Law Commons^™

Beyond Legal Deserts: Access To Counsel For Immigrants Facing Removal, Emily Ryo, Reed Humphrey

Faculty Scholarship

Removal proceedings are high-stakes adversarial proceedings in which immigration judges must decide whether to allow immigrants who allegedly have violated U.S. immigration laws to stay in the United States or to order them deported to their countries of origin. In these proceedings, the government trial attorneys prosecute noncitizens who often lack English fluency, economic resources, and familiarity with our legal system. Yet, most immigrants in removal proceedings do not have legal representation, as removal is considered to be a civil matter and courts have not recognized a right to government­appointed counsel for immigrants facing removal. Advocates, policymakers, and scholars have …

Citizenship Disparities, Emily Ryo, Reed Humphrey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Moral Economies Of Family Reunification In The Trump Era: Translating Natural Affiliation, Autonomy, And Stability Arguments Into Constitutional Rights, Kerry Abrams, Daniel Pham

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dismantling The Wall, Charles Shane Ellison, Anjum Gupta

Faculty Scholarship

Between 2017 and 2021, the Trump Administration waged an unprecedented battle on U.S. asylum structure, procedure, and substantive law. Seeking to alter long-standing legal principles and practices in a host of areas, the former administration’s efforts to demolish asylum protections were systematic and comprehensive. The Immigration Policy Tracking Project cataloged no fewer than ninety-six discrete policy and regulatory changes that the former administration implemented to curtail access to asylum. While some of the administration’s actions, such as the decision to separate children from their parents at the border, were carried out in the open, many other actions were largely hidden …

The Importance Of Race, Gender, And Religion In Naturalization Adjudication In The United States, Emily Ryo, Reed Humphrey

Faculty Scholarship

This study presents an empirical investigation of naturalization adjudication in the United States using new administrative data on naturalization applications decided by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) between October 2014 and March 2018. We find significant group disparities in naturalization approvals based on applicants’ race/ethnicity, gender, and religion, controlling for individual applicant characteristics, adjudication years, and variation between field offices. Non-White applicants and Hispanic applicants are less likely to be approved than non-Hispanic White applicants, male applicants are less likely to be approved than female applicants, and applicants from Muslim-majority countries are less likely to be approved than …

Unwilling Or Unable? The Failure To Conform The Nonstate Actor Standard In Asylum Claims To The Refugee Act, Charles Shane Ellison, Anjum Gupta

Faculty Scholarship

Pursuant to its obligations to the international community, the United States provides asylum to individuals fleeing persecution “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” For decades, both the Board of Immigration Appeals and federal courts recognized that individuals could obtain asylum based on a fear of persecution at the hands of nonstate actors, so long as the applicant demonstrated that their government was “unable or unwilling” to control the persecution.

As part of a wide-ranging attack on asylum, the Trump administration has sought to eliminate asylum based on nonstate actor persecution. In …

Punishing With Impunity: The Legacy Of Risk Classification Assessment In Immigration Detention, Robert Koulish, Kate Evans

Faculty Scholarship

In 2012, the Department of Homeland Security adopted a risk classification assessment ("RCA") tool to run on migrants in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE"). The risk tool helped determine who was detained and who was released from ICE custody. It was intended to curb detention rates by limiting detention based on risk of flight and danger and to ensure that the conditions of civil immigration detention were distinct from those in criminal detention. This Article presents data from several RCA datasets received pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

The story of the RCA is one of …

Children In Custody: A Study Of Detained Migrant Children In The United States,, Emily Ryo, Reed Humphrey

Faculty Scholarship

Every year, tens of thousands of migrant children are taken into custody by U.S. immigration authorities. Many of these children are unaccompanied by parents or relatives when they arrive at the U.S. border. Others who are accompanied by parents or relatives are rendered unaccompanied when U.S. immigration authorities separate them upon apprehension. Together, these minors are called unaccompanied alien children (UACs) and transferred to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), unless and until their immigration cases are resolved or until the children can be placed with a sponsor in the United States pending the adjudication of their …

Manipulating Risk: Immigration Detention Through Automation, Kate Evans, Robert Koulish

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security arrests as many as 500,000 migrants per year and detains more than 350,000 of them through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Since 2012, ICE has relied on an automated Risk Classification Assessment (RCA) system to recommend whom to detain and whom to release. The authors are the first to obtain access to its algorithm and this Article is the first to make that system’s methodology public. While purportedly basing these recommendations on indicia offlight risk and risk to public safety, the RCA in fact relies on an algorithm driven by political preferences. By linking …

Defending Refugees: A Case For Protective Procedural Safeguards In The Persecutor Bar Analysis, Charles Shane Ellison

Faculty Scholarship

For refugees and asylum seekers, application of the so-called persecutor bar is tantamount to a death sentence. However, the Board of Immigration Appeals -- without any real deliberation--has arrived at an interpretation of a generic-relief, burdenshifting regulation to allow for application of the persecutor bar based upon very little evidence. Even mere membership in a group with a poor human rights record has been held sufficient to switch the burden of proof and apply the bar. While the recent holding of Matter of Negusie, 27 I&N Dec. 347 (June 28, 2018) can be read and understood largely as a victory …

Detention As Deterrence, Emily Ryo

Faculty Scholarship

Does immigration detention deter unauthorized migration? This is a pressing question with critical policy implications given that the U.S. government has detained tens of thousands of migrants in reliance on this deterrence rationale. Briefly described, the federal government has argued that “one particular individual may be civilly detained for the sake of sending a message” to others “who may be considering immigration. In recent times, the potential migrants to whom the federal government has sought to send such a message are, by and large, from Mexico and Central America. Emerging empirical research, however, provides little to no evidence that detention …

A National Study Of Immigration Detention In The United States, Emily Ryo, Ian Peacock

Faculty Scholarship

Amidst growing reports of abuses and rights violations in immigration detention, the Trump administration has sought to expand the use of immigration detention to facilitate its deportation policy. This study offers the first comprehensive empirical analysis of U.S. immigration detention at the national level. Drawing on administrative records and geocoded data pertaining to all noncitizens who were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in fiscal year 2015, we examine who the detainees are, where they were held, and what happened to them.

The bulk of the detained population consisted of men (79%) and individuals from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, …

On Normative Effects Of Immigration Law, Emily Ryo

Faculty Scholarship

Can laws shape and mold our attitudes, values, and social norms, and if so, how do immigration laws affect our attitudes or views toward minority groups? I explore these questions through a randomized laboratory experiment that examines whether and to what extent short-term exposures to anti-immigration and pro-immigration laws affect people's implicit and explicit attitudes toward Latinos. My analysis shows that exposure to an anti-immigration law is associated with increased perceptions among study participants that Latinos are unintelligent and law-breaking. In contrast, Ifind no evidence that exposure to pro-immigration laws promotes positive attitudes toward Latinos. Taken together, these results suggest …

Family Reunification And The Security State, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Amici Curiae Federal Courts Scholars And Southeastern Legal Foundation In Support Of Respondents, Kimberly S. Hermann, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Drawing Lines Among The Persecuted, Kate Evans

Faculty Scholarship

Should a victim of persecution be denied protection in the United States if his persecutors forced him to participate in their campaign of terror? In its 2009 decision, Negusie v. Holder, the Supreme Court recognized the “difficult line drawing problems” presented by this question, but failed to offer concrete guidance to the lower courts or the executive agencies charged with drawing those lines. Circuit courts employ a variety of standards, leaving the law in disarray.

This Article offers original historical research to argue that asylum seekers charged with participating in persecution should be afforded a duress defense. It traces the …

Being Deprived Of The Right To Effective Counsel In Removal Proceedings: Why The Eighth Circuit’S Decision In Rafiyev Must Be Overturned, Charles Shane Ellison

Faculty Scholarship

The situation for immigrants who have received frightfully defective assistance from their attorneys, or non-attorneys masquerading as such, is all too common. For the reasons discussed more fully in this article, immigrant victims are at particular risk in tribunals beneath the Eighth Circuit because of its aberrant precedent in the area of ineffective assistance of counsel in immigration proceedings. In this article, I will first provide an overview of the procedure for making a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel in removal proceedings and give a brief history of this procedure as used since the Board’s seminal decision in Matter …

Foreword: The Future Of Immigration Enforcement: A Tribute To David Martin, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Less Enforcement, More Compliance: Rethinking Unauthorized Migration, Emily Ryo

Faculty Scholarship

A common assumption underlying the current public discourse and legal treatment of unauthorized immigrants is that unauthorized immigrants are lawless individuals who will break the law—any law—in search of economic gain. This notion persists despite substantial empirical evidence to the contrary. Drawing on original empirical data, this Article examines unauthorized immigrants and their relationship to the law from a novel perspective to make two major contributions. First, I demonstrate that unauthorized immigrants view themselves and their noncompliance with U.S. immigration law in a manner that is strikingly different from the prevalent view of criminality and lawlessness found in popular and …

Immigration's Family Values, Kerry Abrams, R. Kent Piacenti

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Makes The Family Special?, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Plenary Power Preemption, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Peaceful Penetration: Proxy Marriage, Same-Sex Marriage, And Recognition, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Amici Curiae Of Professors Of History, Political Science, And Law In Support Of Petitioner, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Hidden Dimension Of Nineteenth-Century Immigration Law, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Lost Sanctuary: Examining Sex Trafficking Through The Lens Of United States V. Ah Sou, M. Margaret Mckeown, Emily Ryo

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mae Ngai's Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens And The Making Of Modern America, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Immigration Law And The Regulation Of Marriage, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Immigration Status And The Best Interests Of The Child Standard, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Polygamy, Prostitution, And The Federalization Of Immigration Law, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

When Congress banned the immigration of Chinese prostitutes with the Page Law of 1875, it was the first restrictive federal immigration statute. Yet most scholarship treats the passage of the Page Law as a relatively unimportant event, viewing the later Chinese Exclusion Act as the crucial landmark in the federalization of immigration law. This Article argues that the Page Law was not a minor statute targeting a narrow class of criminals, but rather an attempt to prevent Chinese women in general from immigrating to the United States. Most Chinese women migrating to the United States in the early 1870s were …