Immigration Law Commons^™

Tribes And H-1bs: Promoting Inclusion Of Tribal Interests In Immigration Policy Through Employment-Based Visas, Alejandro Alvarado

Tribal Law Journal

Tribal law and immigration law provide a comprehensive space, with plenty of crossover issues, for legal practitioners to explore how immigration law may benefit Tribes and Indigenous Peoples. These issues arise from the history of the United States undermining Tribal interests through immigration policy as it created international borders and established citizenship criteria. As a result, Indigenous Peoples have been impacted by U.S. immigration policy with regard to global mobility, family separation, issues related to border security, and economic prosperity. With the continued growth of Tribal economies, U.S. immigration policy risks limiting Tribal interests and welfare by not providing explicit …

The Forgotten Jurisprudence Of Parole And State Constitutional Doctrines Of Vagueness, Kristen Bell

Cardozo Law Review

The majority of carceral sentences in the United States include the possibility of discretionary release on parole. Most such sentences, however, are unconstitutionally vague. Their unconstitutionality has gone unnoticed because contemporary scholarship and litigation about vague laws have focused on the U.S. Constitution in lieu of state constitutions. This Article unearths historic state court decisions holding that sentences that end through the discretionary judgment of a parole board are “void for uncertainty.” Although state void for uncertainty doctrines share some similarity with the federal vagueness doctrine, they are far more demanding as applied to criminal punishment. By urging revival of …

Adding Wage Theft As A Qualifying Crime In The U Visa Certification, Genesis Aguirre Guerra

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Jose Lopez1 migrated to the United States without proper documentation. After he arrived, Mr. Lopez had several consecutive jobs as a line cook in various restaurants in Reno, Nevada. He started working at Casino restaurant. One day, Mr. Lopez noticed that his paychecks had not been reflecting the overtime hours he worked. Mr. Lopez approached his employer about his pay discrepancy. His employer told Mr. Lopez that he would pay for overtime the following week. The following week came, and the employer did not pay Mr. Lopez for his overtime hours. This continued for several weeks. Mr. Lopez confronted his …

Semi Structured Interview: Public Perceptions Of Family Resource Centers As Seen By Staff Personnel, With An Emphasis On The Undocumented Community, Eva Gonzalez

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

The value of Family Resource Centers in communities is examined in this research paper, with a focus on legal advocacy in undocumented communities. To begin, do Family Resource Centers provide sufficient resources to the undocumented population? By 2022, there will be over 3,000 FRCs in 30 states, serving over 2 million people per year. Second, how can the Family Resource Center best support Valley Palms' undocumented population? Finally, do Family Resource Centers play an important role in community development? These are some of the questions that helped lead the research when it came down to semi-structured interviews with employees from …

The Central American Minors Program: Advocating For Private Sponsorship, Magaly Velasco-Escobar

Master's Theses

Under this recommendation, minors would be interviewed by qualified officers at resettlement agencies in their home countries to assess credible fear, those deemed eligible but lacking an eligible relative would be referred for a private sponsorship pathway. Sponsors would be vetted and qualified using protocols currently in place by the Welcome Corps and Refugee Foster Care. Ideally, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) would coordinate between the private sponsors and overseas resettlement agencies, given they already do the work of vetting eligible sponsors for minors. ORR could create a program staffed with qualified individuals to coordinate this program or provide …

Un País Invertido: The Current Immigration Regime Of Colombia, Magdalena Hendrickson

Honors Theses

Throughout its turbulent history, Colombia has seen drastic changes in structure and administration. From military coups to shaky coalitions, the country’s infamous instability has long forced its citizens to find better prospects elsewhere. However, with the rise of the Maduro administration in Venezuela, Colombia faced a massive new flow of migrants and was forced to rectify current circumstances without properly addressing its internal issues beforehand. Despite its historical status as a nation of emigrants, Colombia marks a new norm for the rest of the globe. As new issues like climate change and increased armed conflict grow worldwide, countries on the …

Fourthspace: The Role Of Active Social Inclusion In The Workforce Entry Of Syrian Refugees In Scandinavia, Anisa Abeytia

Master's Theses

The 2015 displacement of Syrian refugees into Scandinavian countries provoked a refugee integration policy adjustment that focused on workforce and higher education entry. It is a policy approach that requires attention on barriers to workforce entry to ensure effective policy implementation. This article provides insight into the larger, often overlooked barriers of Eurocentrism and historical biases on refugee labor integration and provides policy solutions to reduce their impact. Active social inclusion (ASI) and Fourthspace are introduced as a framework to reduce biases to workforce entry and integration time barriers faced by Syrian refugees. ASI can provide mechanisms to increase access …

Clark Memorandum: Spring 2023, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• Fidei Defensor: Defending Faith to Enable Communities of Reconciliation
• Conscience, Peacebuilding, and Faith-Based Law Schools
• Elvis Was Right: The Unavoidable Intersection Between Personal Values and a Fulfilling Practice of Law
• The Future of the Establishment Clause: Implications of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District

Attachment Issues: Assessing The Relationship Between Newcomers And The Constitution, Ashley Mantha-Hollands

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Are you attached to the principles of the U.S. Constitution? How do you prove it—do you feel it, or just know it? What role does it play in your daily life as a citizen? Ever since one of the first acts of the U.S. Congress, the Naturalization Act of 1795, applicants for citizenship have been required to demonstrate that they are “attached to the principles of the [C]onstitution of the United States.” This requirement has been at the forefront of fierce debates in U.S. constitutional history and, although it has had limited usage after WWII, it has recently been brought …

Freedom In The Balance: Procedural Due Process Rights And The Burden Of Proof In Detention Hearings In Immigration Removal Proceedings, Colin Brady

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Part I of this Note considers the statutory and regulatory basis for immigration detention. Part II reviews prior cases decided by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) that bear on the question. Part III discusses how the Supreme Court has addressed previous procedural due process concerns within the immigration system and how lower courts have reacted. Part IV lays out how the Supreme Court has conceptualized the constitutional due process rights extended to noncitizens and how that has changed over the years. Part V considers how other categories of individuals are treated with respect to involuntary detention and the burden …

Promotion Of Citizenship Through Migration: Taking Into Cognizance The Peculiarities Of Migrant, Uche Nnawulezi, Hilary Nwaechefu

Indonesia Law Review

This study arose out of the growing interest in citizenship issues that have remained an intractable problem in the global migration community. The main objective this study is to examine the realities of global migration which has necessitated expansion on citizenship policies of admission, acquisition of rights, responsibilities, and interest of migrants or residents contained in statutory provisions or frameworks of migrant's country of residence. This is against the backdrop driven by the desire to create stability in the international migration system. It becomes imperative to examined the benefits and protections accorded to migrant in his place of residence which …

Mass E-Carceration: Electronic Monitoring As A Bail Condition, Sara Zampierin

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past decade, the immigration and criminal legal systems have increasingly relied on electronic monitoring as a bail condition; hundreds of thousands of people live under this monitoring on any given day. Decisionmakers purport to impose these conditions to release more individuals from detention and to maintain control over individuals they perceive to pose some risk of flight or to public safety. But the data do not show that electronic monitoring successfully mitigates these risks or that it leads to fewer individuals in detention. Electronic monitoring also comes with severe restrictions on individual liberty and leads to harmful effects …

Immigration Law's Missing Presumption, Fatma Marouf

Faculty Scholarship

The presumption of innocence is a foundational concept in criminal law but is completely missing from quasi-criminal immigration proceedings. This Article explores the relevance of a presumption of innocence to removal proceedings, arguing that immigration law has been designed and interpreted in ways that disrupt formulating any such presumption to facilitate deportation. The Article examines the meaning of “innocence” in the immigration context, revealing how historically racialized perceptions of guilt eroded the notion of innocence early on and connecting the missing presumption to persistent associations between people of color and guilt. By analyzing how a presumption of innocence is impeded …

Unidentified Deceased Persons: Who Are At-Risk?, Sarah Duncan

All Theses

This study explores the silent mass disaster of unidentified deceased persons that is occurring across the United States and identifies the individual and community level characteristics that make a person “at-risk” of becoming an unidentified deceased person within the United States. This study identifies trends-based hotspots by using data reported on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) and comparing those trends to the gender United States population. It finds that males, and age of death between 20-64 are overrepresented and White persons are underrepresented in the unidentified deceased person sample when compared the general population. Social and human …

The U.S. Government Taking Under Eminent Domain: When Just Compensation Is Unjust (Comment), Michael Perez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The true effects of private takings do not occur in a vacuum and are not solely academic in nature. The consequence of losing property implicates loss of income, loss of value in residual property, and loss of familial land. The importance of protecting the rights of individual land-owners becomes increasingly apparent when analyzing the effect of the taking.

This comment will explore how the government’s taking of private property occurs—including how the government has loosened restrictions and procedural hurdles. The analysis will focus specifically on processes, policies, and statutes, created and used by the federal government to facilitate takings necessary …

No Soy De Aquí, Ni Soy De Allá: U.S. Citizen Children Are Paying The Price For Our Nation's Broken Immigration System (Comment), Daisy J. Ramirez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Current immigration polices continue to force mixed-status family separation and do not provide any attainable avenues for immigration relief. Modern immigration law is complex, filled with statutes and regulations that create waste, delay, and confusion among immigrants, their families, and the United States judicial system. As a result, U.S. citizen children are bearing the costs of a faulty immigration system.

Preventing Trafficking By Protecting Refugees, Rebecca L. Feldmann

Utah Law Review

An inherent tension underlies the duty to prevent trafficking. On the one hand, nation-states are required to take border control measures aimed at preventing trafficking. At the same time, such measures must respect international obligations toward asylum-seekers and other migrants relating to the free movement of people. In the past twenty years, countries such as the United States have developed increasingly sophisticated systems designed to regulate and restrict the movement of people across borders. However, the same period has seen an increasing disregard for the human rights of the very people who are crossing those borders. In order to fully …

The Rise And Fall Of Daca: An Audio Series, Dulce Garcia

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The history of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, commonly known as DACA, is a tumultuous one. In 2012, when President Obama created DACA through an executive order it gave relief to hundreds of thousands of people who were brought to the United States as children without their knowledge, giving them a range of benefits like never before including a work permit, a social security number, protection from deportation, and others. Yet, these last ten years the program has stood on shaky grounds with constant court battles canceling, reinstating or partially rolling the program. This audio series will give a deep …

New Community Sponsorships For Humanitarian Immigrants: Guidance On Washington’S Practice Of Law And Immigration Services Fraud Prevention Rules, Megan J. Ballard, Zaida C. Rivera

Seattle University Law Review Online

Every state, including Washington, has enacted laws to protect the public from the harm caused when an unqualified person provides legal services. Each state defines the practice of law and generally limits that practice to members of the state bar association. In Washington, a complex collage of case law, statutes, and a Supreme Court rule attempt to define the practice of law, identify when the practice of law by a nonlawyer is unauthorized, and determine when public policy considerations allow such nonlawyer practice.

Protecting immigrants from unauthorized practice of immigration law is a particular concern. People who claim to be …

An Unreasonable Presumption: The National Security/Foreign Affairs Nexus In Immigration Law, Anthony J. Demattee, Matthew J. Lindsay, Hallie Ludsin

Brooklyn Law Review

For well over a century, immigration has occupied a constitutionally unique niche within US public law. Noncitizens in immigration proceedings are routinely denied constitutional guarantees, including due process and equal protection, that apply in virtually every other legal setting. Courts justify their extraordinary deference to the government by invoking a presumptive nexus between immigration, on the one hand, and national security and foreign affairs, on the other. Critically, courts cite the national security/foreign affairs nexus regardless of whether the specific regulation or enforcement action under review has any plausible bearing on those interests. This article is the first to demonstrate …

Grabbing The Bull By The Horns: Jurisprudential, Ethical, And Other Lessons For Lawyers And Law Students In The Immigration Labyrinth And Beyond, Mark L. Jones

Articles

No abstract provided.

Human Frailty, Unbreakable Victims And Asylum, Rebecca Sharpless, Kristi E. Wintermeyer

Articles

This article analyzes the asylum decisions of immigration agencies and federal appellate courts and demonstrates that the case law driven standard for persecution is out of step with the original meaning of the term, international law standards, and contemporary understanding of how human beings experience physical and mental harm. Medical and psychological evidence establishes that even trauma at the lower end of the spectrum of severity can inflict lasting and debilitating effects on people's health. Yet over the last three decades, virtually no court decisions have decreased the showing of harm needed to establish persecution. To the contrary, courts have …

Gender-Based Religious Persecution, Pooja R. Dadhania

Faculty Scholarship

People fleeing gender-based violence in the home face an uphill battle when seeking asylum in the United States. Through the lens of public and private spheres, this Article explores the underutilized religion ground for asylum for cases involving gender-based violence in the home—i.e., the private sphere. This Article argues that if an individual imposes a patriarchal practice on an asylum seeker in the private sphere and justifies that practice using religion, the asylum seeker’s resistance to that practice should constitute religious expression.

The religion ground protects individuals who are persecuted because of their religious beliefs and religious expression. It typically …

Imperialist Immigration Reform, Cori Alonso-Yoder

Fordham Law Review

For decades, one of the most challenging domestic policy matters has been immigration reform. Dogged by controversial notions of what makes for a “desirable” immigrant and debates about enforcement and amnesty, elected officials have largely given up on achieving comprehensive, bipartisan immigration solutions. The lack of federal action has led to an outdated and impractical legal framework, with state and local lawmakers unable to step into the breach. Well over 100 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court firmly stated that regulation of the U.S. immigration system is within the sole constitutional authority of the federal government.

Yet there is one …

Existir Y Sobrevivir: El Prejuicio Que Enfrentan Los Inmigrantes Venezolanos En La Quinta Región De Chile., Daisy Alcantar

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This investigation looks at determining the institutional prejudice that Venezuelan immigrants face while being in Chile, specifically in Valparaíso and Viña del Mar. Immigration is not a new concept in Chile but in recent years the great influx of Latin American immigrants, including Venezuelan immigrants, has seen a great backlash from the Chilean government and society. This is largely due to the white and European values that have been integrated into Chilean society. Therefore, driven by colonialist and nationalist views, Venezuelan immigrants are deemed as the “other” and have become criminalized and stigmatized by Chilean society. Ultimately leading the Venezuelan …

Second Chances In Criminal And Immigration Law, Ingrid V. Eagly

Indiana Law Journal

This Essay publishes the remarks given by Professor Ingrid Eagly at the 2022 Fuchs Lecture at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. The Fuchs Lecture was established in honor of Ralph Follen Fuchs in 2001. Professor Fuchs, who served on the Indiana University law faculty from 1946 until his retirement in 1970, was awarded the title of university professor in recognition of his scholarship, teaching, and public service. In her Fuchs lecture, Professor Eagly explores the growing bipartisan consensus behind “second chance” reforms in the state and federal criminal legal systems. These incremental reforms acknowledge racial bias, correct for past …

Common Good, Shared Justice: Congolese Student Connects With Criminal Justice Major And St. Mary's University., Michelle Mondo

Black History at St. Mary's University - 2025 Collection

Christine Nduhura credits her past as being an important reason to her working in immigration services as she herself comes from an immigrant background. Nduhura, a junior in Criminal Justice at St. Mary’s University, wanted to learn more about “improving the system” in America legal processes. The criminal justice program at St. Mary’s University provides students such as Nduhura with opportunities to different classes that would allow her to work in a variety of fields as flexibility is important in career building. Criminal Justice Professor Milo Colton finds Nduhura to be a model of the Marianist mission for serving the …

Judicial Antifederalism, Anthony M. Ciolli

Fordham Law Review

The United States has a colonies problem. The more than 3.5 million Americans who live in the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands lack some of the most fundamental rights and protections, such as the right to vote. This is due to a series of decisions decided more than a century ago, collectively known as the Insular Cases, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that the “half-civilized,” “savage,” “ignorant and lawless” “alien races” that inhabited America’s overseas territories were not entitled to the same constitutional rights and …

How Private Enforcement Exacerbates Climate Change, Anna A. Mance

Cardozo Law Review

Private enforcement-the practice of allowing private actors to directly enforce statutes or regulations-has been a fixture of environmental law for the last fifty years. In the absence of comprehensive climate legislation, climate change has been brought under the fold of the environmental regime and its emphasis on private enforcement. Yet climate change presents a distinct global challenge from those harms that the 1970s environmental regime was designed to address. This Article investigates how private enforcement is limiting our ability to respond to the crisis of climate change. The central claim is that private enforcers are using the mantle of environmental …

The New Border Asylum Adjudication System: Speed, Fairness, And The Representation Problem, Philip G. Schrag, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Andrew I. Schoenholtz

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 2022, the Biden administration implemented what the New York Times has described as potentially “the most sweeping change to the asylum process in a quarter-century.” This new adjudication system creates unrealistically short deadlines for asylum seekers who arrive over the southern border, the vast majority of whom are people of color. Rather than providing a fair opportunity for those seeking safety to explain and corroborate their persecution claims, the new system imposes unreasonably speedy time frames to enable swift adjudications. Asylum seekers must obtain representation very quickly even though the government does not fund counsel and few lawyers offer …