Law Commons^™

Rwu Law Alumni Newsletter April 2024, Roger Williams University School Of Law

RWU Law

No abstract provided.

Second Amendment Immigration Exceptionalism, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Publications

This Essay critiques the decision to uphold federal gun restrictions on unlawfully present noncitizens on the basis of "immigration exceptionalism." It argues that courts should avoid applying bespoke constitutionalism to criminal laws, including gun laws, simply because the law regulates noncitizens. This Essay shows why such exceptional modes misapprehend long-decided Supreme Court cases and well-established legal doctrine. Further, it warns that an exceptional approach to Second Amendment claims by unlawfully present noncitizens cannot be cabined to either firearms or the unlawfully present. Rather, it portends a wider gulf in constitutional protections for all noncitizens across a variety of fundamental criminal …

Noncitizens' Rights In The Face Of Prolonged Detention: Johnson V. Arteaga-Martinez, Samantha L. Fawcett

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (the "INA"), codified in part at 8 U.S.C. § 1231, the federal government generally has ninety days to successfully deport a detained noncitizen who has reentered illegally after being removed once before. While exceptions to this time limit exist, the United States Supreme Court determined in 2001 that detention under Section 1231 cannot be indefinite.[1]

Now, more than two decades later, the Court must elaborate further. In Johnson v. Arteaga-Martinez, the Court must decide how long a detainment can last beyond the ninety-day statutory limit while a detainee seeks relief from deportation through …

The Third Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture: A Fireside Chat Featuring Amy Barasch, Esq., Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

The Immigrant Struggle For Effective Counsel: An Empirical Assessment, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Recently, in Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, the Supreme Court upheld 8 U.S.C. § 1252(e)(2), a statutory provision placing restrictions on certain noncitizens from seeking habeas review in the federal judiciary. The Court focused on the Constitution’s Suspension Clause, but it also discussed the Due Process Clause, declaring that there was no violation there either.

One question which flows from this decision is whether the federal courts will soon be precluded from hearing other types of claims brought by noncitizens. Consider ineffective assistance of counsel petitions, which in the immigration law context are rooted in the Due Process Clause. …

White Supremacy, Police Brutality, And Family Separation: Preventing Crimes Against Humanity Within The United States, Elena Baylis

Articles

Although the United States tends to treat crimes against humanity as a danger that exists only in authoritarian or war-torn states, in fact, there is a real risk of crimes against humanity occurring within the United States, as illustrated by events such as systemic police brutality against Black Americans, the federal government’s family separation policy that took thousands of immigrant children from their parents at the southern border, and the dramatic escalation of White supremacist and extremist violence culminating in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In spite of this risk, the United States does not have …

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law 04-2021, Michael M. Bowden, Barry Bridges, Political Roundtable

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Professor Gonzalez Is 2020 Rhode Island Lawyer Of The Year 01/11/21, Barry Bridges, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Iccpr, Non-Self-Execution, And Daca Recipients' Right To Remain In The United States, Timothy E. Lynch

Faculty Works

The United States is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 12.4 states, “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.” Citizens clearly enjoy the rights of Article 12.4, but this Article demonstrates that this right reaches beyond the citizenry. Using customary methods of treaty interpretation, including reference to the ICCPR’s preparatory works and the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee, I demonstrate that Article 12.4 also forbids states from deporting long-term resident non-citizens – both documented and undocumented – except under the rarest circumstances. As a result, …

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law 06-2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden, Katie Mulvaney

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Distinguished Service Professor: Deborah Gonzalez 05-20-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Making Litigating Citizenship More Fair, Ming H. Chen

Publications

No abstract provided.

Covid-19 And Prisoners’ Rights, Gregory Bernstein, Stephanie Guzman, Maggie Hadley, Rosalyn M. Huff, Alison Hung, Anita N.H. Yandle, Alexis Hoag, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

As COVID-19 continues to spread rapidly across the country, the crowded and unsanitary conditions in prisons, jails, juvenile detention, and immigration detention centers leave incarcerated individuals especially vulnerable. This chapter will discuss potential avenues for detained persons and their lawyers seeking to use the legal system to obtain relief, including potential release, during this extraordinary, unprecedented crisis.

Rwu Law: The Magazine Of Roger Williams University School Of Law (Issue 10, 25th Anniversary Issue) (May 2019), Roger Williams University School Of Law

RWU Law

No abstract provided.

Subfederal Immigration Regulation And The Trump Effect, Huyen Pham, Pham Hoang Van

Faculty Scholarship

The restrictive changes made by the Trump presidency on U.S. immigration policy have been widely reported: the significant increases in both interior and border enforcement, the travel ban prohibiting immigration from majority-Muslim countries, and the termination of the DACA program. Beyond the traditional levers of federal immigration control, this administration has also moved aggressively to harness the enforcement power of local and state police to increase interior immigration enforcement. To that end, the administration has employed both voluntary measures (like signing 287(g) agreements deputizing local police to enforce immigration laws) and involuntary measures (threatening to defund jurisdictions with so-called “sanctuary” …

Manufactured Emergencies, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Emergencies are presumed to be unusual affairs, but the United States has been in one state of emergency or another for the last forty years. That is a problem. The erosion of democratic norms has led to not simply the collapse of the traditional conceptual boundary between ordinary rule and emergency governance, but also the emergence of an even graver problem: the manufactured crisis. In an age characterized by extreme partisanship, institutional gridlock, and technological manipulation of information, it has become exceedingly easy and far more tempting for a President to invoke extraordinary power by ginning up exigencies. To reduce …

Manufactured Emergencies, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

Emergencies are presumed to be unusual affairs, but the United States has been in one state of emergency or another for the last forty years. That is a problem. The erosion of democratic norms has led to not simply the collapse of the traditional conceptual boundary between ordinary rule and emergency governance, but also the emergence of an even graver problem: the manufactured crisis. In an age characterized by extreme partisanship, institutional gridlock, and technological manipulation of information, it has become exceedingly easy and far more tempting for a President to invoke extraordinary power by ginning up exigencies. To reduce …

Immigration Unilateralism And American Ethnonationalism, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This paper arose from an invited symposium on "Democracy in America: The Promise and the Perils," held at Loyola University Chicago School of Law in Spring 2019. The essay places the Trump administration’s immigration and refugee policy in the context of a resurgent ethnonationalist movement in America as well as the constitutional politics of the past. In particular, it argues that Trumpism’s suspicion of foreigners who are Hispanic or Muslim, its move toward indefinite detention and separation of families, and its disdain for so-called “chain migration” are best understood as part of an assault on the political settlement of the …

Universal Representation, Lindsay Nash

Articles

In an era in which there is little good news for immigrant communities and even holding the line has become an ambitious goal, one progressive project has continued to gain steam: the movement to provide universal representation for non-citizens in removal proceedings. In the immigration field, “universal representation” refers to a system of appointed counsel that provides representation to indigent non-citizens facing deportation regardless of the apparent merits of their case. This model has proven a transformative change, particularly given the absence of any recognized right to government-funded counsel. In recent years, cities and counties throughout the nation have launched …

Unpacking Doj’S New Claim That Dhs Can Legally Detain Migrant Children With Their Parents For Longer Than Twenty Days, Deborah Pearlstein, Marty Lederman, Ryan Goodman

Online Publications

The Trump administration recently claimed it could not reunite migrant children with parents who are being held in ICE detention due to a court order requiring the government to release such children from custody within (at most) 20 days. The government now claims, however, that it can legally detain the children with their parents in ICE detention for much longer than 20 days. How did the government come to this position? In this post we’ll answer that question, and address a central flaw in the government’s logic.

Child Separation In The Courts, Deborah Pearlstein

Online Publications

Developments in the ongoing child separation crisis have come so quickly in the past week it is nearly impossible even for experts to keep track. Donald Trump’s executive order requiring an end to the child separation policy, his administration’s subsequent announcement that it would halt its “zero-tolerance” policy of prosecuting the misdemeanor offense of illegal entry, the California federal court’s Tuesday decision halting further separation and requiring currently separated families be reunified — all of these are positive developments for those concerned about the catastrophic effects of the policy on children and families. But the legal battle here is far …

Chance To Change: Jennings V. Rodriguez As A Chance To Bring Due Process To A Broken Detention System, Joe Bianco

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Jennings v. Rodriguez will determine whether specific classes of detained noncitizens will be entitled to bond hearings before Immigration Judges moving forward. The challenge comes from the Ninth Circuit, which, with the Second Circuit, mandates bond hearings for some detainees automatically after six months. Those Circuits found that after that point, the detention was arbitrary without a showing by the Government of why the noncitizen needed continued detention. The Government seeks to retain the current system, where the noncitizen’s detention release is entirely at the Government’s discretion. This commentary sets out the case and argues that the better route is …

“Nationwide” Injunctions Are Really “Universal” Injunctions And They Are Never Appropriate, Howard Wasserman

Faculty Publications

Federal district courts are routinely issuing broad injunctions prohibiting the federal government from enforcing constitutionally invalid laws, regulations, and policies on immigration and immigration-adjacent issues. Styled “nationwide injunctions,” they prohibit enforcement of the challenges laws not only against the named plaintiffs, but against all people and entities everywhere.

The first problem with these injunctions is one of nomenclature. “Nationwide” suggests something about the “where” of the injunction, the geographic scope in which it protects. The better term is “universal injunction,” which captures the real controversy over the “who” of the injunction, as courts purport to protect the universe of all …

Sessions V. Dimaya: Vagueness Doctrine & Deportation Statutes, Matthew Gibbons

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Sessions v. Dimaya seeks to determine whether the residual clause of a criminal provision, incorporated by reference into a civil immigration law, is void for vagueness. Although there is an instance of the Supreme Court applying the criminal vagueness standard to an immigration statute resulting in deportation, the United States argues that immigration law is not subject to that vagueness standard because it is civil and not criminal. This commentary argues that Sessions v. Dimaya presents the Supreme Court with an opportunity to conform with its precedents, further the principles underlying vagueness doctrine, and appear to apply judicial rules consistently. …

A Less Corrupt Term: 2016–2017 Supreme Court Roundup, Marc O. Degirolami, Kevin C. Walsh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In these unusually turbulent times for the presidency and Congress, the Supreme Court’s latest term stands out for its lack of drama. There were no 5–4 end-of-the-term cases that mesmerized the nation. There were no blockbuster decisions.

Even so, the Court was hardly immune to the steady transformation of our governing institutions into reality TV shows. Over the weekend leading into the final day of the term, speculation ignited from who-knows-where about the possible departure of its main character, Justice Anthony Kennedy. To us, the chatter seemed forced—as if the viewing public needed something to fill the vacuum left …

Cooperative And Uncooperative Foreign Affairs Federalism, Jean Galbraith

All Faculty Scholarship

This book review argues for reorienting how we think about federalism in relation to foreign affairs. In considering state and local engagement in foreign affairs, legal scholars often focus on the opportunities and limits provided by constitutional law. Foreign Affairs Federalism: The Myth of National Exclusivity by Michael Glennon and Robert Sloane does precisely this in a thoughtful and well-crafted way. But while the backdrop constitutional principles studied by Glennon and Sloane are important, so too are other types of law that receive far less attention. International law, administrative law, particular statutory schemes, and state law can all affect how …

Written Testimony Of Gerald S. Dickinson For The U.S. Senate Hearing On Fencing Along The Southwest Border (Senate Committee On Homeland Security And Governmental Affairs), Gerald S. Dickinson

Testimony

It is with great pleasure that I submit this written testimony at the request of the Office of the Ranking Member, Senator McCaskill. I am pleased that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is devoting its April 4, 2017 hearing to an examination of efforts to secure the southwest border through the construction of a wall. Further, as a law professor who writes and teaches in the areas of constitutional property and land use, I take great interest in the committee's focus on the legal authorities related to the wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Rwu First Amendment Blog: David Logan's Blog: Donald Trump And The Full-Employment-For-Lawyers Presidency, David A. Logan

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Trump: Full Employment For Lawyers 04-04-2017, David Logan

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Flight Risk Or Danger To The Community? Rodriguez And The Protection Of Civil Liberties In The U.S. Immigration System, Charlie Kazemzadeh

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Upon arrival to the United States, foreign nationals are required to prove beyond a doubt that they comply with the various requirements for admission into the country. For those who fail to meet this standard, there are only two options: accept immediate removal to their country of origin, or fight removal. For many who contest their deportation, their fate is civil incarceration until their case is adjudicated, which can take several years. The case of Jennings v. Rodriguez addresses the constitutionality of prolonged civil incarceration without the access of mandatory, periodic bond hearings for these individuals.