Immigration Law Commons^™

The Borderline Constitution, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Publications

This Feature identifies and theorizes a distinct constitutional regime that federal courts have constructed at, adjacent to, and because of the nation’s border. Drawing together strands of First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment law, along with habeas doctrine, constitutional torts, tribal sovereignty, and separation-of-powers concerns, this Feature demonstrates how constitutional guarantees systematically recede in the border’s shadow. These deviations from canonical and mainstream constitutional norms authorize intrusive state invasions of privacy and other fundamental rights, abdicate judicial oversight in favor of outsized executive discretion, and entrench racial and religious subordination.

The Feature further demonstrates that the effects of border exceptionalism …

Loyalty Disarmament And The Undocumented, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Publications

Since the Supreme Court's District of Columbia v. Heller decision in 2008, lower federal courts have wrestled with Second Amendment claims raised by categories of people excluded from gun possession. Among those cases, several have been brought by noncitizens challenging their prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5), the federal criminal ban on possession by unlawfully present noncitizens. In the post-Heller § 922(g)(5) cases, judges have opined on whether unlawfully present noncitizens were among "the people" who had the right to bear arms and whether the government regulation met the appropriate level of constitutional scrutiny. More recently, however, the Supreme Court …

Dangerousness And The Undocumented, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Publications

The Supreme Court's most recent Second Amendment opinion, United States v. Rahimi, centers the question of dangerousness in right to bear arms challenges. There, the Court upheld 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), the federal criminal prohibition on possession of firearms by those subject to a civil domestic violence order, opining that legislatures could regulate the right to bear arms of those who were proven credible threats to public safety. Rahimi, however, left open the question whether dangerousness might be imputed to an entire group, absent individual determinations of threat or danger. The several lower federal court cases adjudicating 18 U.S.C. § …

Immigration Detention Abolition And The Violence Of Digital Cages, Sarah Sherman-Stokes

University of Colorado Law Review

The United States has a long history of pernicious immigration enforcement and surveillance. Today, in addition to more than 34,000 people held in immigration detention, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shackles and surveils an astounding 376,000 people under its “Alternatives to Detention” (“ATD”) program. The number of people subjected to this surveillance has grown dramatically in the last two decades, from just about 1,700 in 2005. ICE’s rapidly expanding Alternatives to Detention program is a “digital cage,” consisting of GPS-outfitted ankle shackles and invasive phone and location tracking. Government officials and some immigrant advocates have characterized these digital cages as …

Lexisnexis’S Contract With Ice As Unjust Enrichment, Lizzie Bird

University of Colorado Law Review

For $22.1 million, LexisNexis is currently helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surveil, detain, and deport noncitizens. Like other data brokers, LexisNexis’s role in the collection and sale of personal information has largely been ignored by regulators, judges, and the public. A recent lawsuit against LexisNexis in Illinois includes, among other claims, a claim of unjust enrichment. This often misunderstood and unpopular claim has a complex history which presents both a barrier to relief and an opportunity for advocates to push courts to clarify the doctrine. This Note examines the history of the theory of unjust enrichment, surveys its recent …

Second Amendment Immigration Exceptionalism, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Publications

This Essay critiques the decision to uphold federal gun restrictions on unlawfully present noncitizens on the basis of "immigration exceptionalism." It argues that courts should avoid applying bespoke constitutionalism to criminal laws, including gun laws, simply because the law regulates noncitizens. This Essay shows why such exceptional modes misapprehend long-decided Supreme Court cases and well-established legal doctrine. Further, it warns that an exceptional approach to Second Amendment claims by unlawfully present noncitizens cannot be cabined to either firearms or the unlawfully present. Rather, it portends a wider gulf in constitutional protections for all noncitizens across a variety of fundamental criminal …

Immigration Enforcement Preemption, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Publications

The Supreme Court's 2012 decision, Arizona v. United States, turned back the most robust and brazen state regulation of immigration in recent memory, striking down several provisions of Arizona's omnibus enforcement law. Notably, the Court did not limit preemption inquiries to conflicts between the state law and congressional statutes. The Court also based its decision on the tension between the state law and Executive Branch enforcement policies. The landmark decision seemed to have settled the Court's approach to immigration enforcement federalism. Yet, a scant eight years after Arizona, in Kansas v. Garcia, the Court upheld Kansas's prosecutions of noncitizens who …

The Second Amendment's "People" Problem, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Publications

The Second Amendment has a “people” problem. In 2008, District of Columbia v. Heller expanded the scope of the Second Amendment, grounding it in an individualized right of self-protection. At the same time, Heller’s rhetoric limited “the people” of the Second Amendment to “law-abiding citizens.” In 2022, New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen doubled down on the Amendment’s self-defense rationales but, once again, framed the right as one possessed by “citizens.” In between and after the two Supreme Court cases, several lower federal courts, including eight federal courts of appeals, wrestled with the question whether the right …

The War On Terror & Vigilante Federalism, Maryam Jamshidi

Publications

No abstract provided.

Decitizenizing Asian Pacific American Women, Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Margaret Hu

University of Colorado Law Review

The Page Act of 1875 excluded Asian women immigrants from entering the United States, presuming they were prostitutes. This presumption was tragically replicated in the 2021 Atlanta Massacre of six Asian and Asian American women, reinforcing the same harmful prejudices. This Article seeks to illuminate how the Atlanta Massacre is symbolic of larger forms of discrimination, including the harms of decitizenship. These harms include limited access to full citizenship rights due to legal barriers, restricted cultural and political power, and a lack of belonging. The Article concludes that these harms result from the structure of past and present immigration laws …

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: How Attorney General Review Undermines Our Immigration Adjudication System, Emma K. Carroll

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Undocuamerica Monologues, Motus Theater, Alejandro Fuentes Mena, Armando Peniche, Christian Solano-Córdova, Kirsten Wilson

University of Colorado Law Review

The following work contains three monologues from Motus Theater's UndocuAmerica Project, which aims to interrupt dehumanizing portrayals of immigrants by encouraging thoughtful engagement on the challenges faced by undocumented communities and the assets immigrants bring to our country. The monologues were created in a collaboration between leaders with DACA status and Motus Theater Artistic Director Kirsten Wilson during a seventeen-week autobiographical- monologue workshop. All three pieces were presented in a virtual performance on April 8, 2021, as an introduction to the 29th Annual Rothgerber Conference.

The Immigration Court: Zigzagging On The Road To Judicial Independence, Mimi Tsankov

University of Colorado Law Review

The Article will begin by outlining the basic structure of the existing system and identifying some of the key changes that have impacted IJs (Immigation Judges) on the bench, which have driven us to a moment in history that many argue is our most tenuous. Part I will offer a brief overview of our court structure for context. Part II will explain how, after a tumultuous five years, Immigration Courts are currently significantly tarnished such that rehabilitation of the existing system may serve a short-term purpose but will inevitably fail to address the larger, fundamental inequities that result from a …

The Failures Of Good Moral Character Determinations For Naturalization, Zachary New

University of Colorado Law Review

This Article examines the effects of the good-moral-character requirement in naturalization proceedings. Specifically, it looks to such character requirements as a method by which a citizen polity screens out undesirable noncitizens from those who are deserving of inclusion in the "in"g roup of citizenship. The Article discusses historical methods of good-moral-character adjudication, and especially how such methods carried an undercurrent of forgiveness and redemption-an undercurrent lacking in the current method of statutory bars to showings of good moral character. By looking at specific examples of statutory bars to showings of good moral character, this Article argues that the overinclusive nature …

Entrance Fees: Self-Funded Agencies And The Economization Of Immigration, Daimeon Shanks

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pursuing Citizenship During Covid-19, Ming Hsu Chen

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Essential, Not Expendable: Protecting The Economic Citizenship Of Agricultural Workers, Hunter Knapp

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Access To Justice For Immigrants: A Lecture Presented In Memory Of Breana Boss, Ingrid Eagly

University of Colorado Law Review Forum

No abstract provided.

Restructuring Immigration Enforcement Federalism, Pratheepan Gulasekaram

Publications

No abstract provided.

Decolonizing Indigenous Migration, Angela R. Riley, Kristen A. Carpenter

Publications

As global attention turns increasingly to issues of migration, the Indigenous identity of migrants often remains invisible. At the U.S.-Mexico border, for example, a significant number of the individuals now being detained are people of indigenous origin, whether Kekchi, Mam, Achi, Ixil, Awakatek, Jakaltek or Qanjobal, coming from communities in Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala and other countries. They may be leaving their homelands precisely because their rights as Indigenous Peoples, for example the right to occupy land collectively and without forcible removal, have been violated. But once they reach the United States, they are treated as any other migrants, without regard …

Sanctuary Cities And The Power Of The Purse: An Executive Dole Test, Douglas M. Spencer

Publications

A constitutional clash is brewing. Cities and counties are flexing their muscles to frustrate national immigration policy while the federal Executive is threatening to interfere with local law enforcement decision making and funding. Although the federal government generally has plenary authority over immigration law, the Constitution forbids the commandeering of state and local officials to enforce federal law against their will. One exception to this anti-commandeering principle is the Spending Clause of Article I that permits Congress to condition the receipt of federal funds on compliance with federal law. These conditions, according to more than 30 years of Supreme Court …

The Political (Mis)Representation Of Immigrants In Voting, Ming H. Chen, Hunter Knapp

Publications

Who is a member of the political community? What barriers to inclusion do immigrants face as outsiders to this political community? This Essay describes several barriers facing immigrants and naturalized citizens that impede their political belonging. It critiques these barriers on the basis of immigrants and foreign-born voters having rights of semi-citizenship. By placing naturalization backlogs, voting restrictions, and reapportionment battles in the historical context of voter suppression, it provides a descriptive and normative account of the political misrepresentation of immigrants.

The Political (Mis)Representation Of Immigrants In The Census, Ming Hsu Chen

Publications

Who is a member of the political community? What barriers to inclusion do immigrants face as outsiders to this political community? This article describes several barriers facing immigrants that impede their political belonging. It critiques these barriers not on the basis of immigrants’ rights but based on their rights as current and future members of the political community. This is the second of two Essays. The first Essay focused on voting restrictions impacting Asian American and Latino voters. The second Essay focuses on challenges to including immigrants, Asian Americans, and Latinos in the 2020 Census. Together, the Essays critique the …

Migrant Justice Now, Leti Volpp

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Congress Requires Nationwide Injunctions, David Hausman

University of Colorado Law Review

A curious provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) precludes class actions challenging expedited removal, the system of fast-track deportations for individuals who have recently entered the country. The same provision authorizes nationwide relief in non-class actions, but it requires that plaintiffs in such non-class systemic challenges file their claims in the federal District Court for the District of Columbia and that they do so within sixty days of the challenged change to the system. This framework should matter to scholars of nationwide injunctions for two reasons. First, Congress took for granted in 1996 that federal district courts may …

Citizenship Denied: Implications Of The Naturalization Backlog For Noncitizens In The Military, Ming H. Chen

Publications

The immigration system is in crisis. Long lines of asylum seekers at the border and immigrants in the interior spend years waiting for their day in immigration court. This is true in the agencies that process applications for immigration benefits from legal immigrants as well. Since 2016, delays in naturalization have increased to historic proportions. The problem is even worse for military naturalizations, where delays are accompanied by denials and overall declines in military naturalizations. It is the latest front in the battle on legal migration and citizenship.

These impediments to citizenship demonstrate an extreme form of policies collectively dubbed …

How Much Procedure Is Needed For Agencies To Change “Novel” Regulatory Policies?, Ming Hsu Chen

Publications

The use of guidance documents in administrative law has long been controversial and considered to be one of the most challenging aspects of administrative law. When an agency uses a guidance document to change or make policy, it need not provide notice to the public or allow comment on the new rule; this makes changes easier and faster and less subject to judicial review. Under the Obama Administration, guidance documents were used to implement policy shifts in many areas of administrative law, including civil rights issues such as transgender inclusion and campus sexual harassment and immigration law issues such as …

Making Litigating Citizenship More Fair, Ming H. Chen

Publications

No abstract provided.

Ending Forced Labor In Ice Detention Centers: A New Approach, Jonathon J. Booth

Publications

No abstract provided.

Anti-Sanctuary And Immigration Localism, Pratheepan Gulasekaram, Rick Su, Rose Cuison Villazor

Publications

A new front in the war against sanctuary cities has emerged. Until recently, the fight against sanctuary cities has largely focused on the federal government's efforts to defund states like California and cities like Chicago and New York for resisting federal immigration enforcement. Thus far, localities have mainly prevailed against this federal antisanctuary campaign, relying on federalism protections afforded by the Tenth Amendment's anticommandeering and anticoercion doctrines. Recently, however, the battle lines have shified with the proliferation of state-level laws that similarly seek to punish sanctuary cities. States across the country are directly mandating local participation, and courts thus far …