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Full-Text Articles in Law
Immigration Detention Abolition And The Violence Of Digital Cages, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes
Immigration Detention Abolition And The Violence Of Digital Cages, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes
Faculty Scholarship
The United States has a long history of devastating immigration enforcement and surveillance. Today, in addition to more than 34,000 people held in immigration detention, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) surveils an astounding 296,000 people under its “Alternatives to Detention” program. The number of people subjected to this surveillance has grown dramatically in the last two decades, from just 1,339 in 2005. ICE’s rapidly expanding Alternatives to Detention program is marked by “digital cages,” consisting of GPS-outfitted ankle shackles and invasive phone and location tracking. Government officials and some immigrant advocates have categorized these digital cages as a humane “reform”; …
Trafficking And The Shallow State, Julie A. Dahlstrom
Trafficking And The Shallow State, Julie A. Dahlstrom
Faculty Scholarship
More than two decades ago, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) established new, robust protections for immigrant victims of trafficking. In particular, Congress created the T visa, a special form of immigration status, to protect immigrant victims from deportation. Despite lofty ambitions, the annual cap of 5,000 T visas has never been reached, with fewer than 1,200 approved each year. In recent years, denial rates also have climbed. For example, in fiscal year 2020, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied 42.79% of the T visa applications that the agency adjudicated, compared with just 28.12% in fiscal year 2015. These developments …
Sufficiently Safeguarded?: Competency Evaluations Of Mentally Ill Respondents In Removal Proceedings, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes
Sufficiently Safeguarded?: Competency Evaluations Of Mentally Ill Respondents In Removal Proceedings, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes
Faculty Scholarship
In this Article, I examine the current regime for making mental competency determinations of mentally ill and incompetent noncitizen respondents in immigration court. In its present iteration, mental competency determinations in immigration court are made by immigration judges, most commonly without the benefit of any mental health evaluation or expertise. In reflecting on the protections and processes in place in the criminal justice system, and on interviews with removal defense practitioners at ten different sites across the United States, I conclude that the role of the immigration judge in mental competency determinations must be changed in order to protect the …
A Study On Immigrant Activism, Secure Communities, And Rawlsian Civil Disobedience, Karen Pita Loor
A Study On Immigrant Activism, Secure Communities, And Rawlsian Civil Disobedience, Karen Pita Loor
Faculty Scholarship
This Article explores the immigrant acts of protest during the Obama presidency in opposition to the Secure Communities (SCOMM) immigration enforcement program through the lens of philosopher John Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience and posits that this immigrant resistance contributed to that administration’s dismantling the federal program by progressively moving localities, and eventually whole states, to cease cooperation with SCOMM. The controversial SCOMM program is one of the most powerful tools of immigration enforcement in the new millennium because it transforms any contact with state and local law enforcement into a potential immigration investigation. SCOMM has now been revived through …
Lost At Sea, Daniela Caruso
Lost At Sea, Daniela Caruso
Faculty Scholarship
A reflection on the existential loss experienced by many young persons in the aftermath of the Euro-zone crisis (often referred to as ‘the lost generation’) must also acknowledge, for the record and for reasons of relative salience, those who have recently drowned in the waters of southern Europe in their quest for a better future. This essay proposes to reconsider, for a moment, the relation between the obstacles that third country nationals (TNCs) encounter at our external frontiers and the increasing permeability of internal EU borders. Normally, one thinks of the two as structurally opposed: within its boundaries, the EU …