Law Commons^™

States And Status: A Study Of Geographical Disparities For Immigrant Youth, Laila Hlass

Faculty Scholarship

This article looks at the legal and practical challenges arising out of a particular immigration protection for abandoned, abused, and neglected child migrants called “Special Immigrant Juvenile Status” (SIJS). This benefit, which is a pathway to legal permanent residence and citizenship, is the only area within federal immigration law that requires a state court to take action in order for immigration authorities to consider an individual’s eligibility for relief. Using an original data set of roughly 12,000 SIJS applications from the Department of Homeland Security in June 2013, this article describes trends over time and by state regarding the number …

President Obama’S Immigration Plan: Rewriting The Law, Peter Margulies

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Challenge Of Seeing Justice Done In Removal Proceedings, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

Prosecutorial discretion is a critical part of the administration of immigration law. This Article considers the work and responsibilities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) trial attorneys, who thus far have not attracted significant scholarly attention, despite playing a large role in the ground-level implementation of immigration law and policy. The Article makes three main contributions. First, I consider whether ICE attorneys have a duty to help ensure that the removal system achieves justice, rather than indiscriminately seek removal in every case and by any means necessary. As I demonstrate, trial attorneys have concrete obligations derived from statutory provisions, …

The Challenge Of Seeing Justice Done In Removal Proceedings, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

Prosecutorial discretion is a critical part of the administration of immigration law. This Article considers the work and responsibilities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) trial attorneys, who thus far have not attracted significant scholarly attention, despite playing a large role in the ground-level implementation of immigration law and policy. The Article makes three main contributions. First, I consider whether ICE attorneys have a duty to help ensure that the removal system achieves justice, rather than indiscriminately seek removal in every case and by any means necessary. As I demonstrate, trial attorneys have concrete obligations derived from statutory provisions, …

The Challenge Of Seeing Justice Done In Removal Proceedings, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

Prosecutorial discretion is a critical part of the administration of immigration law. This Article considers the work and responsibilities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) trial attorneys, who thus far have not attracted significant scholarly attention, despite playing a large role in the ground-level implementation of immigration law and policy. The Article makes three main contributions. First, I consider whether ICE attorneys have a duty to help ensure that the removal system achieves justice, rather than indiscriminately seek removal in every case and by any means necessary. As I demonstrate, trial attorneys have concrete obligations derived from statutory provisions, …

Post-9/11 Illegal Immigrant Detention And Deportation: Terrorism And The Criminalization Of Immigration, Stefany N. Laun

Student Publications

This paper analyzes the changes in immigration policy since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in terms of how immigrants are viewed in the United States. The goal is to address the recent criminalization of immigration in that the perceptions of terrorists and immigrants have become relatively synonymous since 2001. Although deportations have decreased, immigrant detention has increased significantly. Detention centers pose threats to the basic human rights of the immigrants residing in them, as well as perpetuate the culture of fear enveloping recent immigrants, whether they are legally or illegally in the country, and native United States citizens …

Family Unity Revisited: Divorce, Separation, And Death In Immigration Law, Albertina Antognini

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Families are integral to immigration law and policy, and family-based immigration accounts for the majority of legal entry into the United States. Legislative, judicial, and scholarly discussions that address immigration law's family-based categories rely nearly exclusively on the principle of family unification, which has long been a cornerstone policy of immigration law. Yet the family-based provisions of immigration law do more than unify intact families; understanding families as dynamic entities that experience change reveals an immigration system that acknowledges a flexible family structure in determining status.

The principal aim of this Article is to present a more complete description of …

The American "Deportation Mill", Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

Getting Kids Out Of Harm's Way: The United States' Obligation To Operationalize The Best Interest Of The Child Principle For Unaccompanied Minors, Erin B. Corcoran

Law Faculty Scholarship

The government estimates by the end of the fiscal year over 90,000 children will enter the United States. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 58% of these children were forcibly displaced and are potentially in need of international protection. However, in U.S. immigration law unaccompanied children are often seen as illegal migrants and law enforcement prioritizes their “alien” status over their status as children. As the crisis escalates, many of these children are being housed at emergency shelters in icebox-cold cells – nicknamed hierleras, Spanish for freezers, with no access to food or medical care, while DHS …

As Migrant Crisis Hits U.S. Border, Texas Town Keeps It Classy, Rick Brunson

UCF Forum

It’s a sweltering summer Sunday night in El Paso, Texas, at the city’s new downtown baseball stadium, where the local Triple-A team, the Chihuahuas, is leading the visiting Tacoma Rainiers at the seventh-inning stretch.

Us Should Not Gut Legal Protections For Immigrant Children, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

Minors Crossing Us Southern Border Need Protection, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

Illegitimate Borders: Jus Sanguinis Citizenship And The Legal Construction Of Family, Race, And Nation, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

The citizenship status of children born to American parents outside the United States is governed by a complex set of statutes. When the parents of such children are not married, these statutes encumber the transmission of citizenship between father and child while readily recognizing the child of an American mother as a citizen. Much of the debate concerning the propriety and constitutionality of those laws has centered on the extent to which they reflect gender-traditional understandings of fathers’ and mothers’ respective parental roles, or instead reflect “real differences” between men and women. Based on extensive archival research, this Article demonstrates …

Race And Immigration, Then And Now: How The Shift To "Worthiness" Undermines The 1965 Immigration Law's Civil Rights Goals, Elizabeth Keyes

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay looks at how far immigration reform has come from the explicit civil rights character of the 1965 immigration law that reshaped America. The optimism surrounding that law’s dismantling of national-origins barriers to immigration proved to be overstated in the intervening decades, as the factors determining an immigrant’s “worth and qualifications” too often became proxies for race. After briefly looking at work done by critical race theorists tracing some of ways race and immigration have long intersected in immigration legal history, the article closely examines modern-day immigration reform proposals, particularly the Senate bill that remains the most complete articulation …

Thank You And Goodbye: Stripping Citizenship From Generations Of Haitian Dominicans, Mark Heisey

GGU Law Review Blog

No abstract provided.

Opening Borders: African Americans And Latinos Through The Lens Of Immigration, Maritza I. Reyes

Journal Publications

African-American and Latino voter turnout during the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections hit record numbers. Polls show that the immigration debate influenced Latino voter turnout and preference. Presidential candidate Barack Obama's voiced support of comprehensive immigration reform strengthened his lead among Latino voters in 2008 and, once in office, his executive policy of granting temporary protection to DREAMers solidified his lead among Latino voters in 2012. Both elections showed the power that minority groups can exert when they vote in support of the candidate. If the demographic changes continue as currently estimated, African Americans and Latinos will contribute in large …

Lgbti Migrants In Immigration Detention: A Global Perspective, Shana Tabak, Rachel Levitan

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Riding The Wave: Uplifting Labor Organizations Through Immigration Reform, Jayesh Rathod

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In recent years, labor unions in the United States have embraced the immigrants’ rights movement, cognizant that the very future of organized labor depends on its ability to attract immigrant workers and integrate them into union ranks. At the same time, the immigrants’ rights movement has been lauded for its successful organizing models, often drawing upon the vitality and ingenuity of immigrant-based worker centers, which themselves have emerged as alternatives to traditional labor unions. And while the labor and immigrants’ rights movements have engaged in some fruitful collaborations, their mutual support has failed to radically reshape the trajectory of either …

Immigration And Cooperative Federalism: Toward A Doctrinal Framework, Ming H. Chen

Publications

What can the new federalism teach us about what is happening in immigration law? The changing relationship of federal-state government in the regulation of immigrants has led to the creation of “immigration federalism” as a field of scholarship. Most of this scholarly attention has been directed at resisting restrictionist legislation that encourages vigorous law enforcement against undocumented immigrants. The scholarly tilt is especially pronounced since the Supreme Court recently struck down several provisions of S.B. 1070, Arizona’s restrictive law enforcement legislation. However, law enforcement is only one type of regulation, and the overwhelming focus on it skews the broader debate …

A Meditation On Moncrieffe: On Marijuana, Misdemeanants, And Migration, Victor C. Romero

Journal Articles

This essay is a brief meditation on the immigration schizophrenia in our law and legal culture through the lens of the Supreme Court’s latest statement on immigration and crime, Moncrieffe v. Holder. While hailed as a “common sense” decision, Moncrieffe is a rather narrow ruling that does little to change the law regarding aggravated felonies or the ways in which class and citizenship play into the enforcement of minor drug crimes and their deportation consequences. Despite broad agreement on the Court, the Moncrieffe opinion still leaves the discretion to deport minor state drug offenders in the hands of the federal …

Immigration Remarks For The 10th Annual Wiley A. Branton Symposium, Shoba S. Wadhia

Journal Articles

This morning (despite the pressure that our panel comes right before lunch), I am going to provide a “101” on the role of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law, which is my primary area of research and fundamental to understanding how the immigration system operates. Prosecutorial discretion is a largely invisible tool that enables thousands, if not millions, of unauthorized noncitizens to reside in the United States without fear from deportation. It may be characterized as invisible because prosecutorial discretion decisions are largely connected to no action at all or as some call it, nonenforcement. A favorable exercise of “prosecutorial discretion” …

The Rise Of Speed Deportation And The Role Of Discretion, Shoba S. Wadhia

Journal Articles

In 2013, the majority of people deported never saw a courtroom or immigration judge. Instead, they were quickly removed by the Department of Homeland Security via one of several procedures collectively referred to as “speed deportation.” The policy goals of speed deportation are economic; these processes save government resources from being spent on procedural safeguards such as a trial attorney, immigration judge, and a fundamentally fair hearing. Higher deportation numbers may also benefit the image the government seeks to portray to policymakers who support amplified immigration enforcement. However, the human consequences of speed deportation are significant and can result in …

Distilling Americans: The Legacy Of Prohibition On U.S. Immigration Law, Jayesh Rathod

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Since the early twentieth century, federal immigration law has targeted noncitizens believed to engage in excessive alcohol consumption by prohibiting their entry or limiting their ability to obtain citizenship and other benefits. The first specific mention of alcohol-related behavior appeared in the Immigration Act of 1917, which called for the exclusion of "persons with chronic alcoholism" seeking to enter the United States. Several decades later, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 specified that any noncitizen who "is or was ... a habitual drunkard" was per se lacking in good moral character, and hence ineligible for naturalization. Although the "chronic …

Problems Faced By Mexican Asylum Seekers In The United States, Anna Cabot

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Violence in Mexico rose sharply in response to President Felipe Calder6n's military campaign against drug cartels which began in late 2006. As a consequence, the number of Mexicans who have sought asylum in the United States has grown significantly. In 2013, Mexicans made up the second largest group of defensive asylum seekers (those in removal proceedings) in the United States, behind only China (EOIR 2014b). Yet between 2008 and 2013, the grant rate for Mexican asylum seekers in immigration court fell from 23 percent to nine percent (EOIR 2013, 2014b). This paper examines-from the perspective of an attorney who represented …

An 'I Do' I Choose: How The Fight For Marriage Access Supports A Per Se Finding Of Persecution For Asylum Cases Based On Forced Marriage, Natalie Nanasi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

There is something special about marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court, in striking down anti-miscegenation laws, restrictions on the right to marry for disadvantaged groups, and most recently, the Defense of Marriage Act, has long recognized the marital union to be "sacred" and "fundamental to…existence." Yet this analysis is dramatically different when courts consider asylum law, where a woman who is seeking refuge in the United States to protect her from a forced marriage abroad will likely be denied protection because the harm she fears is not considered to be a "persecutory" act. She may therefore be forced to spend a …

Hands Off Our Fingerprints: State, Local, Andindividual Defiance Of Federal Immigrationenforcement, Christine N. Cimini

Articles

Secure Communities, though little-known outside law-enforcement circles, is one of the most powerful of the federal government’s immigration enforcement programs. Under Secure Communities, fingerprints collected by state and local law enforcement and provided to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for criminal background checks are automatically shared with the Department of Homeland Security, which checks the fingerprints against its immigration database. In the event of a match, an immigration detainer can be issued and an individual held after they would otherwise be entitled to release. Originally designed as a voluntary program in which local governments could choose to participate, the Department …

Seek Justice, Not Just Deportation: How To Improve Prosecutorial Discretion In Immigration Law, Erin B. Corcoran

Law Faculty Scholarship

Bipartisan politics has prevented meaningful reform to a system in dire need of solutions: Immigration. Meanwhile there are eleven million noncitizens with no valid immigration status who currently reside in the United States and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not have the necessary resources to effect their removal. DHS does have the authority through prosecutorial discretion to prioritize these cases and provide relief to individuals with compelling circumstances that warrant humanitarian consideration; nonetheless, DHS’s exercise of prosecutorial discretion is underutilized, inconsistently applied and lacks transparency. This Article suggests a remedy – that the immigration prosecutor’s role should redefined …

A Framework For Judicial Review And Remand In Immigration Law, Collin D. Schueler

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article breaks new ground at the intersection of administrative law and immigration law. One of the more important questions in both fields is whether a reviewing court should resolve a legal issue in the first instance or remand that issue to the agency. This Article advances the novel claim that courts should use the modem framework for judicial review of agency statutory interpretations to inform their resolution of this remand question. Then, using this framework, the Article identifies when remand is and is not appropriate in immigration cases. This critical analysis, which urges a departure from conventional academic wisdom, …

Buying Time? False Assumptions About Abusive Appeals, Michael Kagan, Fatma Marouf, Rebecca Gill

Scholarly Works

The federal government has expressed fear that immigrants abuse the appellate process to delay their deportations by filing meritless petitions for review with the federal courts. Some courts have responded to these concerns by imposing stricter standards for issuing stays of removal, so that the government can more easily deport petitioners even while their appeals remain pending. The risk with this approach is that immigrants who ultimately prevail may be erroneously deported. What is often overlooked is that the potential for abuse is really a function of time, with longer appeals posing a greater threat to immigration enforcement. This study …

Governing By Guidance: Civil Rights Agencies And The Emergence Of Language Rights, Ming Hsu Chen

Publications

On the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this Article asks how federal civil rights laws evolved to incorporate the needs of non-English speakers following landmark immigration reform (the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act) that led to unprecedented migration from Asia and Latin America. Based on a comparative study of the emergence of language rights in schools and workplaces from 1965 to 1980, the Article demonstrates that regulatory agencies used nonbinding guidances to interpret the undefined statutory term "national origin discrimination" during their implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Their efforts facilitated the creation of language rights, …