Law Commons^™

Where The American Dream Becomes A Nightmare: Lgbt Detainees In Immigration Detention Facilities, Lauren Zitsch

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Political Refugees, Captives, Slaves And Other Migrants In International Law Of Ancient Near East (2nd Millenium Bc), Víctor M. Sánchez

Víctor M. Sánchez

International treaties in the 2nd millennium BC in the Ancient Near East (ANE) demonstrate the importance placed on regulating migratory movements at the time. The economic and political basis of such regulation helps outline a critical analysis in comparison to current international law regarding the same forms of migratory movements. The loss of social value of human beings arising from demographic changes explains the enormous difference between past and present regulatory models. Only the recovery of human value in its economic sense will permit changes to the current regulation of migratory movements. The variety of extradition clauses in the treaties …

Deferred Action: Considering What Is Lost, Elizabeth Keyes

All Faculty Scholarship

This response to Professor Motomura considers what is lost through the elaboration of formally defined boundaries around prosecutorial discretion. Professor Motomura and others in this Issue rightly extol the many benefits of the President's November 2014 executive actions. While I share the view that those benefits are considerable, I believe a full accounting requires us to consider what gets lost in this process, including identification of the immigrants in the limbo space between the actions' prospective beneficiaries at the one end and those who are priorities for removal on the other. This Essay focuses on the cost that comes from …

Deported To Die? Applying The Categorical Approach To The "Particularly Serious Crime" Bar, Fatma E. Marouf

Fatma E Marouf

A noncitizen who has been convicted of a “particularly serious crime” can be deported to a country where there is a greater than fifty percent chance of persecution or death. Yet the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has not provided a clear test for determining what is a “particularly serious crime.” The current test, which combines an examining of the elements of the crime with a fact-specific inquiry, has led to arbitrary and unpredictable decisions about what types of offense are “particularly serious.” This Article argues that the categorical approach for analyzing convictions should be applied to the particularly serious …

Evolving Contours Of Immigration Federalism: The Case Of Migrant Children, Elizabeth Keyes

Elizabeth Keyes

In a unique corner of immigration law, a significant reallocation of power over immigration has been occurring with little fanfare. States play a dramatic immigration gatekeeping role in the process for providing protection to immigrant youth, like many of the Central American children who sought entry to the United States in the 2014 border “surge.” This article closely examines the history of this Special Immigrant Juvenile Status provision, enacted in 1990, which authorized a vital state role in providing access to an immigration benefit. The article traces the series of shifts in allocation of power between the federal government and …

Black Hole In The Rising Sun: Japan And The Hague Convention On Child Abduction, Paul Hanley

Paul Hanley

Despite Japan’s recent adoption of the the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Parental Abduction, great concern remains whether Japan is willing to comply with the legal obligations imposed by the Convention. This article examines Japan’s struggle with the issue of international child abduction, analyzing its traditional approach to family matters such as its “divorce by conference” system, which permits couples to negotiate issues of child custody and visitation without any judicial oversight or guidance. Further complicating matters, when a marriage ends in Japan, joint-custodial rights usually end, with only one parent getting physical custody of a child. …

"Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now": Analyzing The Federal Prosecution Of Aliens Who Attempt To Stop Living Unlawfully In The United States, Sergio Garcia

Sergio Garcia

Abstract: Title 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) makes it a crime for a previously deported alien to be “found in” the United States without the Attorney General’s consent. There is, however, a conflict among the circuits over whether an illegal alien is “found in” the United States for purposes of § 1326 when he voluntarily travels to a port of entry and is detained there by immigration authorities while he is seeking to leave the country. The circuit courts bordering Mexico and Canada disagree on this issue as a matter of law, as well as a matter of Congressional intent. This …

The Impact Of Interior Immigration Enforcement On Mixed-Citizenship Families, Michael J. Sullivan, Roger Enriquez Sr.

Roger Enriquez Sr.

In this article, we trace the expansion of interior immigration enforcement measures since the 1990s, focusing on the period after the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003. We consider the rationale for escalation of enforcement and its expansion to include local and state law enforcement agencies during this period. We will examine who benefits economically and politically, detailing the role of local jails, private corrections corporations, and the communities that are financially dependent on the prisons industry. Throughout, we consider how the expansion of immigration enforcement has affected U.S. citizen children and spouses of unauthorized …

Navigating Legal Cultures: The Limits Of Self-Help For Immigrants At A Law Clinic In Norway, Ana Maria Vargas Falla

Ana Maria Vargas Falla

No abstract provided.

Blackwell-Hill V. Lynch, 614 Fed.Appx. 348, (9th Cir. 2015) With Shannon Johnson ’15 And Alejandra Salinas '15, Kari E. Hong

Kari E. Hong

Unseen Exclusions In Voting And Immigration Law, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Confronting Cops In Immigration Court, Mary Holper

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Part I of the Article outlines the police report problem by discussing the four situations in which police reports are used in immigration court, why police reports are unreliable, and the scope of the problem. Part II discusses criminal law’s treatment of police reports, focusing on the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, which provides the constitutional justification for excluding police reports in criminal cases. Part III discusses the use of hearsay evidence in immigration cases, where hearsay is allowed due to the characterization of removal proceedings as civil, not criminal. While there has been a trend to reject unreliable …

Snap: How The Moral Elasticity Of The Denaturalization Statute Goes Too Far, Aram A. Gavoor, Daniel Miktus

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Comprehensive immigration reform is a popular topic in Congress. While many reform bills have been offered, none have addressed the significant substantive and procedural issues surrounding denaturalization, the process where the federal government may seek to have a naturalized person’s citizenship revoked in federal court if his citizenship was unlawfully or fraudulently procured.Though denaturalization serves public policy as a final check on naturalization fraud, existing law also permits the government to denaturalize an individual solely for speech and expressive association that occurs after one acquires citizenship. This provision, 8 U.S.C. § 1451(c), violates naturalized citizens’ First Amendment rights to free …

Abandoning The Status Quo: Towards Uniform Application Of Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Gregory Catangay

Gregory Catangay

The accompanying Article identifies and analyzes the causes of unequal application of the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) program and argues for a federal takeover of the program. The Article highlights the current immigration crisis and the plight of unaccompanied minors seeking a better life in the United States. These minors may be eligible for permanent legal status in the United States through the SIJS program. Although SIJS is a federal remedy, variations in state law and interpretation of SIJS requirements exclude eligible minors.

In order to be eligible for the SIJS program, a state trial court must find that …

Deconstructing And Reconstructing Rights For Immigrant Children, Erin B. Corcoran

Law Faculty Scholarship

Children rights advocates and scholars alike continue to call for the development of innovative and alternative rights models, which specifically provide for an expansive conceptualization of children’s rights. Central to their calls for reform is a simultaneous recognition that children’s rights must embody agency – a child’s voice (a proxy for autonomy) – free from governmental interference, as well as the establishment of certain fundamental “needs” that place an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure the child has, and affirmatively provide, when necessary. Reimagining children’s rights also requires reforming our laws in such a way that reflects children as …

Confronting Cops In Immigration Court, Mary Holper

Mary Holper

An Unexceptional Aspect Of President Obama's Immigration Executive Actions, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

Can The Center Hold? The Vulnerabilities Of The Official Legal Regimen For Intercountry Adoption, David M. Smolin

David M. Smolin

Amidst controversy, a legal regimen for intercountry adoption (ICA) has been developed over the past twenty-five years. The primary constituent parts are the 1989 UN-based Convention on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”) and the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Hague Convention). Since the creation of those conventions, international and national legal efforts have focused on delineation and implementation of a set of standards based on their principles in the attempt to create a stable and reliable intercountry adoption system. This project of the creation of a stable and reliable intercountry …

Immigration Separation Of Powers And The President's Power To Preempt, Catherine Y. Kim

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Fifth Circuit In Texas V. United States Chose And Advocated The Term “Illegal Alien”, Maritza I. Reyes

Journal Publications

No abstract provided.

Learning From Our Mistakes: Using Immigration Enforcement Errors To Guide Reform, Amanda Frost

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Immigration scholars and advocates frequently criticize our immigration system for imposing severe penalties akin to (or worse than) those in the criminal justice system — such as prolonged detention and permanent exile from the United States — without providing sufficient procedural protections to minimize enforcement errors. Yet there has been relatively little scholarship examining the frequency of errors in immigration enforcement and identifying recurring causes of those errors, in part because the data is hard to find. This Article begins by canvassing some of the publicly available data on enforcement errors, which reveal that such mistakes occur too frequently to …

Immigration Actors: Federal Agencies And Courts, Enid Trucios-Haynes

Brandeis School of Law Faculty Scholarship

Understanding Immigration Law, Second Edition lays out the basics of U.S. immigration law in an accessible way to newcomers to the field. It offers background about the intellectual, historical, and constitutional foundations of U.S. immigration law. The book also identifies the factors that have historically fueled migration to the United States, including the economic "pull" of jobs and family in the United States and the "push" of economic hardship, political instability, and other facts of life in the sending country. In the middle chapters, the authors provide a capsule summary of the law concerning the admissions and removal procedures and …

Human Rights For All Is Better Than Citizenship Rights For Some, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

No abstract provided.

Dapa And The Future Of Immigration Law As Administrative Law, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

The Procedural Fortress Of Us Immigration Law, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

The Expansion Of “Particularly Serious Crimes” In Refugee Law: Mirroring The Severity Revolution, Mary Holper

Mary Holper

Refugees are not protected from deportation if they have been convicted of a “particularly serious crime” (“PSC”) which renders them a danger to the community. This raises questions about the meaning of “particularly serious” and “danger to the community.” The Board of Immigration Appeals, Attorney General, and Congress have interpreted PSC quite broadly, leaving many refugees vulnerable to deportation without any consideration of the risk of persecution in their cases. This trend is disturbing as a matter of refugee law, but it is even more disturbing because it demonstrates how certain criminal law trends have played out in immigration law. …

Immigration Actors: Federal Agencies And Courts, Enid Trucios-Haynes

Enid F. Trucios-Haynes

Learning From Our Mistakes: Using Immigration Enforcement Errors To Guide Reform, Amanda Frost

Amanda Frost

Clear And Simple Deportation Rules For Crimes: Why We Need Them And Why It's Hard To Get Them, Rebecca Sharpless

Rebecca Sharpless