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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”; …
The End Of Asylum Redux And The Role Of Law School Clinics, Elora Mukherjee
The End Of Asylum Redux And The Role Of Law School Clinics, Elora Mukherjee
Faculty Scholarship
The Biden Administration has perpetuated many of the prior administration’s hostile policies undermining access to asylum at the southern border. This Essay first examines these policies and then identifies emerging opportunities for law school clinics to address these new challenges, including by serving asylum seekers south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
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 …
Technological Triage Of Immigration Cases, Fatma Marouf, Luz E. Herrera
Technological Triage Of Immigration Cases, Fatma Marouf, Luz E. Herrera
Faculty Scholarship
In the medical profession, triage refers to sorting medical resources in emergency situations based on the greatest need for immediate attention. Similarly, legal service providers talk about “triaging” cases to prioritize individuals with the most serious problems. But in the immigration field, the concept of triage is turned on its head. Noncitizens with the riskiest cases—those facing deportation—have the least access to legal assistance, especially if they are detained. Technology has the potential to help with triage but is not yet being used effectively to assist with deportation defense. This Article argues that utilizing technology to facilitate access to representation …
Irreconcilable Similarities: The Inconsistent Analysis Of 212(C) And 212(H) Waivers, Kate Aschenbrenner Rodriguez
Irreconcilable Similarities: The Inconsistent Analysis Of 212(C) And 212(H) Waivers, Kate Aschenbrenner Rodriguez
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
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 …
Discretionary (In)Justice: The Exercise Of Discretion In Claims For Asylum, Kate Aschenbrenner Rodriguez
Discretionary (In)Justice: The Exercise Of Discretion In Claims For Asylum, Kate Aschenbrenner Rodriguez
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Where Do We Go From Padilla V. Kentucky? Thoughts On Implementation And Future Directions, Maureen A. Sweeney
Where Do We Go From Padilla V. Kentucky? Thoughts On Implementation And Future Directions, Maureen A. Sweeney
Faculty Scholarship
On March 31, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court held in the landmark case of Padilla v. Kentucky that the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel in criminal cases includes the right for non-U.S. citizens to be correctly and specifically advised about the likely immigration consequences of a plea agreement. The decision represents an important shift in the way courts have addressed such claims by noncitizen defendants. The Court’s decision recognizes a constitutional requirement that defense counsel provide advice in an area of law in which few defense counsel are knowledgeable, and therefore raises important and difficult questions about …
Penalty And Proportionality In Deportation For Crimes, Maureen A. Sweeney, Hillary Scholten
Penalty And Proportionality In Deportation For Crimes, Maureen A. Sweeney, Hillary Scholten
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Fact Or Fiction: The Legal Construction Of Immigration Removal For Crimes, Maureen A. Sweeney
Fact Or Fiction: The Legal Construction Of Immigration Removal For Crimes, Maureen A. Sweeney
Faculty Scholarship
Thousands of long-term legal permanent residents are deported from the United States each year because they have been convicted of criminal offenses, many quite minor. These deportations occur without any of the constitutional safeguards that generally protect criminal defendants. Immigration authorities rely on cases asserting that such deportations are not punishment for the crime, but merely collateral consequences of the conviction. This article challenges that reasoning. It argues that its factual and doctrinal foundation has completely disintegrated over the last 20 years. Far-reaching changes in immigration law and enforcement have rendered deportation for aggravated felonies a “definite, immediate and largely …
"Streamlining" The Rule Of Law: How The Department Of Justice Is Undermining Judicial Review Of Agency Action, Shruti Rana
"Streamlining" The Rule Of Law: How The Department Of Justice Is Undermining Judicial Review Of Agency Action, Shruti Rana
Faculty Scholarship
Judicial review of administrative decision making is an essential institutional check on agency power. Recently, however, the Department of Justice dramatically revised its regulations in an attempt to insulate its decision making from public and federal court scrutiny. These “streamlining” rules, carried out in the name of national security and immigration reform, have led to a breakdown in the rule of law in our judicial system. While much attention has been focused on the Department of Justice’s recent attempts to shield executive power from the reach of Congress, its efforts to undermine judicial review have so far escaped such scrutiny. …
Muscular Procedure: Conditional Deference In The Executive Detention Cases, Joseph Landau
Muscular Procedure: Conditional Deference In The Executive Detention Cases, Joseph Landau
Faculty Scholarship
Although much of the prevailing scholarship surrounding the 9/11 decisions tends to downgrade procedural decisions of law as weak and inadequate, procedural rulings have affected the law of national security in remarkable ways. The Supreme Court and lower courts have used procedural devices to require, as a condition of deference, that the coordinate branches respect transsubstantive procedural values like transparency and deliberation. This is “muscular procedure,” the judicial invocation of a procedural rule to ensure the integrity of coordinate branch decision-making processes. Through muscular procedure, courts have accelerated the resolution of large numbers of highly charged cases. Moreover, they have …