken.

This Article shows that Congress has not authorized …

The Contested Boundaries Of Emerging International Migration Law In The Post-Pandemic, Ian M. Kysel, Chantal Thomas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

One measure of how and whether the COVID-19 pandemic reshapes the emerging field of international migration law will be the extent to which transnational civil society and activist movements can counteract the intensification of state border controls that the pandemic has triggered. Before the pandemic, transnational efforts to establish a new normative framework for migration seemed to be accelerating. These efforts included new, if nonbinding, global compacts on refugees and migration, and new, if modest, efforts at facilitating global cooperation, alongside innovative approaches to scholarly engagement. Such developments arguably contributed to an emerging framework for protecting migrants under international law. …

Echoes Of 9/11: Rhetorical Analysis Of Presidential Statements In The "War On Terror", Bruce Ching

Journal Articles

This article examines persuasive statements by Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump involving appeals to national identity as a rhetorical foundation for anti-terrorism policy since 9/11. Their specific rhetorical methods have included the use of memorable catchphrases, alliteration, metaphorical framing, and contrast between values of the United States and those of the terrorists. President Bush focused on rallying the nation’s response against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, identifying the U.S. with “freedom itself” and invoking the phrase “War on Terror.” President Obama emphasized the importance of the nation’s values while denouncing the Bush administration’s torture of …

Relentless Pursuits: Reflections Of An Immigration And Human Rights Clinician On The Past Four Years, Sarah Paoletti

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Assimilation Of Cultures: Why The Protection And Recognition Of Dual Nationality Is Necessary, Kevin James

Fordham Undergraduate Law Review

Under current United States nationality law regarding citizenship through naturalization, dual nationality is neither inherently protected nor restricted. Specifically, the United States law does not explicitly mention dual nationality. The law does, however, create a subtle barrier to holding true dual nationality, a federally recognized and protected status of holding two or more nationalities, by requiring those obtaining citizenship through naturalization to participate in a long-standing tradition dating back to 1790: the “Oath of Allegiance” to the United States.

Reciting the oath declares that one relinquishes all loyalty from “every foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty,” and swears complete allegiance …

The Asylum Search: How The Supreme Court's Potential Ruling In The East Bay Sanctuary V. Barr Case May Change Our Interpretation Of Asylee Rights Through The Honduras Deal, Reeve Churchill, Wislande Francisque

Fordham Undergraduate Law Review

In this Note, the authors Reeve Churchill and Wislande Francique will examine the changing interpretation of asylee rights by analyzing the Honduras Deal, the 9th District Court case East Bay Sanctuary v. Barr (2020), and Trump v. Hawaii. The Honduras Deal is evidence of the Trump Administration’s harsh restrictions towards asylum seekers. This note will contextualize the Honduras Deal through the examination of two court cases: East Bay Sanctuary v. Barr and Trump v. Hawaii. In the latter case, the Supreme Court ruled that the President has the power to bar entry to any group of immigrants that he feels …

U.S. Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, And The Racially Disparate Impacts Of Covid-19, Monika Batra Kashyap

Faculty Articles

This Essay contextualizes the racially disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 in the United States within a framework of settler colonialism in order to broaden the understanding of how structural inequality is produced, imposed, and maintained. A settler colonialism framework recognizes that the United States is a present-day settler colonial society whose laws, institutions and systems of governance continue to reenact the three processes upon which the United States was built—Indigenous elimination, anti-Black racism, and immigrant exploitation. This Essay connects these foundational processes—and their underlying White supremacist logics—to the disparate health impacts of COVID-19 on Indigenous, Black, and immigrant of color communities …

The Case Against Prosecuting Refugees, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

Within the past several years, the U.S. Department of Justice has pledged to prosecute asylum-seekers who enter the United States outside an official port of entry without inspection. This practice has contributed to mass incarceration and family separation at the U.S.–Mexico border, and it has prevented bona fide refugees from accessing relief in immigration court. Yet, federal judges have taken refugee prosecution in stride, assuming that refugees, like other foreign migrants, are subject to the full force of American criminal justice if they skirt domestic border controls. This assumption is gravely mistaken.

This Article shows that Congress has not authorized …

The Weaponization Of The “Alien Harboring” Statute In A New-Era Of Racial Animus Towards Immigrants, Hannah Hamley

Seattle University Law Review

Federal law 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii), commonly referred to as the “Alien Harboring” statute, was passed sixty-eight years ago and has been used as a weapon against immigrants and their allies. Spanning back decades, numerous scholars, alarmed by the dangerous use of the statute, have written about its muddled congressional intent and the unclear definition of “harboring.” These issues continue to be relevant and are foundational concerns with the enforcement of the harboring statute. However, in the era of President Donald J. Trump, we are faced with a new danger. We are confronted with an Administration that is ferociously anti-immigrant …