Law Commons^™

Eu Law In Populist Times: Crises And Prospects, Francesca Bignami

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

EU Law in Populist Times: Crises and Prospects analyzes the sovereignty-sensitive EU law that has emerged over the past decade—in economic policy, human migration, internal security, and constitutional fundamentals (rule-of-law policies to combat democratic backsliding). These are legal areas at the heart of state sovereignty, over which the EU’s prerogatives accelerated following the multiple crises that hit beginning in 2009. They are also EU policies that occupy center stage in the acrimonious debates that have emerged between European establishment parties and populist political forces, precisely because of the huge economic, social, and constitutional stakes involved in reaching into core state …

Expert Evidence In Gender-Based Asylum Cases: Cultural Translation For The Court, Lindsay M. Harris

Journal Articles

This article examines the use of country conditions experts in gender-based asylum claims, with a focus on African women and girls facing gender-based violence in their countries of origin. Using anonymous case examples from the work of the Tahirih Justice Center’s African Women’s Empowerment Project, the article explores the role of experts and the critical bridge that experts can provide in asylum claims adjudicated at the asylum office and in immigration court. A brief overview of U.S. asylum law and procedures sets the stage for a deeper look at expert evidence.

Lost In Doctrine: Particular Social Group, Child Soldiers And The Failure Of U.S. Asylum Law To Protect Exploited Children, Tessa R. Davis

Faculty Publications

Exploited and persecuted, child soldiers live lives dominated by violence, fear, and death. Very few will find security within their own nations or abroad. Subjected to exclusionary bars or rigid interpretations of the particular social group ground for asylum, U.S. asylum law frequently functions to exclude those lucky few children who are able to escape their persecutors. Scholars writing on child soldiers and asylum law focus, almost exclusively, on the exclusionary bars and question of whether children are persecutors or victims of atrocities. These concerns are critical because how courts view child soldiers determines whether they will grant or deny …

"Streamlining" The Rule Of Law: How The Department Of Justice Is Undermining Judicial Review Of Agency Action, Shruti Rana

Faculty Scholarship

Judicial review of administrative decision making is an essential institutional check on agency power. Recently, however, the Department of Justice dramatically revised its regulations in an attempt to insulate its decision making from public and federal court scrutiny. These “streamlining” rules, carried out in the name of national security and immigration reform, have led to a breakdown in the rule of law in our judicial system. While much attention has been focused on the Department of Justice’s recent attempts to shield executive power from the reach of Congress, its efforts to undermine judicial review have so far escaped such scrutiny. …

Refugee Roulette: Disparities In Asylum Adjudication, Andrew I. Schoenholtz, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Philip G. Schrag

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This study analyzes databases of merits decisions from all four levels of the asylum adjudication process: 133,000 decisions by 884 asylum officers over a seven year period; 140,000 decisions of 225 immigration judges over a four-and-a-half year period; 126,000 decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals over six years; and 4215 decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeal during 2004 and 2005. The analysis reveals significant disparities in grant rates, even when different adjudicators in the same office each considered large numbers of applications from nationals of the same country. In many cases, the most important moment in an asylum …

Expansion And Restriction: Competing Pressures On United Kingdom Asylum Policy, Elizabeth Keyes

All Faculty Scholarship

Analysis of asylum policy in the United Kingdom thus requires examination of the complex interaction between domestic and international pressures, between legislative and judicial action, and between expansionism and restrictionism. In Part I, this paper considers the history of asylum in the UK through the 1990s, looking at the changes that occurred over the 20th century, and the international legal obligations at the core of the UK's asylum policy. The paper specifically addresses Britain's new commitments to European Union asylum policies, and the ways in which Britain's overall relationship with the EU affects Britain's domestic asylum policy. In Part II, …

Domestic Violence And Us Asylum Law: Eliminating The 'Cultural Hook' For Claims Involving Gender-Related Persecution, Anita Sinha

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In this Note, Anita Sinha examines the treatment of asylum claims involving gender-related persecution. Analyzing the three most recent decisions published by the Board of Immigration Appeals, Sinha illustrates that these cases have turned on whether the gender-related violence can be linked to practices attributable to non-Western,'foreign" cultures. Sinha argues that cases involving gender-related persecution can be given full consideration of asylum law only when their adjudication is based on an understanding of the political and institutional character of violence against women, rather than on" cultural" culpability. In making this argument, Sinha examines recent amendments to the regulations governing asylum …

Aiding And Abetting Persecutors: The Seizure And Return Of Haitian Refugees In Violation Of The U.N. Refugee Convention And Protocol, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Pursuant to Executive Order 12,807 of May 23, 1992, the “Kennebunkport Order,” United States Coast Guard cutters have been intercepting boatloads of Haitian citizens in international waters off the coast of Haiti and turning them over to the Haitian authorities in Port-au-Prince. No questions are being asked to determine if any of these citizens are bona fide refugees fleeing persecution. All are simply returned.

Does the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (Protocol), to which the United States is a party, permit the U.S. government to do this? That question is now before the United States Supreme Court. Regarding …