Human Rights Law Commons^™

Expanding The Circle Of Membership By Reconstructing The Alien: Lessons From Social Psychology And The Promise Enforcement Cases, Victor C. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

Recent legal scholarship suggests that the Supreme Court's decisions on immigrants' rights favor conceptions of membership over personhood. Federal courts are often reluctant to recognize the personal rights claims of noncitizens because they are not members of the United States. Professor Michael Scaperlanda argues that because the courts have left the protection of noncitizens' rights in the hands of Congress and, therefore, its constituents, U.S. citizens must engage in a serious dialogue regarding membership in this polity while considering the importance of constitutional principles of personhood. This Article takes up Scaperlanda's challenge. Borrowing from recent research in social psychology, this …

Can International Refugee Law Be Made Relevant Again?, James C. Hathaway

Articles

Ironic though it may seem, I believe that the present breakdown in the authority of international refugee law is attributable to its failure explicitly to accommodate the reasonable preoccupations of governments in the countries to which refugees flee. International refugee law is part of a system of state self-regulation. It will therefore be respected only to the extent that receiving states believe that it fairly reconciles humanitarian objectives to their national interests. In contrast, refugee law arbitrarily assigns full legal responsibility for protection to whatever state asylum-seekers are able to reach. It is a peremptory regime. Apart from the right …

Use Of Discretion In Independent Migrant Selection: A Study Of Canadian Immigration Law, Policy And Practice, Philip Lupul

LLM Theses

Canadian immigration law has traditionally relied upon broad grants of discretionary authority as a tool for immigrant application processing. Such authority has had two facets--a procedural aspect allowing for flexibility in methods and processes for handling applications, and a substantive aspect relating to actual decision making. This thesis examines such discretion in the particular context of the Independent category of migration that is provided for under the current Immigration Act and Regulations. This thesis argues that discretionary power has recently been significantly affected by two evolving trends. Hampered by fiscal constraints, the bureaucracy has sought to reduce usage of positive …

The Summary Affirmance Proposal Of The Board Of Immigration Appeals, Philip G. Schrag

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Board of Immigration Appeals is on the verge of making a tragic mistake, trading away a key element of fair adjudication--the written opinion--for the sake of what it hopes will be greater administrative efficiency. The cost of eliminating written adjudication is too great, and the Board has given no indication that it has sufficiently canvassed less drastic alternatives.

The Board of Immigration Appeals (the "Board") is the primary appellate body for immigration law. The "staple" of its work is to decide appeals from decisions of Immigration Judges in removal proceedings, though it also hears appeals in several other categories, …

Unaccompanied Children In I.N.S. Detention, Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is important to note that children who end up in INS detention centers in the United States are not criminal detainees, but rather, administrative detainees. That is, they are not being held because they are accused or convicted of crimes. They are being held for two reasons only. First, the INS holds them in order to ensure their presence at immigration proceedings. They fear that if they let a child out, into foster care for instance, that child might not appear at any subsequent hearings or proceedings. Second, the government is legally required to look after these children in …

Changing The Rules: Arguing Against Retroactive Application Of Deportation Statutes, Anjali Parekh Prakash

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

By failing to prescribe its temporal reach, section 440(d) of the Anti-Terrorism Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) has created confusion for the courts. Does the provision apply to individuals who committed a crime, making them subject to deportation before AEDPA was passed? To individuals who were convicted prior to AEDPA? To those in deportation proceedings when AEDPA was passed? To those who had already applied for section 212(c) waivers when AEDPA was passed?

Using section 440(d) as a case study to analyze these retroactivity issues, this Note opposes the Attorney General’s interpretation and instead proposes an antiretroactivity presumption applicable not …

Female Genital Mutilation: United States Asylum Laws Are In Need Of Reform, Amy Stern

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

"Toward The Reformulation Of International Refugee Law" Research Report 1992-1997, James C. Hathaway

Other Publications

Discussions of the crisis in international refugee protection are frequently characterized by rhetorical excess, in which some ascribe all problems to malevolent states, while others are equally insistent that fraudulent asylum-seekers are solely to blame. This study was based, in contrast, on a recognition of the real systemic difficulties that jeopardize the viability of refugee protection. Its purpose was to devise a principled yet pragmatic way to reconcile state interests to the continued importance of access to asylum for those who need it.

The essence of our thesis is that the withdrawal of states from their legal responsibility to protect …

Throwing Away The Key: Limits On The Plenary Power?, Richard A. Boswell

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants: Cuban Migration to the U.S., 1959-1995 by Felix Masud-Piloto and The Abandoned Ones: The Imprisonment and Uprising of the Marial Boat People by Mark S. Hamm.

Making International Refugee Law Relevant Again: A Proposal For Collectivized And Solution-Oriented Protection, James C. Hathaway, R. Alexander Neve

Articles

International refugee law is in crisis. Even as armed conflict and human rights abuse continue to force individuals and groups to flee their home countries, many governments are withdrawing from the legal duty to provide refugees with the protection they require. While governments proclaim a willingness to assist refugees as a matter of political discretion or humanitarian goodwill, they appear committed to a pattern of defensive strategies designed to avoid international legal responsibility toward involuntary migrants. Some see this shift away from a legal paradigm of refugee protection as a source for enhanced operational flexibility in the face of changed …

Migration, Identity & The Colonial Encounter, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

The immigrant puts at issue assumptions of inviolability of borders, territoriality of sovereignty, and exclusivity of citizenship - fundamental characteristics of the modern state. The immigrant calls into question cultural homogeneity, linguistic commonality, shared history, and security of identity - the key ideologies of the nation. This article explores these issues by locating them in spatial and temporal sites removed from the common foci of current immigration debates. Using three stories of migration from colonial and postcolonial South Asia, the first part of the article demonstrates that within the general context of empire and imperialism, the determinants and processes of …

Home Is Where The Brute Lives: Asylum Law And Gender-Based Claims Of Persecution, Anjana Bahl

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article argues that gender-based persecution should be recognized as a valid ground for asylum under the refugee definition, emphasizing the need to expand the interpretation of "particular social group" to include women facing persecution due to their gender. It highlights the challenges women face in meeting the legal standards for asylum, particularly under U.S. law, and advocates for a more inclusive framework to address gender-based violence and discrimination.

Trends: Migrant Farm Workers Under The New Regime, Candance Beck

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Violence Against Women And The Asylum Process, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

Perhaps no area of public legislation generates as much controversy, or attracts as much rhetoric, as immigration. Immigration is perceived as the core of who we are as a nation. Legal norms governing the movement and migration of people across the borders of countries determine who is entitled to live in a country and ultimately who will control its resources. Immigration goes to the heart of sovereignty, particularly where sovereignty is popular, such as in consolidated democracies.' Asylum is a controversial issue within the immigration debate. This Article will interpret some of the recent developments in asylum law that are …

States As International Law-Breakers: Discrimination Against Immigrants And Welfare Reform, Elizabeth Landry

Washington Law Review

As part of the current "devolution revolution," policy makers at the state and federal levels are designing proposals that would permit states to discriminate on the basis of immigration status in determining eligibility for public education, medical care, social services, and cash assistance. This Comment asserts that such proposals violate international human rights norms, by which both federal and state governments are bound. Mbreover, it maintains that legislators must consider international law when crafting proposals that would allow discrimination on the basis of alienage. If they fail to do so, courts are obliged to intervene and ensure that treaty provisions …

¿Y Qué Paso? ("And Then What Happened?"): The Plight Of Cuban Detainees At Guantanamo Bay, David Gavilan

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note argues that Cuban detainees at Guantanamo Bay possess cognizable statutory and constitutional rights under U.S. law, particularly under the First and Fifth Amendments, and that legal organizations have a First Amendment right to access and consult with these detainees. It challenges the government's position that these rights do not apply extraterritorially, asserting that Guantanamo's unique legal status under U.S. jurisdiction necessitates the protection of these rights.

The Canadian Charter And Public International Law: Redefining The State's Power To Deport Aliens, Daniela Bassan

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article considers the relationship between international and domestic law in deportation proceedings. The argument is made that, generally, Canadian law should be interpreted consistently with Canada's obligations at international law, as reflected in conventions and custom. More specifically, the article proposes that Canada's obligation at international law to protect the family and the child be recognized in Canadian law as one of the principles of fundamental justice under section 7 of the Charter. The protection of the family is engaged by the deportation of domiciled aliens because, by definition, these deportees have been in Canada for a long period …

Granting Political Asylum To Potential Victims Of Female Circumcision, Gregory A. Kelson

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Part I of this article examines two cases. In one case, a United States immigration court allowed female circumcision as a defense to deportation. In another case, the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board granted political asylum after recognizing female circumcision as a form of persecution. Part II assesses the extent of protections currently provided for potential victims of female circumcision under U.S. asylum law and analyzes the factors that a court should consider when making asylum determinations. Part III recommends that gender should be added to the enumerated grounds for persecution under U.S. asylum law. This section provides a hypothetical …

Discretionary Adjudicatory Rulemaking: Due Process Of Lawmaking And Immigration Law, 11 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 83 (1996), Michael G. Heyman

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Race Discourse And Proposition 187, John Sw Park

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Proposition 187 inspired a visceral public discourse. Proponents and opponents of the measure discussed several themes important to contemporary political theory, particularly themes related to sovereignty and civil rights. This Note shows how participants in that debate-including people of color-spoke of "rights" in a way that denied the possibility for undocumented aliens to have rights. When citizens spoke, they did so in a way that implicitly linked rights to citizenship; in other words, they assumed that without citizenship, persons were not entitled to rights or rights-based claims. Ironically, the debate about Proposition 187 pointed to the achievements of a "civil …

Natives, Newcomers And Nativism: A Human Rights Model For The Twenty-First Century, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article undertakes a broad overview of nativist sentiment and discrimination in U.S. social and legal history. Following a powerful vignette of a personal experience encountering nativism because of her accent, the author briefly reviews the history of the New York City Human Rights Commission in Part II. Part III traces the history of U.S. immigration and the parallel legacy of nativism, while Part IV details the legal developments arising from alienage discrimination. After reviewing relevant sources of international human rights law, the author concludes in Part VI by advocating a new human rights paradigm that will promote equality and …

Women, Just Implementation Of Asylum Policy, And Our Commitment To Human Dignity And Freedom, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The New Slave Trade: The International Crisis Of Immigrant Smuggling, Kevin Tessier

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

Proposition 187: Unfounded And Ineffective, Frank Del Olmo

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

The Right To Seek Asylum: A Dwindling Right?, Fatimah Mateen, Brian Tittemore

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Proposition 187: An Important Approach To Prevent Illegal Immigration, Alan C. Nelson

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Mail-Order Brides: Gilded Prostitution And The Legal Response, Eddy Meng

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note explores the international mail-order bride industry where women from Asia and other developing countries are trafficked to men in Western industrialized countries. The author discusses the commonalities between the mail-order bride traffic and other forms of sexual exploitation, as well as the cultural and historical forces and the gender, ethnic, and class subordination which together fuel the demand for Asian Pacific mail-order brides. In the United States, the potential for exploitation is made greater in that immigrant brides face a threat of deportation during the first two years of residence via immigration laws. Given the inequalities between consumer-husbands …

Irreconcilable Differences? Divorcing Refugee Protections From Human Rights Norms, Karen Musalo

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Irreconcilable Differences? Divorcing Regugee Protections From Human Rights Norms, Karen Musalo

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will discuss in greater detail the profound defects of the Court's Zacarias decision. Section I will discuss the interpretation of key provisions of the 1980 Refugee Act, and describe the case of Jairo Elias Zacarias. Section II will review the plain language and legislative intent of the Act, including the congressional purpose of conforming to the 1967 Protocol. Section III will consider issues of burden of proof, and will examine the substantive impact which Zacarias has had on refugee cases. Section IV will focus on religious persecution as a paradigm of the inadequacy of an intent-based requirement and …

Foreword (Symposium: Challenges In Immigration Law And Policy: An Agenda For The Twenty-First Century)., Carol Buckler

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.