Law Commons^™

Border Enforcement As State-Created Danger, Jenny-Brooke Condon, Lori A. Nessel

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

A woman seeks refuge at the U.S. border, but U.S. officials force her to wait for her asylum hearing in Mexico where a police officer later stalks and rapes her. A father and child suffer unbearable trauma after U.S. officials separate them under a policy aimed at deterring migration. A formerly healthy family loses a loved one to the coronavirus while forced to wait at an unsanitary, makeshift tent city in Mexico after fleeing for safety to the United States. For the people impacted by U.S. border policies, the southern border is a dangerous place—it is the site of …

Introduction, Rosemary Salomone

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This issue of the St. John’s Law Review includes several Articles that were initially presented at the Law Review’s Fall 2022 virtual symposium. The symposium commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Plyler v. Doe as a starting point for discussing current immigration law in the United States. It was dedicated in memory of Professor Michael A. Olivas, who held the William B. Bates Distinguished Chair in Law (Emeritus) and was the Director of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance at the University of Houston Law Center. Professor Olivas, a passionate advocate of …

Impacted Communities Leading Authentic Legal Mobilization: A Refugee-Led Access-To-Justice Story, Douglas Smith

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

I have a modest proposal to begin addressing the civil access-to-justice problem in the United States: eliminate the barriers for refugees to provide legal representation. In discussions of access to civil justice, immigration and immigrant rights compel our attention—images of children as young as three facing deportation without representation and non-citizens detained because of civil immigration infractions come to mind. But we hear less about the access-to-justice challenges of immigrants fighting for their rights to safe housing, public benefits, education for their children, or often-contingent or under-the-table jobs. The cries of immigrant communities about informal and formal threats from …

A Better Way: Uncoupling The Right To Counsel With The Threat Of Deportation For Unaccompanied Immigrant Children And Beyond, Laura Barrera

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

The stakes could not be higher in immigration court—families are separated; people are banished from their communities with little hope of ever legally returning; judges relegate individuals to seemingly arbitrary and indefinite detention in remote locations. Each of these hardships—and more—flow from the threat of deportation. As the Supreme Court noted in 1922, deportation “may result . . . in . . . all that makes life worth living.”

As has been the unfortunate norm in civil proceedings, many individuals face these trials without an attorney by their side because while the law states that respondents in immigration court …