Law Commons^™

Refugee Resettlement In The U.S.: The Hidden Realities Of The U.S. Refugee Integration Process, Bienvenue Konsimbo

Master of Science in Conflict Management Final Projects

From the 1946 to the 1980 Act, more than two million refugees have resettled in the U.S. (Eby, Iverson, Smyers, & Kekic, 2011p.). This has made the U.S. the largest of the 10 resettlement countries (Xu, 2007, p. 38). The U.S. department of state (DOS)’ hope is to give “the refugee a leg up on their journey to self-sufficiency” (Darrow, 2015, p. 92). For these millions of refugees, their expectations are to find “employment, education, to provide a better environment for their children, and to integrate into the community” (Xu, 2007p.38).

However, this pre-package deal is not without repercussions or …

Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Jorge Baron, Maria Kolby-Wolfe, Kristen Smith Dayley, Twila Bird, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

The Northwest Immigrant Rights Program has been around for 35 years, started in 1984 specifically to help Central American refugees during the mid-1980s, when they were fleeing civil wars. A pro-bono group of attorneys performing "direct legal representation", helping low income community members who are navigating different aspects of the immigration system. NWIRP also engages in "systemic advocacy" which attempts to change systems and policies revolving around asylum and immigration rights.

Self-Determination And Psychological Adaptation In Forcibly Displaced People, Numan Turan, Bediha İpekçi, Mehmet Yalçın Yılmaz

New England Journal of Public Policy

According to the UN Refugee Agency, as of 2018 approximately 70 million people were forcibly displaced because of intrastate and interstate conflicts. A majority of those people endured significant hardships, and a consensus is growing among researchers that forcibly displaced people have gone through potentially traumatic experiences that challenge their well-being and health. Consequently, a large amount of research focuses on their mental health concerns, whereas research focusing on their will to normalize their lives and grow after a traumatic migration is scarce. In this article, we highlight the efforts by forcibly displaced people to normalize their lives, pointing out …

The Supreme Court And Refugees At The Southern Border: 5 Questions Answered, Karla Mckanders

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

I sat in a small room in Tijuana, Mexico with a 13-year-old indigenous Mayan Guatemalan girl.

She left Guatemala after a cartel murdered her friend and threatened to rape her. Her mother wanted her to live and believed the only way for her to survive was to send her daughter alone to the U.S., to apply for asylum Now she was alone and stuck in Mexico. Every morning, the Guatemalan girl, along with other asylum seekers, would frantically gather at the Tijuana-U.S. border where they waited to hear their name or their number called so the Mexican government could escort …

The Promise And Challenge Of Humanitarian Protection In The United States: Making Temporary Protected Status Work As A Safe Haven, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The humanitarian program Congress created in 1990 to allow war refugees and those affected by significant natural disasters to live and work legally in the United States has only partially achieved its goals. More than 400,000 individuals have received temporary protected status (TPS). In many cases, the crisis ended, along with temporary protection. However, in about half of the designated nationalities—including the largest groups—conflict and instability continued, making this humanitarian protection program anything but temporary. Unfortunately, Congress did not provide the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with the tools it needed to address such long-term crises. That was purposeful—Congress worried …

Climate Displaced Peoples: Utilizing Regional Approaches To Combat Climate-Induced Displacement In The 21st Century, Oshani Amaratunga

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Note To Trump: Know What You Call Muslims Who Reject Radical Islam? Refugees, Angela M. Banks, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Domestic Evolution: Amending The United States Refugee Definition Of The Ina To Include Environmentally Displaced Refugees, Barbara Mcisaac

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Refugee Women's Needs: The Athens Case, Melissa J. Diamond

Journal of Refugee & Global Health

Medicins sans Frontiers estimates that twenty-five per cent of new asylum-seeking arrivals in Athens in 2016 were women [1]. Despite the sizable number of women asylum seekers arriving in Athens, women’s voices are often excluded from research on refugee needs. This research sought to understand the needs of women asylum seekers in Athens through the collection of qualitative data on their needs and experiences upon arriving in Athens. Twelve women from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries (background withheld for confidentiality) participated. The sampled women demonstrated an acute understanding of their own needs and the needs of their communities. While many …

Refugee Crisis In Germany And The Right To A Subsistence Minimum: Differences That Ought Not Be, Ulrike Davy

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Past As Present, Unlearned Lessons And The (Non-) Utility Of International Law, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

The contemporary moment provides an acute illustration of the dangers of historical amnesia—as if the Trump Administration’s policies of exclusion, extremist nationalism, and presidential imperialism were singular to ‘now,’ and entirely reversible in the next election. This Article argues to the contrary; that we have been down this road before, and the current crisis in immigration and refugee policies is the inevitable development of trends of racism, including anti-Arab, anti-Muslim racism and xenophobia, that have only become normalized by the populist resurgence of Trumpism. If this premise is correct—that we are experiencing a culmination of a historical trajectory—what lessons from …

Who Takes Action To Promote The Health Of Refugees And Migrants, Lawrence O. Gostin, Ibrahim Abubakar, Ranieri Guerra, Sabina F. Rashid, Eric A. Friedman, Zsuzsanna Jakab

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Migration is a defining issue of our time, with 1 billion migrants globally, of whom 258 million have crossed borders. Climate change and political instability propel ever-greater displacement, with major detriments to health. Policies that fail to prevent human trafficking or guarantee essential services undermine Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the global pledge to “leave no one behind.” The World Health Assembly should robustly implement WHO’s Global Action Plan (GAP) on the Health of Refugees and Migrants.ugees and Migrants.

Syrian Crisis Representation In The Media: The Cnn Effect, Framing, And Tone, Savannah S. Day

Venture: The University of Mississippi Undergraduate Research Journal

Over the past seven years of the Syrian Civil War, Syrian refugees have been painted in a negative light by news media outlets around the world. History of media coverage regarding global humanitarian crises shows that with various tools and processes, media can shape public opinion and policy in whichever direction it desires, and oftentimes policymakers and the public are quick, as well as emotional, to react. In this paper, my objectives are to analyze specific examples of this CNN Effect phenomena within news coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis, as well as generally explain the negatively correlating relationship between …

Elusive Justice: The Rohingya Chronic Crisis And The Responsibility To Protect, Sumangala Bhattacharya

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Preserving Habeas Corpus For Asylum Seekers Just When They Need It Most, Jennifer Moore

Faculty Scholarship

The blog post reviews are very recent Ninth Circuit case, Thuraissigiam, which holds that “asylum seekers facing deportation have the right to challenge the summary denial of their asylum claims in federal court". The ruling in Thuraissigiam applies to individuals who have failed to establish a “credible fear of persecution” in expedited removal proceedings conducted at the border.

Assigning Protection: Can Refugee Rights And State Preferences Be Reconciled?, James C. Hathaway

Articles

The theoretically global responsibility to protect refugees is today heavily skewed, with just ten countries – predominantly very poor – hosting more than half of the world’s refugee population. Refugee protection has moreover become tantamount to warehousing for most refugees, with roughly half of the world’s refugees stuck in “protracted refugee situations” for decades with their lives on hold. Both concerns – the unprincipled allocation of responsibility based on accidents of geography and the desperate need for greater attention to resettlement as a core protection response – cry out for a global, managed system to protect refugees.

Maslenjak V. United States: A Concern About Prosecutors’ Limitless Leverage Regarding The International Refugee Policy, Fengming Jin

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

Withholding Protection, Lindsay M. Harris

Journal Articles

In June 2018, President Trump wrote a pair of tweets en route to his golf course, calling for “no Judges or Court Cases” at our border and swift deportation of immigrants, essentially without due process. While immigrant advocates were quick to explain the myriad constitutional problems with this proposal, elements of Trump’s dream are already a reality. This Article reveals how a single Customs and Border Protection officer can short-circuit the checks and balances prescribed by U.S. and international law to protect refugees from being returned to harm, and cast a long shadow over a future, meritorious asylum claim. In …

Rights Disappear When Us Policy Engages Children As Weapons Of Deterrence, Craig Mousin

Mission and Ministry Publications

Although the United States provided significant guidance in drafting the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) it has never ratified the convention. The failure to ratify has taken on critical significance in light of new federal policies that have detained over 15,000 children in 2018, separated families, accelerated removal of asylum seekers, and emphasized deterring families from seeking asylum.This article raises ethical and health implications of these refugee policies in light of the United States’ failure to ratify the CRC. It first examines the development of the CRC and international refugee law. It next lists some of the …

Critiquing Matter Of A-B-: An Uncertain Future In Asylum Proceedings For Women Fleeing Intimate Partner Violence, Theresa A. Vogel

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The #MeToo movement has brought renewed attention to the impact of gender inequality on our society’s ability to provide protection to women from physical and sexual violence, including intimate partner violence. Despite advances in legal protections and increased resources to prevent, prosecute, and bring an end to intimate partner violence, in the absence of true efforts to combat gender inequality as a whole, intimate partner violence will continue to pervade our society. The discussion of gender inequality’s impact on the treatment of intimate partner violence must expand beyond the violence that occurs in the United States to gender inequality’s impact …

The Asylum Makeover: Chevron Deference, The Self-Referral And Review Authority, Jessica Senat

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reparations For Central American Refugees, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

In the midst of vicious and unrelenting attacks on Central American asylum seekers in the United States, this Article seeks to understand historic and present-day patterns of animus and discrimination facing this group of refugees, and to propose solutions. This Article begins by examining decades of prejudice faced by Central American asylum seekers, as well as attempts to right those wrongs through litigation, legislation, and the creation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Next, this Article identifies the predominant push and pull factors driving Central American refugees north—and the U.S. role in creating them. The Article then lays out the impact …

Doors To Safety: Exit West, Refugee Resettlement, And The Right To Asylum, Betsy L. Fisher

Michigan Law Review

Review of Mohsin Hamid's Exit West.

Borders Rules, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

International political borders have historically performed one overriding function: the delimitation of a state’s territorial jurisdiction, but today they are sites of intense security scrutiny and law enforcement. Traditionally they were created to secure peace through territorial independence of political units. Today borders face new pressures from heightened human mobility, economic interdependence (legal and illicit), and perceived challenges from a host of nonstate threats. Research has only begun to reveal what some of these changes mean for the governance of interstate borders. The problems surrounding international borders today go well-beyond traditional delineation and delimitation. These problems call for active forms …

Rights Disappear When Us Policy Engages Children As Weapons Of Deterrence, Craig B. Mousin

Craig B. Mousin