Immigration Law Commons^™

The State Of Asylum Representation: Ideas For Change, Andrew I. Schoenholtz, Jonathan Jacobs

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The plight of refugees-those who flee persecution-touches a chord with Americans, who have supported both a substantial overseas resettlement program and a fair system for asylum seekers. U.S. laws provide a seemingly full opportunity for asylum applicants to explain their fear or actual experience of persecution. In fact, the U.S. offers an extensive process of interviews, hearings, and appeals to ensure that bona fide refugees are not sent back to their persecutors. The substantive law, too, has been developed considerably through administrative and judicial precedents. But how meaningful is a process that, no matter how extensive and developed, leaves asylum …

Terrorizing Immigrants In The Name Of Fighting Terrorism, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is often said that civil liberties are the first casualties of war. It may be more accurate to say that immigrants' civil liberties are the first to go. In the wake of the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, we all feel vulnerable in ways that we have never felt before, and many have argued that we may need to sacrifice our liberty in order to purchase security. In fact, however, what we have done is to sacrifice the liberties of some-immigrants, and especially Arab and Muslim immigrants-for the purported security of the rest of us. This double standard …

In Aid Of Removal: Due Process Limits On Immigration Detention, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this Article, I seek to demonstrate the radical consequences that taking due process seriously would have for immigration detention as currently practiced. Part I lays out the general principles that apply to civil preventive detention, which establish that substantive due process is violated without an individualized showing after a fair adversarial hearing that there is something to prevent, namely danger to the community or flight. Part II applies this general framework to immigration detention. It first demonstrates, by a review of Supreme Court decisions, that the Court has applied the same due process principles to immigration detention that it …

Secret Trials, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Today, U.S. immigration authorities use secret evidence to lock up immigrants in deportation proceedings, to exclude aliens at the border, and to oppose applications for "relief from deportation," including asylum.

Secrecy, Guilt By Association, And The Terrorist Profile, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, I will argue that the use of secret procedures and guilt by association in immigration trials is not only unconstitutional but counterproductive. I will begin with a case study, then discuss in turn the practices of secret evidence and guilt by association, and finally conclude with a consideration of how these two tactics perpetuate invidious stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims.

Asylum In Practice: Successes, Failures, And The Challenges Ahead, Susan Martin, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Workshop on Refugee and Asylum Policy in Practice in Europe and North America was organized to facilitate a transatlantic dialogue aimed at understanding just how well these asylum systems are balancing the dual goals. The Workshop was convened by the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) of Georgetown University and the Center for the Study of Immigration, Integration and Citizenship Policies (CEPIC) of the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique, with the support of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. It was held on July 1-3, 1999, at Oxford University.

The workshop examined key issues …

Report On The Workshop On Refugee And Asylum Policy In Practice In Europe And North America, Randall Hansen, Susan Martin, Andrew I. Schoenholtz, Patrick Weil

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Western nations have struggled to accomplish the dual goals of refugee and asylum policies: (1) identifying and protecting Convention refugees as well as those fleeing civil conflict; and (2) controlling for abuse. The Workshop on Refugee and Asylum Policy in Practice in Europe and North America was organized to facilitate a transatlantic dialogue to explore just how well these asylum systems are balancing the dual goals. The workshop exa!llined key elements of the U.S. and European asylum systems: decision making on claims, deterrence of abuse, independent review, return of rejected asylum seekers, scope of the refugee concept, social rights and …

Beyond The Supreme Court: A Modest Plea To Improve Our Asylum System, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Moderating a session at the Workshop on the Supreme Court and Immigration and Refugee Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, Peter Spiro asked just how important the Supreme Court really is to refugee and immigration law. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has actively interpreted the Refugee Convention and Protocol, and its decisions have had an adverse affect on important protection issues. James Hathaway knows this well. Yet his article focuses on the two Supreme Court decisions that most practitioners and scholars agree have not translated into serious protection problems in the United States or abroad.

Temporary Protection: Towards A New Regional And Domestic Framework, Susan Martin, Andrew I. Schoenholtz, Deborah Waller Meyers

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

During the past thirty-five years, the United States has seen the direct influx of thousands of individuals leaving politically unstable countries. While some seeking entry have proved themselves to be refugees and obtained permanent protection in the United States, far more, including a large number of people fleeing civil war, natural disasters, or comparable forms of upheaval in their home countries, have failed to demonstrate that they would be targets of persecution. Yet, their return to their home countries has been complicated by the very circumstances that led to their flight: conflict, violence, and repression. Over time, the United States …

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 …

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, …

Skeptical Scrutiny Of Plenary Power: Judicial And Executive Branch Decision Making In Miller V Albright, Cornelia T. Pillard, T. Alexander Aleinikoff

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 1996, just a few months after the United States successfully urged the Supreme Court in United States v. Virginia to invalidate as sex-discriminatory the male-only admissions policy at the Virginia Military Institute, the District of Columbia Circuit in Miller v. Albright upheld a federal law that used an express, sex-based distinction. Section 309(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) makes it harder for male U.S. citizens than for female citizens to convey their citizenship to their children if those children were born abroad out of wedlock and the other parent was not a U.S. citizen. Notwithstanding the United …

Don’T Gut Political Asylum, Philip G. Schrag

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

For many years, the United States has granted political asylum to victims of persecution who come to our country and seek our protection. Now, however, Congress is on the verge of abolishing the right of political asylum.

Congress is not proposing to repeal the asylum provisions of the Refugee Act of 1980. An outright repeal would probably never pass, because many in Congress, recalling America's sorry treatment of refugees during the Holocaust, accept the humanitarian premises underlying asylum. Rather, the abolition is in the form of a new, apparently innocuous "procedural" requirement. The House Judiciary Committee recently adopted, as an …

Aiding And Abetting Persecutors: The Seizure And Return Of Haitian Refugees In Violation Of The U.N. Refugee Convention And Protocol, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Pursuant to Executive Order 12,807 of May 23, 1992, the “Kennebunkport Order,” United States Coast Guard cutters have been intercepting boatloads of Haitian citizens in international waters off the coast of Haiti and turning them over to the Haitian authorities in Port-au-Prince. No questions are being asked to determine if any of these citizens are bona fide refugees fleeing persecution. All are simply returned.

Does the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (Protocol), to which the United States is a party, permit the U.S. government to do this? That question is now before the United States Supreme Court. Regarding …