Immigration Law Commons^™

Parole In Place As A Solution For The Immigration Status Of Immediate Relatives Of U.S. Citizens, Maximiliano Gluzman

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the structural barriers that prevent many undocumented immigrants—particularly immediate relatives of U.S. citizens—from adjusting their immigration status under current U.S. immigration law. It focuses on the interaction between the Immigration and Nationality Act’s adjustment-of-status requirement that applicants be “inspected and admitted or paroled” and the unlawful presence provisions enacted by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Together, these rules create a dilemma for many noncitizens who entered the United States without inspection but later become eligible for lawful permanent residence through family petitions: leaving the United States to pursue consular processing triggers the three- or …

The Rise Of The 'Immigrant-As-Injury' Theory Of State Standing, Jennifer Lee Koh

American University Law Review

Despite the Biden Administration’s efforts to hold itself out as a humane alternative to the excesses of immigration enforcement during the Trump presidency, federal courts have prevented a number of immigration policy changes from going forward during the first half of the Biden era. States serve as the primary plaintiffs in these lawsuits, which have impacted cornerstone immigration policies such as the termination of exclusionary border policies, the restoration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and the application of enforcement priorities. During the 2022-23 term, the Supreme Court will hear certain states’ challenge to immigration enforcement priorities in United …

The Racial Justice Imperative To Reimagine Immigrant Children's Rights: Special Immigrant Juveniles As A Case Study, Dalia Castillo-Granados, Rachel Leya Davidson, Laila L. Hlass, Rebecca Scholtz

American University Law Review

The immigration legal system has codified and perpetuated racial violence in many ways, yet the experiences of young people of color in this system have yet to be deeply examined. This Article surfaces the distinct and varied racialized harms that children experience in the immigration system through the example of Special Immigrant Juveniles. Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) is the only immigration status created for and limited to children. A child—defined in immigration law as someone who is under twenty-one years of age and unmarried—is eligible to seek SIJS with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) if a state court …

"You Should Have Known:" The Need For Evidentiary Notice Requirements In Immigration Court, Marisa Moore Apel

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Trafficking And The Shallow State, Julie A. Dahlstrom

Faculty Scholarship

More than two decades ago, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) established new, robust protections for immigrant victims of trafficking. In particular, Congress created the T visa, a special form of immigration status, to protect immigrant victims from deportation. Despite lofty ambitions, the annual cap of 5,000 T visas has never been reached, with fewer than 1,200 approved each year. In recent years, denial rates also have climbed. For example, in fiscal year 2020, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied 42.79% of the T visa applications that the agency adjudicated, compared with just 28.12% in fiscal year 2015. These developments …

Judicial Deference Of The Board Of Immigration Appeals’ Regulatory Interpretations In Light Of Kisor V. Wilkie, Melissa Fullmer

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

What An Ethics Of Discourse And Recognition Can Contribute To A Critical Theory Of Refugee Claim Adjudication, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Thanks to Axel Honneth, recognition theory has become a prominent fixture of critical social theory. In recent years, he has deployed his recognition theory in diagnosing pathologies and injustices that afflict institutional practices. Some of these institutional practices revolve around specifically juridical institutions, such as human rights and democratic citizenship, that directly impact the lives of the most desperate migrants. Hence it is worthwhile asking what recognition theory can add to a critical theory of migration. In this paper, I argue that, although its contribution to a critical theory of migration is limited, it nonetheless carves out a unique body …

An Inferentially Robust Look At Two Competing Explanations For The Surge In Unauthorized Migration From Central America, Nick Santos

Dissertations

The last 8 years have seen a dramatic increase in the flow of Central American apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol. Explanations for this surge in apprehensions have been split between two leading hypotheses. Most academic scholars, immigrant advocates, progressive media outlets, and human rights organizations identify poverty and violence (the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis) in Central America as the primary triggers responsible. In contrast, while most government officials, conservative think tanks, and the agencies that work in the immigration and border enforcement realm admit poverty and violence may underlie some decisions to migrate, they instead blame lax U.S. immigration …

In Fear Of Black Revolutionary Contagion And Insurrection: Foucault, Galtung, And The Genesis Of Racialized Structural Violence In American Foreign Policy And Immigration Law, Ciji Dodds

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This article investigates the power relation between the political anatomy of the Black soul and non-somatic expressions of white supremacy-based violence. Utilizing Michel Foucault’s theories of discipline and punishment in conjunction with Johan Galtung’s theory of structural violence, I posit that the exercise of state-sanctioned discipline and punishment in furtherance of white supremacy constitutes racialized structural violence. Thus, this article contributes to the current public discourse concerning the role white supremacy plays in America by establishing a new construct that can be used to dissect the nature of racial oppression.

Furthermore, this article analyzes the genesis and construction of racialized …

Matter Of Negusie And The Failure Of Asylum Law To Recognize Child Soldiers, Ruth Campbell

Lewis & Clark Law Review

In Matter of Negusie, Attorney General William Barr struck yet another blow to asylum seekers by rejecting any exception for duress or coercion in applying the “persecutor bar” to immigration relief. Commentators have previously observed that the victims of the “strict-liability persecutor bar” to asylum will often be child soldiers, usually discussed in the context of children fleeing conflicts in parts of Africa and the Middle East. This Comment aims to recontextualize concern about the availability of asylum for child soldiers as part of an ongoing crisis of children fleeing recruitment by powerful gangs and cartels in Mexico, Honduras, El …

Principals And Principles In Immigration Law, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Adam Cox and Cristina Rodríguez have written a brilliant book — one of big arguments, grand scale, and historical sweep, yet also institutional detail, political acuity, and legal nuance; a book that has as much to teach us about Biden’s nascent administration as about the tenure of his immediate and more distant predecessors. As I add my voice to the chorus of praise, I want to suggest two extensions of the project.

The Growth Of Vancouver As An Innovation Hub: Challenges And Opportunities, Camden Hutchison, Li-Wen Lin

All Faculty Publications

This article assesses the development of Vancouver as an entrepreneurial region. Using data collected from commercial startup databases, we find that Vancouver produces more startups and receives more venture capital financing per capita than any other major Canadian city. However, we also find that Vancouver lags many U.S. cities on these same metrics. In light of our empirical findings, we explore whether differences in entrepreneurial activity between Canada and the United States are due to differences in the countries’ legal environments. We conclude that legal differences do not explain observed economic disparities, and that differences in entrepreneurial activity are due …

Noncitizen Voting: A Case Study Of Oregon, Monet Gonnerman, Ryan Willett

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Using the State of Oregon as a case study, this Article proposes that states and municipalities may and should extend the right to vote to noncitizens. The Article’s analysis, rooted in national history and the U.S. Constitution, is applicable to other states across the country. The Article situates the practice of noncitizen voting within the larger historical context of both the United States and Oregon. It also provides the legal framework that demonstrates state and municipal power to set voter qualifications for their respective elections. Finally, the Article suggests reasons why states should allow for noncitizen voting.

Professor Stacy Kern-Scheerer: Reflections On The Fall 2020 Semester, Stacy Kern-Scheerer

Law School Personal Reflections on COVID-19

No abstract provided.

Thirteenth Amendment Litigation In The Immigration Detention Context, Jennifer Safstrom

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article analyzes how the Thirteenth Amendment has been used to prevent forced labor practices in immigration detention. The Article assesses the effectiveness of Thirteenth Amendment litigation by dissecting cases where detainees have challenged the legality of labor requirements under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Given the expansion in immigration detention, the increasing privatization of detention, and the significant human rights implications of this issue, the arguments advanced in this Article are not only currently relevant but have the potential to shape ongoing dialogue on this subject.

Technological Triage Of Immigration Cases, Fatma Marouf, Luz E. Herrera

Faculty Scholarship

In the medical profession, triage refers to sorting medical resources in emergency situations based on the greatest need for immediate attention. Similarly, legal service providers talk about “triaging” cases to prioritize individuals with the most serious problems. But in the immigration field, the concept of triage is turned on its head. Noncitizens with the riskiest cases—those facing deportation—have the least access to legal assistance, especially if they are detained. Technology has the potential to help with triage but is not yet being used effectively to assist with deportation defense. This Article argues that utilizing technology to facilitate access to representation …

Publicly Charged: A Critical Examination Of Immigrant Public Benefit Restrictions, Cori Alonso-Yoder

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Since the early days of the Trump Administration, reports of the President’s controversial and dramatic immigration policies have dominated the news. Yet, despite the intensity of this coverage, an immigration policy with far broader implications for millions of immigrants and their U.S.- citizen family members has dodged the same media glare. By expanding the definition of who constitutes a “public charge” under immigration law, the Administration has begun a process to restrict legal immigration and chill the use of welfare benefits around the country. The doctrine of public charge exclusion developed from colonial times and has reemerged in Trump Administration …

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 …

Building A Lifeline: A Proposed Global Platform And Responsibility Sharing Model For The Global Compact On Refugees, Sarnata Reynolds, Juan Pablo Vacatello

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

In 2016, the leaders of 193 governments committed to more equitable and predictable sharing of responsibility for refugees as part of the New York Declaration, to be realized in the Global Compact on Refugees. To encourage debate, this paper presents the first global model to measure the capacity of governments to physically protect and financially support refugees and host communities. The model is based on a new database of indicators covering 193 countries, which assigns a fair share to each country and measures current government contributions to the protection of refugees. The model also proposes a new government-led global platform …

Dignity Takings In Leviathanic Immigration Proceedings, Christopher Mendez

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

Current immigration law in the United States is rife with racially motivated biases necessitating immediate correction. Among the many problems with current law, constitutional rights are withheld from a large populace. This article reflects upon the history of immigration law in the United States, noting key decisions which have formed the status quo. This article also proposes remedies such as the cessation of infringement by government agents on the property rights that affected immigrants have on their own bodies and a modern-day amnesty reflective of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. This article also introduces Bernadette Atuahene’s concept …

The Taxation Without Representation Of Undocumented Immigrants: Counting Unlawfully Earned Tax Dollars While Intentionally Ignoring Unlawful Presence, María Fernanda Alfaro

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

Federal law mandates that wage earning undocumented immigrants pay taxes. Like all U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, undocumented immigrants are not exempt from tax obligations solely because of their immigration status in the country. It seems like federal immigration laws are punishing undocumented immigrants for their unlawful presence in the United States, while federal tax laws praise and encourage their continued tax reporting. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Department of Commerce v. New York effectively ended the attempt to get a citizenship question on the 2020 Census, but it by no means closed the door on future attempts. Even …

Matter Of A-B-, Lgbtq Asylum Claims, And The Rule Of Law In The U.S. Asylum System, Nora Snyder

Northwestern University Law Review

On June 11, 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions released his decision in a case called Matter of A‑B‑, purporting to eliminate domestic violence and gang violence as grounds for asylum. The decision also cast doubt on the continued viability of asylum claims predicated on non-state actor violence, which alarmed LGBTQ advocates, whose asylum claims often involve non-state actor persecutors. In making this change, Sessions used a previously rarely used feature of the asylum system, the Attorney General’s self-certification power. This Note analyzes the potential impact of Matter of A‑B‑ on LGBTQ asylum seekers. Based on the text of the …

Children Of A Lesser God: Reconceptualizing Race In Immigration Law, Sarah L. Hamilton-Jiang

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The increased public exposure to the experiences of Latinx unaccompanied children seeking entry at the United States southern border has revealed the lived reality of the nation’s pernicious immigration laws. The harrowing experiences of unaccompanied children are amplified by their interaction with a legal system plagued by a legacy of systemic racism and sustained racial caste. While immigration law currently affords minimal legal protections for these children, in application, the law continues to fall egregiously short of providing for the safety of unaccompanied children. Though critics have long attested to the legal system’s neglect of unaccompanied children, subsequent legal analysis …

The Myth Of Enforcing Border Security Versus The Reality Of Enforcing Dominant Masculinities, Jamie Abrams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay explores the masculinities underpinnings in modern immigration law, policy, and rhetoric. Existing analysis has captured the ways in which Trump-era immigration laws, policies, and rhetoric are explicitly and implicitly packaged in alarming racism and xenophobia. These critical lenses continue a long and deeply worrisome legacy of “othering” and dehumanizing immigrants and, more broadly, marginalizing communities of color in the United States.

Outside of the immigration law lens, separate strands of scholarship and media coverage have highlighted the toxic masculinities of the Trump era. These discussions have generally focused on President Trump’s treatment of women, the gendered campaign dynamics …

Pereira's Aftershocks, Lonny Hoffman

William & Mary Law Review

At the end of the 2017 term, the Supreme Court decided not to stop time. Nonpermanent residents who have been placed in removal proceedings may apply for a discretionary form of relief from the Attorney General known as “cancellation of removal.” To be eligible, an applicant must show (in addition to meeting other requirements) that she has been in the United States for at least ten consecutive years. The period of continuous physical presence is interrupted when the government serves the noncitizen with a notice to appear at a removal hearing. However, in Pereira v. Sessions, the Court held that …

'Race, Racism, And American Law': A Seminar From The Indigenous, Black, And Immigrant Legal Perspectives, Eduardo R.C. Capulong, Andrew King-Ries, Monte Mills

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

Flagrant racism has characterized the Trump era from the onset. Beginning with the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has inflamed long-festering racial wounds and unleashed White supremacist reaction to the nation’s first Black President, in the process destabilizing our sense of the nation’s racial progress and upending core principles of legality, equality, and justice. As law professors, we sought to rise to these challenges and prepare the next generation of lawyers to succeed in a different and more polarized future. Our shared commitment resulted in a new course, “Race, Racism, and American Law,” in which we sought to explore the roots …

Unsung Heroes In Sa And Beyond Help Immigrants Find Hope, Erica B. Schommer

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Self-Deportation Nation, K-Sue Park

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

“Self-deportation” is a concept to explain the removal strategy of making life so unbearable for a group that its members will leave a place. The term is strongly associated with recent state and municipal attempts to “attack every aspect of an illegal alien’s life,” including the ability to find employment and housing, drive a vehicle, make contracts, and attend school. However, self-deportation has a longer history, one that predates and made possible the establishment of the United States. As this Article shows, American colonists pursued this indirect approach to remove native peoples as a prerequisite for establishing and growing their …

Welcome To Trump's Ice Age: Violations Of Undocumented Immigrants' Fourth Amendment Rights During Workplace Raids, Gianni Piantini

St. Thomas Law Review

This Comment addresses the implications of ICE agents violating Fourth Amendment rights of undocumented immigrants who have been unreasonably seized during workplace raids. Part II discusses how the Fourth Amendment protections extend to the workplace, as well as the influence of ICE on immigration law and how the Fourth Amendment applies in the immigration context. Part IH addresses how Trump's antiimmigrant oratory has encouraged ICE to conduct workplace raids, which result in egregious violations of the Fourth Amendment. Part III further addresses the effect of the holding in Delgado on workplace raids and how ICE has conducted the raids in …

Why The Legal Strategy Of Exploiting Immigrant Families Should Worry Us All, Jamie Abrams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article applies a family law lens to explore the systemic and traumatic effects of modern laws and policies on immigrant families. A family law lens widens the scope of individuals harmed by recent immigration laws and policies to show why all families are affected and harmed by shifts in state power, state action, and state rhetoric. The family law lens reveals a worrisome shift in intentionality that has moved the state from a bystander to family-based immigration trauma to an incendiary agent perpetrating family trauma.

Modern immigration laws and policies are deploying legal and political strategies that intentionally sever …