Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 10 of 10
Full-Text Articles in Law
Natural Hazards, Human Actors, Serious Harm: Refugee Protection Through Understanding The Social Construction Of Disasters, Matthew Scott
Natural Hazards, Human Actors, Serious Harm: Refugee Protection Through Understanding The Social Construction Of Disasters, Matthew Scott
Matthew Scott
The occurrence of a natural hazard event is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the unfolding of a ‘natural’ disaster. Disasters result when individuals and communities are exposed and vulnerable to natural hazards, such as droughts, floods and earthquakes. In their turn, exposure and vulnerability are social facts that are often closely correlated with discrimination, for example against women, children, older people, persons with disabilities, as well as for reasons of race, religion, nationality or political opinion. Adopting the perspective that sees disasters as socially constructed in this way, the scope of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status …
Immigrant Education And The Promise Of Integrative Egalitarianism, Victor C. Romero
Immigrant Education And The Promise Of Integrative Egalitarianism, Victor C. Romero
Victor C. Romero
Although not an equal protection case, Martinez v. Regents of the University of California challenges us to grapple with the Supreme Court’s post-Brown commitment to equal opportunity within the context of immigrant higher education. Sadly, Brown’s progeny from Bakke to Parents Involved reveals the cost of embracing a color-blind constitutionalism unmoored from a fundamental commitment to vigilantly combat subordination and dismantle unearned privilege. More optimistically, the Supreme Court’s gay rights jurisprudence developed in Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas provides insights into how a conservative court can accurately distinguish irrational discrimination from democratic deliberation, a lesson that might help …
Our Illegal Founders, Victor C. Romero
Our Illegal Founders, Victor C. Romero
Victor C. Romero
This Essay briefly mines America’s history to argue that the law setting forth where our national borders are and how strictly we patrol them has always been subject to the vagaries of politics, economics, and perception. Illegal (im)migration has long been part of our migration history, engaged in not just by Latin American border crossers, but also by prominent colonists, giving the lie to the claim that upholding border laws should always be sacrosanct. In many school districts today, the usual summary of American history from our childhood civics classes no longer bypasses the uncomfortable truths of conquest and westward …
Postsecondary School Education Benefits For Undocumented Immigrants: Promises And Pitfalls, Victor C. Romero
Postsecondary School Education Benefits For Undocumented Immigrants: Promises And Pitfalls, Victor C. Romero
Victor C. Romero
Should longtime undocumented immigrants have the same opportunity as lawful permanent residents and U.S. citizens to attend state colleges and universities? There are two typical justifications for denying them such opportunities. First, treating undocumented immigrants as in-state residents discriminates against U.S. citizen nonresidents of the state. Second, and more broadly, undocumented immigration should be discouraged as a policy matter, and therefore allowing undocumented immigrant children equal opportunities as legal residents condones and perhaps encourages "illegal" immigration. This essay responds to these two concerns by surveying state and federal solutions to this issue.
Interrogating Iqbal: Intent, Inertia, And (A Lack Of) Imagination, Victor C. Romero
Interrogating Iqbal: Intent, Inertia, And (A Lack Of) Imagination, Victor C. Romero
Victor C. Romero
In Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Court reaffirmed the long-standing equal protection doctrine that government actors can only be held liable for discriminatory conduct when they purposefully rely on a forbidden characteristic, such as race or gender, in promulgating policy; to simply know that minorities and women will be adversely affected by the law does not deny these groups equal protection under the law. This Essay interrogates this doctrine by taking a closer look at Iqbal and Feeney, the thirty-year-old precedent the majority cited as the source of its antidiscrimination standard. Because Feeney was cited in neither of the lower court …
Social Assistance And The Right To Reside At The European Court Of Justice – Dano V Jobcenter Leipzig, Mel Cousins
Social Assistance And The Right To Reside At The European Court Of Justice – Dano V Jobcenter Leipzig, Mel Cousins
Mel Cousins
This case involves an important decision of the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in relation to when Member States may refuse benefits to non-nationals who do not have a right of residence under EU law. The Court held that Article 24(1) of Directive 2004/38/EC on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States and Article 4 of Regulation No 883/2004 did not preclude a national law under which nationals of other Member States are excluded from entitlement to certain …
Equal Protection: Immigrants' Access To Healthcare And Welfare Benefits, Mel Cousins
Equal Protection: Immigrants' Access To Healthcare And Welfare Benefits, Mel Cousins
Mel Cousins
The adoption of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (hereinafter “PRWORA”) led to considerable litigation over immigrants’ rights to welfare benefits and access to health care. The approaches adopted by different courts (both federal and state) diverged significantly based on the various statutory schemes involved as well as distinct approaches to equal protection. However, no “on point” cases have reached the United States Supreme Court, so the “correct” approach remains unclear. Following the fiscal crisis of 2008, several states moved for increased exclusion of certain immigrants residing in the country legally from state healthcare or welfare …
Equal Protection, Immigrants And Access To Health Care And Welfare Benefits – A 2014 Update, Mel Cousins
Equal Protection, Immigrants And Access To Health Care And Welfare Benefits – A 2014 Update, Mel Cousins
Mel Cousins
The introduction of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) led to considerable litigation on the rights of immigrants to welfare benefits and access to health care. There was significant divergence between the approaches adopted by the different courts (both federal and State) based, in part, on the different statutory schemes involved but also on different approaches to equal protection. However, none of the cases reached the Supreme Court so the ‘correct’ approach remained unclarified. In response to the Great Recession and subsequent budget crises, several States have again excluded certain legal immigrants from the scope …
Immigration Laws As Instruments Of Discrimination: Legislation Designed To Limit Chinese Immigration Into The United Kingdom, Richard Klein
Immigration Laws As Instruments Of Discrimination: Legislation Designed To Limit Chinese Immigration Into The United Kingdom, Richard Klein
Richard Daniel Klein
No abstract provided.
The High Cost Of Freedom: A Legal And Policy Analysis Of Shelter Detention For Victims Of Trafficking, Anne T. Gallagher, Elaine Pearson
The High Cost Of Freedom: A Legal And Policy Analysis Of Shelter Detention For Victims Of Trafficking, Anne T. Gallagher, Elaine Pearson
Anne T Gallagher
In countries around the world it is common practice for victims of human trafficking who have been “rescued” or who have escaped from situations of exploitation to be placed and detained in public or private shelters. In the most egregious situations, victims can be effectively imprisoned in such shelters for months, even years. This article uses field-based research to document this largely unreported phenomenon. It then considers the international legal aspects of victim detention in shelters and weighs the common justifications for such detention from legal, policy, and practical perspectives.