Law Commons^™

Building Bridges: Why Expanding Optional Practical Training Is A Valid Exercise Of Agency Authority And How It Helps F-1 Students Transition To H-1b Worker Status, Pia Nitzschke

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Birthright Citizenship Under Attack: How Dominican Nationality Laws May Be The Future Of U.S. Exclusion, Ediberto Roman, Ernesto Sagas

American University Law Review

Attacks on birthright citizenship periodically emerge in the United States, particularly during presidential election cycles. Indeed, blaming immigrants for the country's woes is a common strategy for conservative politicians, and the campaign leading up to the 2016 presidential election was not an exception. Several of the Republican presidential candidates raised the issue, with President Donald Trump making it the hallmark of his immigration reform platform. Trump promised that, if elected, his administration would "end birthright citizenship."

In the Dominican Republic, ending birthright citizenship and curbing immigration are now enshrined into law, resulting from a significant constitutional redefinition of Dominican citizenship …

Fundamentally Unfair: Databases, Deportation, And The Crimmigrant Gang Member, Katherine Conway

American University Law Review

Provocative language painting immigrants as dangerous criminals and promises of increased immigration enforcement were cornerstones of Donald j Trump's presidential candidacy. As president, he has maintained this rhetoric and made good on many of his promises by broadening the definition of "criminal conduct" for immigration enforcement purposes, touting a renewed focus on immigrant gangs and cartels, and conducting several nation-wide anti-gang sweeps that placed an estimated 1095 "known" gang members in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. But the Trump Administration did not create the specter of the criminal immigrant, or "crimmigrant," gang member, nor did it create the detection …

Unconventional Refugees, Elizabeth Keyes

American University Law Review

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 Perils And Possibilities Of Refugee Federalism, Burch Elias

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can We Act Globally While Thinking Locally? Responding To Stella Burch Elias, The Perils And Possibilities Of Refugee Federalism, Kit Johnson

American University Law Review

In The Perils and Possibilities of Refugee Federalism, Professor Stella Burch Elias skillfully exposes both the dangers and the opportunities presented by state responses to the resettlement of refugees within their borders. She concludes that states are prohibited from excluding refugees from their territory, but she argues that states have a previously untapped opportunity to legislate at the local level in an effort to promote the integration of refugees into their communities.

This Response does not challenge those conclusions. Rather, this Response seeks to provide context to the idea of refugee federalism by further discussing the problem, acknowledged by Professor …