Law Commons^™

Texas's "Operation Lone Star": The Supremacy Clause And Dual Federalism In Light Of Arizona V. United States, Reynaldo Ramirez, Jr

Texas A&M Law Review

The Supremacy Clause of Article Six of the United States Constitution was enacted to remedy the failures of the Articles of Confederation. Initially, the states enjoyed near-boundless state sovereignty in nearly all aspects of the first federalist government. However, in practice, the necessity of federal supremacy for conducting the business of governing obligated the states to prioritize national interests above the states’ sovereignty. To do so required revision of the Articles of Confederation. This drafting culminated in the contentious ratification of the Constitution in 1788, including the Supremacy Clause and the Tenth Amendment. That said, ratifying the Supremacy Clause and …

The Immigration Court System: Unconstitutionality At The Hands Of The Executive To Push Nativism, Chloe Wigul

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

The United States’ immigration court system is located within the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review and operated under the power of the attorney general. Consequently, the attorney general can review and overrule decisions made by the Board of Immigration Appeals, the immigration appellate body. If the attorney general uses this authority, his decision cannot be reconsidered, and his opinion becomes precedent. Immigration courts are unique in that no other court system is located within or controlled by the executive branch. Focusing on key historical eras, this Comment compares the development of immigration law and policy with …

Attachment Issues: Assessing The Relationship Between Newcomers And The Constitution, Ashley Mantha-Hollands

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Are you attached to the principles of the U.S. Constitution? How do you prove it—do you feel it, or just know it? What role does it play in your daily life as a citizen? Ever since one of the first acts of the U.S. Congress, the Naturalization Act of 1795, applicants for citizenship have been required to demonstrate that they are “attached to the principles of the [C]onstitution of the United States.” This requirement has been at the forefront of fierce debates in U.S. constitutional history and, although it has had limited usage after WWII, it has recently been brought …

Save Your Rights: How Florida And Other States Have Targeted Voting Access Following The 2020 Election, Francisco Varona

FIU Law Review

Following the 2020 general election, Florida’s Republican led legislature introduced Senate Bill 90 (“S.B. 90”), which seeks to put many restrictions on various aspects of the voting process. S.B. 90 limits ballot drop-off boxes, restricts mail-in voting, proscribes “line-warming,” increases registration difficulty, and expands identification requirements. Despite lauding Florida’s election as a gold standard for the rest of the country, Governor Ron DeSantis approved this bill in May of 2021, explaining that Florida should not become complacent despite its success. The Republican Governor approved this law against the backdrop of record voter turnout for Black and Latino voters and record …

Rising Up Without Pushing Down: Lessons Learned From The Suffragettes' Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric, Kit Johnson

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

American suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton famously wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal.” Yet when suffragettes spoke of “all” men and women, they were clear about exceptions. Immigrants did not qualify. Indeed, in her own address at the First Women’s Rights Convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848, Stanton said that “to have . . . ignorant foreigners . . . fully recognized, while we ourselves are thrust out from all the rights that belong to citizens, it is too grossly insulting to the dignity of woman …

Preventing A Permanent Underclass: Why In-State Tuition For Daca Students Just Makes Sense, Christian Bowcutt, Eliza Allen

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

In the landmark 1982 Supreme Court Case "Plyler v. Doe", the right to a free education was guaranteed to undocumented students. One of the reasons for this was to "prevent a permanent underclass". Today, we have a similar opportunity to lift our fellow peers by passing legislation to guarantee in-state tuition to DACA recipients. DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is a program that grants temporary citizenship to qualifying children and youth who are brought to the United States with their parent(s) or guardian(s). Currently, the majority of states have not guaranteed this right to DACA students. With tuition rates …

Locking The Golden Door And Throwing Away The Key: An Analysis Of Asylum During The Years Of The Trump Administration, Samantha B. Karpman

Touro Law Review

The years of the Trump Administration have certainly been some of the most divisive in modern American political history. One of the largest divides arose from former President Trump’s brazen, “zero tolerance” immigration policies that relentlessly attacked many forms of immigration coming into the United States. Asylum-based immigration, which allows immigrants to come to this country as a safe haven when they are fleeing persecution in their home countries, was one of former President Trump’s main targets. Former President Trump even came dangerously close to eliminating asylum-based immigration with his “Death to Asylum” policy in December of 2020. President Biden …

Discretionary Injustice: Limiting Due Process Rights Of Undocumented Immigrants Upon Removal After Re-Entry, Brendan Dauscher

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fugitive Slaves And Undocumented Immigrants: Testing The Boundaries Of Our Federalism, Sandra L. Rierson

University of Miami Law Review

Federalism—the dual system of sovereignty that invests both the nation as a whole and each individual state with the authority to govern the people of the United States of America—is a foundational pillar of American democracy. Throughout the nation’s history, political crises have tested the resilience of this dual system of government established by the United States Constitution. The fundamental contradiction of slavery in a nation founded on the principle that “all men are created equal” triggered the nation’s most prominent existential crisis, resulting in the Civil War. In the years leading up to that war, the federal government’s protection …

The Census, Citizenship, And Improved Legislation: A Constitutional Compromise, Kaitlyn A. Marquis

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Why should the census avoid asking a question concerning citizenship?

Are there alternatives in providing information to aid government

functions while still protecting the rights of residents? In

early 2019, the Trump administration requested that the 2020 census

include an inquiry concerning the citizenship status of residents, for

claimed reasons of better legislation (i.e. the allocation of government

funds to the states and the drawing of electoral districts). The

Supreme Court considered this issue in Dept. of Commerce v. New

York. In sum, their opinion was, “not yet.” The Supreme Court did

not definitively conclude that it was unconstitutional to …

Environmental Justice In Little Village: A Case For Reforming Chicago’S Zoning Law, Charles Isaacs

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Chicago’s Little Village community bears the heavy burden of environmental injustice and racism. The residents are mostly immigrants and people of color who live with low levels of income, limited access to healthcare, and disproportionate levels of dangerous air pollution. Before its retirement, Little Village’s Crawford coal-burning power plant was the lead source of air pollution, contributing to 41 deaths, 550 emergency room visits, and 2,800 asthma attacks per year. After the plant’s retirement, community members wanted a say on the future use of the lot, only to be closed out when a corporation, Hilco Redevelopment Partners, bought the lot …

Constitutionally Unaccountable: Privatized Immigration Detention, Danielle C. Jefferis

Indiana Law Journal

For-profit, civil immigration detention is one of this nation’s fastest growing industries. About two-thirds of the more than 50,000 people in the civil custody of federal immigration authorities find themselves at one point or another in a private, corporate-run prison that contracts with the federal government. Conditions of confinement in many of these facilities are dismal. Detainees have suffered from untreated medical conditions and endured months, in some cases years, of detention in environments that are unsafe and, at times, violent. Some have died. Yet, the spaces are largely unregulated. This Article exposes and examines the absence of a constitutional …

Private Prisons, Private Governance: Essay On Developments In Private-Sector Resistance To Privatized Immigration Detention, Danielle C. Jefferis

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

The Promise And Challenge Of Humanitarian Protection In The United States: Making Temporary Protected Status Work As A Safe Haven, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The humanitarian program Congress created in 1990 to allow war refugees and those affected by significant natural disasters to live and work legally in the United States has only partially achieved its goals. More than 400,000 individuals have received temporary protected status (TPS). In many cases, the crisis ended, along with temporary protection. However, in about half of the designated nationalities—including the largest groups—conflict and instability continued, making this humanitarian protection program anything but temporary. Unfortunately, Congress did not provide the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with the tools it needed to address such long-term crises. That was purposeful—Congress worried …

Children Of A Lesser God: Reconceptualizing Race In Immigration Law, Sarah L. Hamilton-Jiang

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The increased public exposure to the experiences of Latinx unaccompanied children seeking entry at the United States southern border has revealed the lived reality of the nation’s pernicious immigration laws. The harrowing experiences of unaccompanied children are amplified by their interaction with a legal system plagued by a legacy of systemic racism and sustained racial caste. While immigration law currently affords minimal legal protections for these children, in application, the law continues to fall egregiously short of providing for the safety of unaccompanied children. Though critics have long attested to the legal system’s neglect of unaccompanied children, subsequent legal analysis …

Preschool For All: Plyler V. Doe In The Context Of Early Childhood Education, Shiva Kooragayala

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In its 1982 opinion in Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court held that a state could not deny undocumented children living within its borders a public and free K-12 education. This Note argues that Plyler’s protections extend to publicly-funded early childhood education programs that serve children between the ages of three and five. Due to the broad support of researchers, educators, and the general public, early childhood education programs funded by local, state, and the federal governments have become an integral part of a comprehensive public education today. While these early childhood education programs are nominally open to all students …

Immigration Policy: A Look At Its History And Its Future, Melisa Fumbarg

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

This comment will examine immigration in the United States, specifically by addressing questions involving the constitutionality of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and removal procedures. Part II will look at the historical background of immigration policy in the United States, including past amnesties and the latest reform, DACA. Part III will analyze DACA and why it was rescinded. Part IV will discuss one the most detrimental consequences of DACA being rescinded—deportation, and the constitutional limits of removal procedures. Part V will deploy some future predictions on immigration and the next steps Congress should take to ensure that there is …

Unitary Theory, Consolidation Of Presidential Authority, And The Breakdown Of Constitutional Principles In Immigration Law, Grant Wilson

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

This paper will argue that beginning with President Reagan the adoption of unitary theory as a central tenet in presidential administrations created a now ongoing consolidation of executive regulatory authority. This consolidation of power has considerably accelerated over the course of the last four decades. As Courts continue to defer to the executive in decisions made within the broad grants of power delegated by Congress, the relevance of the legislative body dwindles. The checks on executive assumption of power have largely been removed. The wall between the executive and the administrative have crumbled, and what were once considered unofficially separate …

A Child Litigant's Right To Counsel, Kevin Lapp

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

As the Supreme Court put it a half century ago, the right tocounsel for juveniles reflects “society’s special concern for children” and “is of the essence of justice.” In a variety of legal proceedings, from delinquency matters to child welfare proceedings to judicial bypass hearings, the law requires the appointment of counsel to child litigants. While coherent in the whole, the law regarding counsel for child litigants is a patchwork of state and federal constitutional rulings by courts and statutory grants. Legal scholarship about a child litigant’s right to counsel is similarly fragmented. Predominantly, legal scholars have examined arguments for …

Remarks On Prosecutorial Discretion And Immigration, Shoba S. Wadhia

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Shut Up. You Don't Even Go Here.* An Examination Of First Amendment Rights For Noncitizens, Samantha Chasworth

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Section I of this Note provides background information about Pineda Cruz et al v. Thompson et al and explains the government’s argument in its Motion to Dismiss. Section II explains the First Amendment, demonstrating what it is and explaining its fundamental nature. Section III argues that noncitizens are entitled to First Amendment rights, presenting the non-speakerbased composition and character of the First Amendment. Next, this section demonstrates the many fundamental rights that noncitizens currently have in an effort to show the hole left open for the First Amendment. Next, this section describes the enormous consequences of not providing First …

Barriers To Due Process For Indigent Asylum Seekers In Immigration Detention, Cindy S. Woods

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

The School To Deportation Pipeline, Laila L. Hlass

Georgia State University Law Review

The United States immigration regime has a long and sordid history of explicit racism, including limiting citizenship to free whites, excluding Chinese immigrants, deporting massive numbers of Mexican immigrants and U.S. citizens of Mexican ancestry, and implementing a national quotas system preferencing Western Europeans. More subtle bias has seeped into the system through the convergence of the criminal and immigration law regimes.

Immigration enforcement has seen a rise in mass immigrant detention and deportation, bolstered by provocative language casting immigrants as undeserving undesirables: criminals, gang members, and terrorists. Immigrant children, particularly black and Latino boys, are increasingly finding themselves in …

Action And Reaction: The Trump Executive Orders And Their Reception By The Federal Courts, Anthony S. Winer

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lee V. United States: The Unusual Circumstances Test For Strickland Relief, Zachary Segal

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Undocumented Citizens Of The United States: The Repercussions Of Denying Birth Certificates, Anna L. Lichtenberger

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Anchors Aweigh: Analyzing Birthright Citizenship As Declared (Not Established) By The Fourteenth Amendment, Elizabeth Farrington

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unconstitutional Application Of Apprehension And Detention Laws: Section 236(C) Of The Immigration And Nationality Act, Rigoberto Ledesma

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Willful Blindness Or Deliberate Indifference: The United States' Abdication Of Legal Responsibility To Refugees, Abed A. Ayoub, Yolanda C. Rondon

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Prevailing Culture Over Immigration: Centralized Immigration And Policies Between Attrition And Accommodation, Antonios Kouroutakis

Seton Hall Circuit Review

No abstract provided.