Immigration Law Commons^™

Brief Of The American Immigration Lawyers Association And Immigration Law Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents, Lindsay Nash

Amicus Briefs

Amicus curiae brief submitted by the American Immigration Lawyers Association and immigration law scholars in support of the respondents in Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot before the Supreme Court of the United States. The brief argues that the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) statute strictly limits the Executive Branch's authority to terminate TPS designations and requires continuation of protection unless the statutory conditions justifying designation no longer exist. The amici further contend that TPS serves a critical humanitarian function by protecting individuals from removal, detention, and loss of work authorization while conditions in designated countries remain unsafe.

Migration In Context And Law: Global Displacement And The U.S. Immigration System, Saya Khandar, Dominic Brunaccioni, Samantha Johnson, Nisa Manzar, Lindsey Nye, Alexis Stephens, Sherise Tracey

Human Rights Brief

On February 20, 2026, the Human Rights Brief at American University Washington College of Law (WCL) held its annual symposium, titled “Migration in Context and Law: Global Displacement and the U.S. Immigration System.” This symposium was curated in response to intensified immigration operations across the United States (U.S.), which have resulted in significant harm to individuals and families nationwide. The discussion centered on the humanity of immigration and explored how global displacement, armed conflict, economic instability, and climate change continue to shape migration. Organizers brought together legal scholars, practitioners, and advocates to examine current immigration policies in the context of …

An Unclear Connection: The Asylum System's "One Central Reason" Test, Christopher R. Porter

William & Mary Law Review Online

Part I of this Note will provide relevant background information on the asylum system in the United States and the significant changes made in the REAL ID Act.

Part II will analyze the current requirements that asylum applicants must meet to succeed in their asylum petitions, including a brief explanation of each element and the legislative history of the REAL ID Act. Part II will assert that based on the legislative history, the “one central reason” standard is best understood as only slightly elevating an applicant’s burden of proof to further protect against threats to the U.S. without becoming overly …

Getting There From Here: Reflecting On Compassionate Migration Policy, Steven W. Bender

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Having written about Latinx issues for more than three decades, with a focus on immigration policy for at least the last two decades, I see no middle ground in this time of Trump. Those who relish hurt and hate, and those scholars who wrote the kindling for that bonfire, must be basking in the glow of their handiwork. Those of us who I claim are on the right side of history must search through the ashes for hope—the where, when, and how to nurture humanity on scorched ground. Counting myself among those searching for hope, I acknowledge the indulgence offered …

Countering The Criminalization Of Solidarity: An Analysis Of Legal Frameworks Proposed To Protect Humanitarian Aid For Migrants And Asylum Seekers, Katherine E. Smart

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Thousands of migrant fatalities are reported each year all across the globe, and as staggering as current numbers are, they are likely an undercount. These deaths are a direct result of government policies that funnel migrants into dangerous routes through deserts and seas to deter immigration. Further, when individuals and groups step forward to provide immediate aid to migrants—such as food, water, shelter, first aid, and search and rescue (SAR)—they are often targeted by intimidation, harassment, discipline, and even criminal prosecution. Thus emerges a question: what legal framework can protect the rights of humanitarian aid workers acting in solidarity with …

Narrative Drip And Other Metaphors For Data-Resistant Immigration Enforcement, Matthew Boaz

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Caught In Citizenship Limbo: Lessons From The 2025 International Student Visa Crisis In The U.S, Jinke He

Critical Internationalization Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Tienen Alas, Pero No Las Pueden Usar: Stories Of Immigrants In Search Of Work Credentials, Jonathan Vega-Martinez, Maria M. Pache De Athayde, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Phillip Granberry

Gastón Institute Publications

This report presents the results of a qualitative research study, funded by the Latino Equity Fund of the Boston Foundation, aimed at understanding the challenges that highly skilled immigrants1 face when reentering their careers in Massachusetts.

Discretion, Deference, And Dysfunction: U.S. Refugee Resettlement From Egypt, Cassandra Mcclellan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates refugee resettlement from Egypt to the U.S., as facilitated by UNHCR Egypt and the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). Accordingly, the research questions ask what factors determine the volume and profile of refugees UNHCR Egypt submits to USRAP for resettlement, as well as the related determining factors for refugees rejected from and accepted to USRAP. A fourth research question examines the impacts of U.S. refugee policy on the resettlement system in Egypt, including on UNHCR Egypt and refugees. To answer these questions, the thesis first delves into the history of U.S. immigration and refugee policies, with a …

In Through The Side Door: Anti-Asian Nativism, U.S. Immigration, And Foreign Policy—A Legal History And Case Study, Deenesh Sohoni, Vivian E. Hamilton, Chinua Thelwell

Faculty Publications

The 19th- and early 20th-centuries were marked by pervasive anti-Asian sentiment, and antipathy towards people of color more generally. Giving legal effect to the anti-Asian nativism prevalent at the time, U.S. policies prohibited most Asian immigration and naturalization. In particular, immigration laws sought to exclude Asian laborers and working-class immigrants from entry. During the same period, however, the federal government determined that other Asian visitors—especially Chinese government officials, merchants, religious leaders, and students—could be useful in advancing U.S. political and economic interests abroad. Thus, in marked contrast to its inhospitable treatment of their working-class counterparts, U.S. policy facilitated the entry …

Explaining The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Stalemate In Congress, Maryam T. Stevenson

Catholic University Law Review

Historically, congressional policy goals on immigration have vacillated from open to restrictive as various micro and macro level factors have changed both inside and outside the Beltway. While Congress has been subjected to some immigration lobbies over time, it has largely been isolated from a general public opinion on immigration policy until fairly recently. Specifically, while Congress was successful at passing a variety of immigration policies through 1990 without much regard to public opinion, it has since failed even amid bipartisan congressional and presidential support. This article will offer a number of theories in order to explain why Congress has …

Hurricane Katrina: When A Crisis Is An Opportunity In Government Innovation For Migration Solutions, Camilo Mantilla

Refugee Law & Migration Studies Brief

No abstract provided.

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.

Interagency Dynamics In Matters Of Health And Immigration, Medha D. Makhlouf

Faculty Scholarly Works

When Congress delegates authority to an executive agency, it tells us something important about the expertise that Congress wishes to harness in policymaking on an issue. In the legal literature on interagency dynamics and cooperation, issues at the nexus of health and immigration are largely understudied. This Article extends this literature by examining how delegations of authority on issues at the intersection of health and immigration influence policymaking. In an analysis of how administrative law models apply to three topics in the shared regulatory space of the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) and the Department of Homeland Security …

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

Faculty Publications

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 …

Collateral Damage: How Expanding Public Charge Policy Influences Adult Esl Enrollment, Allison M. Eckert

Master's Theses

This study used statistical analysis of enrollment records for ESL programs at community colleges throughout California from 2015-2019 to determine whether adult immigrants’ participation in public ESL programs was reduced under President Donald Trump. Immigrant families’ lesser use of public education services and means-tested federal benefits has been widely documented in the wake of Trump’s expansion of the public charge rule, which counted immigrants’ use of a wider array of public benefits against their case for residency in the United States than had any previous iteration of the rule. Failing the public charge test can block an immigrant’s entry into …

Impact Of Forensic Medical Evaluations On Immigration Relief Grant Rates And Correlates Of Outcomes In The United States., Holly G. Atkinson, Katarzyna Wyka, Kathryn Hampton, Christian Seno, Elizabeth Yim, Deborah Ottenheimer, Nermeen Arastu

Publications and Research

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of forensic medical evaluations on grant rates for applicants seeking immigration relief in the United States (U.S.) and to identify significant correlates of grant success. We conducted a retrospective analysis of 2584 cases initiated by Physicians for Human Rights between 2008-2018 that included forensic medical evaluations, and found that 81.6% of applicants for various forms of immigration relief were granted relief, as compared to the national asylum grant rate of 42.4%. Among the study’s cohort, the majority (73.7%) of positive outcomes were grants of asylum. A multivariable regression analysis revealed …

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 …

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.

Essential Immigration Policy Reform: Reinventing The National Interest Waiver, Kevin Burns

Akron Law Review

Reasoned immigration policy has the power to positively influence the economy by supporting innovation, creating jobs, and advancing research and development; one such device to accomplish such economic goals is utilizing the National Interest Waiver (NIW). Under section 203(b)(2)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), congress provided a path to a green card for non-citizens with advanced degrees or exceptional ability without employer sponsorship if their admission is in the national interest: This is known as the "National Interest Waiver." This paper aims to discover the best ways to clarify the NIWs standards in its adjudication and to explore …

Major Federal Court Victory For Religious Liberty Rights Of Immigrants' Rights Activists, Law, Rights, And Religion Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

On Monday afternoon, February 3, 2020, U.S. District Court judge Rosemary Márquez issued a sweeping opinion in which she granted the religious liberty defenses raised by four activists working with the Southern Arizona group No More Deaths/No Más Muertes. The opinion reversed an earlier ruling in the case by Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco in which he had found the activists guilty of violating federal law for leaving water and food in the desert for migrants in the Cabrieza Prieta National Wildlife Area, a federally controlled refuge in the Southern Arizona desert where human remains of migrants are frequently found. The …

Digital Internment, Margaret Hu

Faculty Publications

In Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and the Second Monster, Eric L. Muller explores whether Korematsu v. United States is dead post-Trump v. Hawaii, and whether by failing to strike down Hirabayashi v. United States, the “mother” of Korematsu and a “second monster” lives on. This brief response Essay contends that answering these questions first demands grasping how Trump v. Hawaiifailed to fully address the program implemented by the Muslim Ban–Travel Ban: Extreme Vetting. Extreme Vetting can be characterized as a form of “digital internment” through a complex web of cybersurveillance, administrative-imposed restraints, and “identity-management” rationales that are …

U.S. Immigration Policy: A Barrier To Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Innovation, And Startup Growth?, Courtney Kaiser

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Health Justice For Immigrants, Medha D. Makhlouf

Faculty Scholarly Works

Should universal health coverage include immigrants within the “universe?” Should federal taxpayers subsidize health insurance coverage for immigrants, even those who are undocumented? Should all immigrants be required to purchase health insurance? Although the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is conceived as a progressive project to expand access to coverage and promote equity in health care, it intentionally left out the 12.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States and preserved the existing restrictions on subsidized coverage for lawfully present non-citizens. In fact, it increased the disparity in access to health care between U.S. citizens and immigrants. As a result, …

Searching For Humanitarian Discretion In Immigration Enforcement: Reflections On A Year As An Immigration Attorney In The Trump Era, Nina Rabin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article describes one of the most striking features of the Trump Administration’s immigration policy: the shift in the way discretion operates in the legal immigration system. Unlike other high-profile immigration policies that have been the focus of class action lawsuits and public outcry, the changes to the role of discretion have attracted little attention, in part because they are implemented through low-visibility individualized decisions that are difficult to identify, let alone challenge systemically. After providing historical context regarding the role of discretion in the immigration system before the Trump Administration, I offer four case studies from my immigration practice …

Immigration And Blackness, Karla M. Mckanders

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

There is a long history of the intersection of immigration, race, and civil rights in America. Immigration laws have operated in a manner to maintain homogeneity to the exclusion of immigrants of color. Immigration laws throughout America’s history have traditionally utilized fear and exclusion to define what America should look like and have privileged some immigrant’s over others.

Leaving The Devil You Know: Crime Victimization, Us Deterrence Policy, And The Emigration Decision In Central America, Jonathan T. Hiskey, Abby Córdova, Mary Fran Malone, Diana M. Orcés

Political Science Faculty Publications

Following a sharp increase in the number of border arrivals from the violence-torn countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in the spring and summer of 2014, the United States quickly implemented a strategy designed to prevent such surges by enhancing its detention and deportation efforts. In this article, we examine the emigration decision for citizens living in the high-crime contexts of northern Central America. First, through analysis of survey data across Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, we explore the role crime victimization plays in leading residents of these countries to consider emigration. Next, using survey data collected across twelve …

Death By Fifty Cuts: Exporting Lunn V. Commonwealth To Maine And The Prospects For Waging A Frontal Assault On The Ice Detainer System In State Courts, Sean Turley

Maine Law Review

As long as the future of federal immigration policy remains unsettled and the use of ICE detainers to capture and deport suspected noncitizens remains widespread, practitioners should focus their attention on waging a frontal assault against the legality of ICE detainers on state law grounds by arguing that they constitute warrantless arrests that are prohibited by state statute. The recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Lunn v. Commonwealth provides a model for how to wage such an attack—not only in states with similar common law and statutory frameworks that are unlikely to resolve the issue legislatively, like Maine, but …

Undocumented Citizens Of The United States: The Repercussions Of Denying Birth Certificates, Anna L. Lichtenberger

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Algorithmic Jim Crow, Margaret Hu

Faculty Publications

This Article contends that current immigration- and security-related vetting protocols risk promulgating an algorithmically driven form of Jim Crow. Under the “separate but equal” discrimination of a historic Jim Crow regime, state laws required mandatory separation and discrimination on the front end, while purportedly establishing equality on the back end. In contrast, an Algorithmic Jim Crow regime allows for “equal but separate” discrimination. Under Algorithmic Jim Crow, equal vetting and database screening of all citizens and noncitizens will make it appear that fairness and equality principles are preserved on the front end. Algorithmic Jim Crow, however, will enable discrimination on …