Law Commons^™

A Particularly Serious Exception To The Categorical Approach, Fatma E. Marouf

Fatma Marouf

A noncitizen who has been convicted of a “particularly serious crime” can be deported to a country where there is a greater than fifty percent chance of persecution or death. Yet, the Board of Immigration Appeals has not provided a clear test for determining what is a “particularly serious crime.” The current test, which combines an examination of the elements with a fact-specific inquiry, has led to arbitrary and unpredictable decisions about what types of offenses are “particularly serious.” This Article argues that the categorical approach for analyzing convictions should be applied to the particularly serious crime determination to promote …

Invisible Women: Syrian Victims Of Gender-Based Violence As A Particular Social Group In U.S. Asylum Law, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

In the midst of the worst humanitarian crisis of our time, in Syria, we have seen extreme suffering by millions who have been summarily executed, tortured, imprisoned, raped, starved, and bombed with chemical weapons. Specifically, we have seen that women have been the target of gender-based violence in the conflict by and with the acquiescence of the Assad regime forces and by opposition groups. Women have been human shields; hostages for the bargaining of prisoner release; and victims of sexual violence and exploitation, forced marriage, and other forms of violence such as honor killings. This gender-based violence has rendered women …

The Sprouting Of Human Rights Initiatives In The Midst Of A Storm Of Resistance To Refugees, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

No abstract provided.

Natural Hazards, Human Actors, Serious Harm: Refugee Protection Through Understanding The Social Construction Of Disasters, Matthew Scott

Matthew Scott

The occurrence of a natural hazard event is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the unfolding of a ‘natural’ disaster. Disasters result when individuals and communities are exposed and vulnerable to natural hazards, such as droughts, floods and earthquakes. In their turn, exposure and vulnerability are social facts that are often closely correlated with discrimination, for example against women, children, older people, persons with disabilities, as well as for reasons of race, religion, nationality or political opinion. Adopting the perspective that sees disasters as socially constructed in this way, the scope of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status …

African Migration To The United States: Assigned To The Back Of The Bus, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

This book project, timed on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1965 immigration amendments, recognizes many significant effects that the amendments have had on the United States. In many ways—particularly with respect to dramatic demographic changes in Latino and Asian Pacific American communities—the amendments might be regarded as integral to the perpetuation of the United States as a land of immigrants. Yet, when it comes to residents of African descent after the end of slavery, the 1965 changes have had relatively little to do with facilitating the entry of African migrants to our shores.

In this book chapter, I discuss the …