Law Commons^™

Congress contemplated a drastic change during the 2005-2006 immigration reform debate that sought to narrow access to the federal courts: a proposed certificate of reviewability requirement. The requirement would compel foreign nationals subject to an administrative removal order to obtain permission from a single federal court of appeals judge to access the federal courts. The U.S. House of Representatives endorsed the requirement but the U.S. Senate dropped it from its slate of immigration reform priorities. Why did the requirement disappear from the Senate's agenda during an era of increased congressional restrictions on judicial review of immigration cases?

A definitive answer …

The immigration class action, a form of action that litigants have used to achieve systematic reform, is under threat. This paper examines three threats to the immigration class action: (1) a general congressional willingness to restrict immigration judicial review; (2) the application of waivers of judicial review to immigration law and (3) legislative jurisdiction-stripping attacks more specific to the immigration class action. The general congressional willingness to strip immigration judicial review sets the atmosphere for proposals to require judicial review waivers as a condition of obtaining an immigration benefit and for jurisdiction-stripping legislation aimed more specifically at the class action. …