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Anti-Carceral Theory And Immigration: A View From Two Law School Clinics, Sabrina Balgamwalla, Lauren Bartlett

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This article explores clinical teaching philosophies related to anti-carceral theory and provides examples of how to support student learning in clinics serving immigrant clients. Anti-carceral theory in this context is used to refer to an approach that resists criminalization and incarceration within law, drawing on abolitionism, intersectional and anti-carceral feminism, and decolonization.

The anti-carceral lens provides framing and language to name the dynamics of social exclusion and discrimination inherent in immigration law. It also allows us to unpack immigration regulation as a series of choices made within the larger context of law enforcement and its systems of surveillance, policing, and …

Towards The Abolition Of The Immigration Detention Of Children In The United States, Lauren E. Bartlett

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For over a decade, international human rights mechanisms have been calling for the prohibition of the detention of children based solely on immigration status. Human rights experts agree that the detention of children for immigration purposes is never in the best interests of the child, it leads to long-term harm, and it is a clear human rights violation. Until recently, the United States has detained hundreds of thousands of migrant children in cages each year and we have still not outlawed the inhumane practice. This article argues that engaging with international human rights mechanisms on this topic, including during the …

Virtually Incredible: Rethinking Deference To Demeanor When Assessing Credibility In Asylum Cases Conducted By Video Teleconference, Liz Bradley, Hillary Farber

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The COVID-19 pandemic forced courthouses around the country to shutter their doors to in-person hearings and embrace video teleconferencing (VTC), launching a technology proliferation within the U.S. legal system. Immigration courts have long been authorized to use VTC, but the pandemic prompted the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) to expand video capabilities and encourage the use of video “to the maximum extent practicable.” In this technology pivot, we must consider how VTC affects cases for international humanitarian protections, where an immigration judge’s ability to accurately gauge an applicant’s demeanor can have life-or-death consequences.

This Article takes a deep dive …

Duress In Immigration Law, Elizabeth Keyes

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No abstract provided.

Age Diversity, Alexander Boni-Saenz

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This Article is the first to examine age diversity in the legal literature, mapping out its descriptive, normative, and legal dimensions. Age diversity is a plural concept, as heterogeneity of age can take many forms in various human institutions. Likewise, the normative rationales for these assorted age diversities are rooted in distinct theoretical foundations, making the case for or against age diversity contextual rather than universal. A host of legal rules play a significant role in regulating age diversity, influencing the presence of different generations in the workplace, judiciary, and Congress. Better understanding the nature and consequences of age diversity …

Built On Borders? Tensions With The Institution Liberalism (Thought It) Left Behind, Beth A. Simmons, Hein E. Goemans

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The Liberal International Order is in crisis. While the symptoms are clear to many, the deep roots of this crisis remain obscured. We propose that the Liberal International Order is in tension with the older Sovereign Territorial Order, which is founded on territoriality and borders to create group identities, the territorial state, and the modern international system. The Liberal International Order, in contrast, privileges universality at the expense of groups and group rights. A recognition of this fundamental tension makes it possible to see that some crises that were thought to be unconnected have a common cause: the neglect of …

“One Of The Greatest Human Tragedies Of Our Time”: The U.N., Biden, And A Missed Opportunity To Abolish Immigration Prisons, Lauren E. Bartlett

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Children in cages, rampant sexual abuse, lack of access to life-saving medical treatment, and more. These human rights violations continue to occur in immigration prisons in the United States today, and given the scope, many, including the United Nations, are pushing the United States to abolish immigration prisons altogether. However, the Biden administration has demonstrated that is not interested in supporting the abolition of immigration prisons, not even in the international human rights arena.

After providing a brief overview of international human rights law prohibiting immigration prisons, this essay explores U.N. recommendations on immigration prisons from each of the Universal …

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

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No abstract provided.

Local Elected Officials’ Receptivity To Refugee Resettlement In The United States, Robert Shaffer, Lauren E. Pinson, Jonathan A. Chu, Beth A. Simmons

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Local leaders possess significant and growing authority over refugee resettlement, yet we know little about their attitudes toward refugees. In this article, we use a conjoint experiment to evaluate how the attributes of hypothetical refugee groups influence local policymaker receptivity toward refugee resettlement. We sample from a novel, national panel of current local elected officials, who represent a broad range of urban and rural communities across the United States. We find that many local officials favor refugee resettlement regardless of refugee attributes. However, officials are most receptive to refugees whom they perceive as a strong economic and social fit within …

Pandemic Response As Border Politics, Michael R. Kenwick, Beth A. Simmons

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Pandemics are imbued with the politics of bordering. For centuries, border closures and restrictions on foreign travelers have been the most persistent and pervasive means by which states have responded to global health crises. The ubiquity of these policies is not driven by any clear scientific consensus about their utility in the face of myriad pandemic threats. Instead, we show they are influenced by public opinion and preexisting commitments to invest in the symbols and structures of state efforts to control their borders, a concept we call border orientation. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, border orientation was already generally …

"She Was Surprised And Furious": Expatriation, Suffrage, Immigration, And The Fragility Of Women's Citizenship, 1907-1940, Felice Batlan

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This article stands at the intersection of women’s history and the history of citizenship, immigration, and naturalization laws. The first part of this article proceeds by examining the general legal status of women under the laws of coverture, in which married women’s legal existence was “covered” by that of their husbands. It then discusses the 1907 Expatriation Act, which resulted in women who were U.S. citizens married to non-U.S. citizens losing their citizenship. The following sections discuss how suffragists challenged the 1907 law in the courts and how passage of the Nineteenth Amendment—and with it a new concept of women’s …

Immigration, Emigration, Fungible Labour And The Retreat From Progressive Taxation, Henry Ordower

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With emphasis on the US, this chapter explores the role that taxation plays in the movement of people and capital. The chapter addresses the relationship between taxes and retention of capital, including tax incentives for capital investment, shifting tax burdens from capital to labor as progressive taxation wanes, and rules preventing the escape of capital from its current taxing jurisdiction. Next, the discussion moves on to consider how taxes supplement immigration policy to attract capital currently outside the jurisdiction. The chapter then queries whether taxes play any significant role in attracting or retaining skilled labor before identifying how tax trends …

Environmental Refugees? Rethinking What’S In A Name, Elizabeth Keyes

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The phrase “environmental refugee” summons a compelling image of someone forced to relocate due to climate change. The phrase has been used effectively to raise awareness of such diverse problems as the rising sea levels that are submerging some Pacific islands, as well as the increased impact of natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes which cause a mixture of temporary and permanent migration. As climate change accelerates, and its human costs become ever clearer, it is completely appropriate and necessary to respond to these migrations, and a number of international initiatives are underway to do so.

As these initiatives go …

Borders Rules, Beth A. Simmons

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International political borders have historically performed one overriding function: the delimitation of a state’s territorial jurisdiction, but today they are sites of intense security scrutiny and law enforcement. Traditionally they were created to secure peace through territorial independence of political units. Today borders face new pressures from heightened human mobility, economic interdependence (legal and illicit), and perceived challenges from a host of nonstate threats. Research has only begun to reveal what some of these changes mean for the governance of interstate borders. The problems surrounding international borders today go well-beyond traditional delineation and delimitation. These problems call for active forms …

Debating Immigration Restriction: The Case For Low And Slow, Amy L. Wax

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This article critiques our current politics of immigration, which is dominated by moralized and sentimental rhetoric. It argues for a more honest and balanced discussion of the merits of the status quo. A more mature debate would take into account many factors that now receive insufficient attention from politicians, academics, and the mainstream media, including the interests of voters and citizens as well as newcomers, legitimate nationalistic concerns both economic and cultural, the need for unity, stability, and cohesion through assimilation to a common culture, the primacy of American sovereignty through the maintenance of secure borders, and the integrity of …

Building A Regime Of Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1840-1945, Felice Batlan

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H-Pad is happy to announce the release of its sixth broadside. In “Building a Regime of Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1840-1945,” Felice Batlan traces a century of U.S. government laws, policies, and attitudes regarding immigration. The broadside explores how ideas about race, class, religion, and the Other repeatedly led to laws restricting the immigration of those who members of Congress, the President, and the U.S. public considered inferior and/or a threat.

The Perpetual “Invasion”: Past As Prologue In Constitutional Immigration Law, Matthew Lindsay

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Donald Trump ascended to the presidency largely on the promise to protect the American people—their physical and financial security, their culture and language, even the integrity of their electoral system—against an invading foreign menace. Only extraordinary defensive measures, including “extreme vetting” of would-be immigrants, a ban on Muslims entering the United States, and a 2,000-mile-long wall along the nation’s southern border could repel the encroaching hordes. If candidate Trump’s scapegoating of unauthorized migrants and refugees was disarmingly effective, it was also eerily familiar to those of us who study the history of immigration law and policy. Indeed, the trope of …

The Economics Of Immigration Reform, Howard F. Chang

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In this article, I draw upon economic theory and recent empirical work on the economic and fiscal effects of immigration to evaluate some recent proposals for immigration reform in terms of their effects on the economic welfare of natives in the United States. In particular, I consider the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act, a bill that would cut immigration to half of its current level. President Donald Trump has endorsed the RAISE Act and has insisted that many of its provisions be part of any legislation legalizing the status of unauthorized immigrants granted relief under the …

The Progressives: Racism And Public Law, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

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American Progressivism inaugurated the beginning of the end of American scientific racism. Its critics have been vocal, however. Progressives have been charged with promotion of eugenics, and thus with mainstreaming practices such as compulsory housing segregation, sterilization of those deemed unfit, and exclusion of immigrants on racial grounds. But if the Progressives were such racists, why is it that since the 1930s Afro-Americans and other people of color have consistently supported self-proclaimed progressive political candidates, and typically by very wide margins?

When examining the Progressives on race, it is critical to distinguish the views that they inherited from those that …

Brief For Justice Richard J. Goldstone As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Sarah Paoletti

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Amicus curiae herein argue the present petition for a writ of certiorari should be granted as it rightly questions the very legitimacy of the military commission used to try Petitioner based on a theory of equality. International and comparative law further bolster Petitioner’s argument that the Military Commissions Act’s establishment of a segregated criminal justice system in which only non-citizens are subject to military commission jurisdiction violates the equal rights of Petitioner and all non-citizens subject to its jurisdiction.

Equality is a central principle undergirding human rights law that pre-dates the founding of the United Nations and the drafting of …

Unconventional Refugees, Elizabeth Keyes

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Refugees are a flash point for political divisions in the United States and abroad. The enormous personal, moral, and legal challenges posed by the displacement of refugees around the world reveal the dire inadequacies of our current policies toward refugee protection. Children running to border agents at the U.S. southern border are treated as a security threat to be deterred, instead of a vulnerable population needing some level of protection. The numbers of people seeking safety in the United States, while not objectively high, places further strain on an already under-resourced and heavily burdened immigration system, which at the end …

The Expatriation Tax, Deferrals, Mark To Market, The Macomber Conundrum And Doubtful Constitutionality, Henry M. Ordower

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Taxpayers shift income offshore with lawful devices like operating through a foreign corporation. Taxpayers have enhanced the amount of that income lodged outside the U.S. with transfer pricing strategies. Andtaxpayers have evaded U.S. taxation of their worldwide income by secreting assets and income in tax haven, bank secrecy jurisdictions. Statutes, regulations and litigation seek to limit use of offshore opportunities toavoid the U.S. income tax. Penalties for taxpayers and their foreign hosts have been enacted to prevent thehiding of assets offshore. This article reviews many of those techniques and statutory or regulatory responses in the context of examining the 2008 …

Disaggregating “Immigration Law”, Matthew J. Lindsay

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Courts and scholars have long noted the constitutional exceptionalism of the federal immigration power, decried the injustice it produces, and appealed for greater constitutional protection for noncitizens. This Article builds on this robust literature while focusing on a particularly critical conceptual and doctrinal obstacle to legal reform—the notion that laws governing the rights of noncitizens to enter and remain within the United States comprise a distinct body of “immigration laws” presumed to be part and parcel of foreign affairs and national security. This Article argues that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent immigration jurisprudence suggests a willingness to temper, and perhaps …

Evolving Contours Of Immigration Federalism: The Case Of Migrant Children, Elizabeth Keyes

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In a unique corner of immigration law, a significant reallocation of power over immigration has been occurring with little fanfare. States play a dramatic immigration gatekeeping role in the process for providing protection to immigrant youth, like many of the Central American children who sought entry to the United States in the 2014 border “surge.” This article closely examines the history of this Special Immigrant Juvenile Status provision, enacted in 1990, which authorized a vital state role in providing access to an immigration benefit. The article traces the series of shifts in allocation of power between the federal government and …

Deferred Action: Considering What Is Lost, Elizabeth Keyes

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This response to Professor Motomura considers what is lost through the elaboration of formally defined boundaries around prosecutorial discretion. Professor Motomura and others in this Issue rightly extol the many benefits of the President's November 2014 executive actions. While I share the view that those benefits are considerable, I believe a full accounting requires us to consider what gets lost in this process, including identification of the immigrants in the limbo space between the actions' prospective beneficiaries at the one end and those who are priorities for removal on the other. This Essay focuses on the cost that comes from …

Zealous Advocacy: Pushing Against The Borders In Immigration Litigation, Elizabeth Keyes

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This article examines the forces that undermine zealous advocacy in the context of immigration court, and connects the context-specific issue of immigration defense to debates in the ethics literature about the possible justifications for zealous advocacy. As state bar rules and legal cultures and sub-cultures de-emphasize or remove the duty of zealousness, zealousness becomes increasingly counter-cultural. The article explores those trends, and shows (drawing on existing criminal defense ethical literature) why zealousness is justified in the adversarial and consequential immigration context. The article examines why a broadly understood and well-elaborated standard of zealous advocacy for immigration lawyers would be useful, …

Migrant Workers' Access To Justice At Home: Nepal, Sarah Paoletti, Eleanor Taylor-Nicholson, Bandita Sijapati, Bassina Farbenblum

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Nepal’s citizens engage in foreign employment at the highest per capita rate of any other country in Asia, and their remittances account for 25 percent of the country’s GDP. The Middle East is now the most popular destination for Nepalis--nearly 700,000 were working in the Middle East in 2011 on temporary labor contracts. For some Nepalis, working abroad provides much-needed household wealth. For others, their contributions to Nepal come at great personal cost. Migrant workers in the Gulf, for example, routinely report wage theft, lack of time off and unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. Some migrant workers report psychological and …

Race And Immigration, Then And Now: How The Shift To "Worthiness" Undermines The 1965 Immigration Law's Civil Rights Goals, Elizabeth Keyes

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This essay looks at how far immigration reform has come from the explicit civil rights character of the 1965 immigration law that reshaped America. The optimism surrounding that law’s dismantling of national-origins barriers to immigration proved to be overstated in the intervening decades, as the factors determining an immigrant’s “worth and qualifications” too often became proxies for race. After briefly looking at work done by critical race theorists tracing some of ways race and immigration have long intersected in immigration legal history, the article closely examines modern-day immigration reform proposals, particularly the Senate bill that remains the most complete articulation …

Finding The Pearls When The World Is Your Oyster: Case And Project Selection In Clinic Design, Sarah Paoletti

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Clinical legal education is distinguishable from the rest of the law school curriculum and the extracurricular activities available to law students because it places students directly into the role of a lawyer engaged in real-world practice. Clinical programs are often defined by the cases and projects—the pearls at the heart of the experiential learning experience—that comprise their dockets. Finding the right cases and projects that meet a range of goals remains a perennial challenge in clinic design. In the context of international human rights clinics, the world is your oyster, and that challenge is magni-fied. This Article identifies a set …

Defining American: The Dream Act, Immigration Reform And Citizenship, Elizabeth Keyes

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The grassroots movement propelling the DREAM Act and immigration reform forward reveals how the definition of citizenship is undergoing a dramatic transformation, in ways both inspiring and troubling. The DREAM movement depends upon the compelling but exceptional stories of passionate, high-achieving, law-abiding youth who already define themselves as being American, and worthy of legal status. Situating this narrative in the rich literature of citizenship, the article shows how the DREAM movement effectively exposes the disjuncture between the DREAMers' identity as Americans and their lack of legal immigration status. The article celebrates how this narrative succeeds as a contrast to the …