Immigration Law Commons^™

The Overlooked Significance Of Arizona's New Immigration Law, Rick Su

Journal Articles

The current debate over Arizona's new immigration statute, S.B. 1070, has largely focused on the extent to which it “empowers” or “allows” state and local law enforcement officials to enforce federal immigration laws. Yet, in doing so, the conversation thus far overlooks the most significant part of the new statute: the extent to which Arizona mandates local immigration enforcement by attacking local control. The fact is the new Arizona law does little to adjust the federalist balance with respect to immigration enforcement. What it does, however, is threaten to radically alter the state-local relationship by eliminating local discretion, undermining the …

Local Fragmentation As Immigration Regulation, Rick Su

Journal Articles

Immigration scholars have traditionally focused on the role of national borders and the significance of nation-state citizenship. At the same time, local government scholars have called attention to the significance of local boundaries, the consequence of municipal residency, and the influence of the two on the fragmentation of American society. This paper explores the interplay between these two mechanisms of spatial and community controls. Emphasizing their doctrinal and historic commonalities, this article suggests that the legal structure responsible for local fragmentation can be understood as second-order immigration regulation. It is a mechanism that allows for finer regulatory control than the …

Fitting The Formula For Judicial Review: The Law-Fact Distinction In Immigration Law, Rebecca Sharpless

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

This article demonstrates that the basic, analytical concept of a question of law in immigration court decisions is more expansive than is typically understood. I unearth and analyze confusion in immigration case law and propose some ways for us to think more clearly about the law-fact distinction, focusing on questions that involve the application of law to facts that have already been established - questions that are commonly called mixed questions. Part II of this article briefly traces the history of immigration judicial review, culminating with the REAL ID Act of 2005 and the jurisdictional savings clause contained in it. …

Good Things Come To Those Who Wait - Reconsidering Indeterminate And Indefinite Detention As Tools In U.S. Immigration Policy, Michael S. Vastine

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

This article will primarily focus on illustrating examples of lengthy detention that surely seem unending to the immigrants involved, if not "indefinite" as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court. I will address all other aspects of detention more fully than actual "indefinite" detention. Detention is one of many tools at the disposal of DHS to assure orderly immigration and provide predictable consequences for violators of the United States immigration system. I hope to illustrate the frequently coercive affects of the detention scheme and argue that in some, if not many, contexts detention actually impedes the orderly administration of justice, despite …

Stories In Mexico And The United States About The Border: The Rhetoric And The Realities, Gloria Valencia-Weber, Antoinette Sedillo Lopez

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

Our discussion will: 1) examine the concept of using word choices and metaphors as devices in storytelling to frame political, economic and social issues, which are meant to evoke certain emotional responses among specific audiences in the immigration debates; 2) describe the legal history of the border as a legal and social construct as background for the stories that are told about immigration; 3) demonstrate with examples of stories published in Mexico and the U.S. that portray how some stories about the border are being framed in the U.S. and in Mexico by identifying word choices, metaphors, audience, social and/or …

Changes In The Wind: How Increased Detention Rates, New Medical Care Standards, And Ice Policy Shifts Alter The Debate On Immigrant Detainee Healthcare, Angela Morehouse

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

This paper provides an analysis of the recent changes in immigration detainee healthcare and argues that ICE is taking significant and proactive steps to address the systemic failures of the prior regime. Briefly discussed at the conclusion of this paper is ICE's significant August 6, 2009 announcement that it is enacting additional major reforms to the immigration detention system. This critical development lends credence to this paper's argument that ICE is developing a workable framework for providing appropriate healthcare to immigrant detainees. However, as the announcement came after this paper had been written, a detailed discussion of how those changes …

Citizenship, In The Immigration Context, Matthew Lister

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Dual Purposes Of The U Visa Thwarted In A Legislative Duel, Jamie Abrams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Congress created the U visa non-immigrant classification to achieve the dual purposes of both strengthening law enforcement’s ability to pursue domestic violence cases and protecting victims. This article reveals how the gatekeeper function of the law enforcement certification in the U visa petition, as set out in the interim final regulations, undermines Congress’s dual purposes and thwarts the statutory framework entirely. The law enforcement certification provisions of the U visa interim final regulations irreparably shift considerable centralized power to law enforcement personnel, subjecting the certification process to inconsistent application and misapplication.

U Visas allow undocumented non-immigrants who are victims of …

Leveraging Asylum, James C. Hathaway

Articles

I believe that the analysis underlying the leveraged right to asylum is conceptually flawed. As I will show, there is no duty of non-refoulement that binds all states as a matter of customary international law and it is not the case that all persons entitled to claim protection against refoulement of some kind are ipso facto entitled to refugee rights. These claims are unsound precisely because the critical bedrock of a real international legal obligation-namely, the consent of states evinced by either formal commitments or legally relevant actions -does not yet exist.

Capteton V. A.T. Massey Coal Co.: The Texas Implications., Catherine Stone, Wendy Martinez

St. Mary's Law Journal

In Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., the United States Supreme Court addressed whether the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution was violated by the denial of a motion to recuse. The motion sought to recuse a Supreme Court of Appeals Justice from West Virginia. The justice received an extraordinary campaign contribution from the chief officer of a corporate party to a case pending before the court. Several Texas courts addressed whether recusal was necessary based on campaign contributions prior to the decision in Caperton. Texas courts have universally held that recusal was not required. The United States …

Gender, Law, And Detention Policy: Unexpected Effects On The Most Vulnerable Immigrants, Carla L. Reyes

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The United States immigration system is especially difficult for children to navigate. Advocates commonly argue that this difficulty stems largely from the poor fit resulting from the application of a system designed for adults to the reality of the child immigrant experience. Advocacy efforts, including those that resulted in changes to detention policy and substantive immigration law regarding Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), therefore focus on modifying the system to recognize children as subjects, rather than objects, of immigration law. This article argues that the present efforts to streamline the immigration detention and relief experience for UACs by combating adult-centered bias …

Sustaining Tiered Personhood: Jim Crow And Anti-Immigrant Laws, Karla M. Mckanders

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Latino immigrants are moving to areas of the country that have not seen a major influx of immigrants. As a result of this influx, citizens of these formerly homogenous communities have become increasingly critical of federal immigration law. State and local legislatures are responding by passing their own laws targeting immigrants. While many legislators and city council members state that the purpose of the anti-immigrant laws is to restrict illegal immigration where the federal government has failed to do so, opponents claim that the laws are passed to enable discrimination and exclusion of all Latinos, regardless of their immigration status. …

The Unspoken Voices Of Indigenous Women In Immigration Raids, Karla M. Mckanders

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The voices of the most vulnerable populations often point towards social constructs in dire need of systemic change. The treatment of immigrant women in workplace raids exemplifies this concept. Over the last couple of years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, has executed several workplace raids to deport undocumented immigrants who are unauthorized to work in this country. When discussing workplace raids, most news articles focus on the mass deportation of men, this paper will take a different perspective, and examine indigenous immigrant Guatemalan women’s stories in migrating to the United States, seeking employment …

Alienated: A Reworking Of The Racialization Thesis After September 11, Ming H. Chen

Publications

This article revises widespread application of the racialization thesis to Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians following September 11. It suggests in its place an “alienation thesis” to describe the formation of an alien identity for those perceived and treated as noncitizens. This thesis draws on Asian American and critical race scholarship to re-interpret sociological understandings of the post-September 11 response to Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians. The article concludes that shifting conceptions of this phenomenon is critical to reforming “alienating” practices that function not only to cause harm to their intended targets, but also to distort the legal requirements of …

The Alienage Spectrum Disorder: The Bill Of Rights From Chinese Exclusion In Guantanamo, Won Kidane

Faculty Articles

The fundamental notion that increased ties to the polity of the United States would entitle an alien to better rights is deeply-rooted in the jurisprudence. Ordinarily, these rights tend to strengthen as one moves forward from the beginning of the spectrum, which might involve the most attenuated contact, as in the case of enemy aliens detained by United States military in a foreign land or an overseas visa applicant, to the end of the spectrum, which might involve a United States citizen. While this seems to make perfect sense, this article argues that a closer examination of the century-old jurisprudence …

The Terrorism Bar To Asylum In Australia, Canada, The United Kingdom, And The United States: Transporting Best Practices, Won Kidane

Faculty Articles

The contemporary threat of terrorism that the Western world faces is primarily from so-called “aliens.” As such, the laws that are meant to combat terrorism necessarily involve the regulation of the admission and exclusion of aliens. This type of regulation is traditionally the purview of immigration law. Although the link between national security and immigration is by no means contemporary, the existing level of intersection between antiterrorism laws and immigration is essentially a post- 9/11 phenomenon.

The reason for this phenomenon is that the 9/11 attacks were planned and executed by aliens. Although there has not been a terrorist attack …

Immigration As Invasion: Sovereignty, Security, And The Origins Of The Federal Immigration Power, Matthew Lindsay

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers a new interpretation of the modern federal immigration power. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Supreme Court and Congress fundamentally transformed the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration, from a species of commercial regulation firmly grounded in Congress’ commerce authority, into a power that was unmoored from the Constitution, derived from the nation’s “inherent sovereignty,” and subject to extraordinary judicial deference. This framework, which is commonly referred to as the “plenary power doctrine,” has stood for more than a century as an anomaly within American public law. The principal legal and rhetorical rationale for the …

The Power To End War: The Extent And Limits Of Congressional Power., Adam Heder

St. Mary's Law Journal

Congress has several options in limiting the execution of war, however, Congress has no implied constitutional authority to terminate a war. Congress may limit the scope at the outset of the war, dissolve the army, or use its appropriation power. Congress may also impeach the President. Domestic statutes, the Court’s strong protection of essential liberties, and the democratic process further check the President’s power. Short of these, however, neither the Constitution nor subsequent case law gives Congress any definitive power to end or effectively limit the President’s ability to conduct a war. Congress gets its “bite at the apple” at …

Danger Or Resort To Underwear: The Safford Unified School District No. 1 V. Redding Standard For Strip Searching Public School Students., Joseph O. Oluwole

St. Mary's Law Journal

Safford Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Redding (Redding III) represents a pivotal decision in school search and seizure jurisprudence, specifically regarding strip searches of students. Redding III establishes constraints specific to strip searches on the search and seizure authority of school officials. Redding III is intended to provide a uniform test for the judiciary and school officials when evaluating the reasonableness of strip searches of students. The Court explicitly interposed a “reliable knowledge” element requiring: (1) the degree to which known facts imply prohibited conduct; (2) the specificity of the information received; and (3) the reliability of its source. …

Migrant Workers In Saudi Arabia, Sarah Jessup

Human Rights & Human Welfare

One of the wealthiest countries in the Middle East, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is also one of the largest exporters of oil, and as such, one of the most influential in the region. Despite this, more than 50 per cent of the work force (nearly 6 million people) in the Saudi Arabia are migrant workers (FIDH, 2003, 3). They contribute billions of dollars each year to their home countries through remittances. With such a large population hailing from outside the Kingdom, it would seem that transnational migrants would have a larger voice in the rights and freedoms they are …

Conference: She Can Do No Wrong: Recent Failures In America's Immigration Courts To Provide Women Asylum From Honor Crimes Abroad, Shira T. Shapiro

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Alienated: A Reworking Of The Racialization Thesis After September 11, Ming H. Chen

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Go West Young Woman!: The Mercer Girls And Legal Historiography, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

This essay is a response to Professor Kerry Abrams’s article The Hidden Dimension of Nineteenth-Century Immigration Law, published in Vanderbilt Law Review. The Hidden Dimension tells the story of Washington Territory’s entrepreneurial Asa Shinn Mercer, who endeavored to bring hundreds of young women from the East Coast to the tiny frontier town of Seattle as prospective brides for white men who had settled there. Abrams locates the story of the Mercer Girls, as they were called, in the history of American immigration law. My response locates The Hidden Dimension in American legal historiography, both that branch of American legal historiography …

Forced Marriage As A Harm In Domestic And International Law, Catherine Dauvergne, Jenni Millbank

All Faculty Publications

This article reports on our analysis of 120 refugee cases from Australia, Canada, and Britain where an actual or threatened forced marriage was part of the claim for protection. We found that forced marriage was rarely considered by refugee decision makers to be a harm in and of itself. This finding contributes to understanding how gender and sexuality are analysed within refugee law, because the harm of forced marriage is experienced differently by lesbians, gay men and heterosexual women. We contrast our findings in the refugee case law with domestic initiatives in Europe aimed at protecting nationals from forced marriages …

Forced Marriage And The Exoticization Of Gendered Harms In United States Asylum Law, Jenni Millbank, Catherine Dauvergne

All Faculty Publications

While claims of forced marriage or pressure to marry represent only a tiny portion of refugee claims overall, they provide an illuminating sliver reflecting the major recurring themes in gender and sexuality claims from recent decades. Refusal to marry is a flashpoint for expressing non-conformity with expected gender roles for heterosexual women, lesbians and gay men. This paper presents results from our study of 168 refugee decisions from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States where part of the claim for refugee protection concerned actual or threatened forced marriage. In the present discussion, we highlight our findings from …

Managing Female Foreign Domestic Workers In Singapore: Economic Pragmatism, Coercive Legal Regulation, Or Human Rights?, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Singapore's immigration discourse is deeply influenced by its need to “right-size” its population. As a society that has and remains in need of immigration, contemporary immigration and globalization have rigorously challenged the conventional thinking and understanding of citizenship, as well as notions of who belongs and who does not. Nevertheless, international marriages and pervasive in-and out-migration for purposes of employment, study, and family, conspire to make more pronounced the decoupling of citizenship and residence in Singapore. This transnational dimension sits uncomfortably with the policy makers' desire for, and the imperatives of, state sovereignty, control, and jurisdiction.Although one quarter of people …

Fractured Membership: Deconstructing Territoriality To Secure Rights And Remedies For The Undocumented Worker, D. Carolina Nuñez

Faculty Scholarship

Relied upon but unwelcome, among us but uninvited, undocumented workers in the United States – now numbering over 8 million – labor on the border of inclusion and exclusion, between a status-based conception of membership and a territorial approach to membership. Although mere presence in the U.S. secures undocumented workers many of the same labor protections afforded to authorized workers, undocumented status often forecloses certain remedies otherwise available for employer breaches of those protections. Many commentators have criticized this effective status-based denial of rights to undocumented workers as inimical to the goals underlying labor and immigration law. While this Article …

The Citizenship Clause: A "Legislative History", Garrett Epps

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.