Law and Race Commons^™

Distant Voices Then And Now: The Impact Of Isolation On The Courtroom Narratives Of Slave Ship Captives And Asylum Seekers, Tara Patel

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I compares the nineteenth century cases of the Antelope and the Amistad to identify why they resulted in different outcomes despite having similar fact patterns. The Antelope concerned the fate of approximately 280 African captives discovered on a slave trade ship upon its interception by a U.S. revenue cutter. Since the slave trade in the United States was illegal at the time, the captives were transported to Savannah for trial through which their status—free or slave—would be determined. After a lengthy trial and appeals process in which Spain and Portugal laid claim to the captives, the Supreme Court determined …

Sky Is The Limit: Protecting Unaccompanied Minors By Not Subjecting Them To Numerical Limitations, Deborah S. Gonzalez Esq.

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

The School To Deportation Pipeline, Laila L. Hlass

Georgia State University Law Review

The United States immigration regime has a long and sordid history of explicit racism, including limiting citizenship to free whites, excluding Chinese immigrants, deporting massive numbers of Mexican immigrants and U.S. citizens of Mexican ancestry, and implementing a national quotas system preferencing Western Europeans. More subtle bias has seeped into the system through the convergence of the criminal and immigration law regimes.

Immigration enforcement has seen a rise in mass immigrant detention and deportation, bolstered by provocative language casting immigrants as undeserving undesirables: criminals, gang members, and terrorists. Immigrant children, particularly black and Latino boys, are increasingly finding themselves in …

Entering The Trump Ice Age: Contextualizing The New Immigration Enforcement Regime, Bill Ong Hing

Texas A&M Law Review

During the early stages of the Trump ICE age, America seemed to be witnessing and experiencing an unparalleled era of immigration enforcement. But is it unparalleled? Did we not label Barack Obama the “deporter-inchief?” Was it not George W. Bush who used the authority of the Patriot Act to round up nonimmigrants from Muslim and Arab countries, and did his ICE not commonly engage in armed raids at factories and other worksites? Are there not strong parallels that can be drawn between Trump enforcement plans and actions and those of other eras? What about the fear and hysteria that seems …

Involuntary Sterilization Among Hiv-Positive Garifuna Women From Honduras Seeking Asylum In The United States: Two Case Reports, Holly G. Atkinson, Deborah Ottenheimer

Publications and Research

Voluntary sterilization is one of the most widely used forms of contraception by women worldwide; however, involuntary sterilization is considered a violation of multiple human rights and grounds for asylum in the United States. Women have been disproportionately affected by this practice. We report two cases of involuntary sterilization in HIV-positive Garifuna women from Honduras who sought asylum in America and were medically evaluated at the request of their attorneys. Key lessons can be drawn from these cases with regard to the importance of medical evaluations in establishing persecution. These include the need for a detailed account of the events …

Federalism And The State Police Power: Why Immigration And Customs Enforcement Must Stay Away From State Courthouses, George Bach

Faculty Scholarship

The Trump Administration’s rhetoric and increased immigration enforcement actions have raised the level of fear in immigrant communities. The increased enforcement has included having United States Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents appear at state and local courthouses to detain undocumented immigrants when they arrive for court. This presence has had an adverse effect on domestic violence victims who are immigrants, as they fear encountering immigrations officials at the courthouse. In El Paso, for example, agents detained a woman who was bringing a case of domestic violence against her abuser. There were claims that ICE was tipped off about the …

From Guantánamo To Syria: The Extraterritorial Constitution In The Age Of "Extreme Vetting", Shawn E. Fields

Cardozo Law Review

This Article examines for the first time in scholarly literature whether and to what extent the Constitution applies extraterritorially to immigrants abroad. In particular, it explores whether non-detained immigrants and refugees outside the territorial boundaries of the United States can claim constitutional protection to challenge immigration policies and orders. The Supreme Court's recent willingness to reconsider the limits of the political branches' "plenary power" over immigration law and policy, coupled with the Court's recent extension of the Constitution to certain classes of extraterritorial noncitizens, suggests that a future role may exist for extraterritorial jurisprudence to inform constitutional immigration law. Using …

Champions For Justice 2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Social Science Expertise In Immigration Policymaking, Ming H. Chen

Publications

The longstanding uncertainty about how policymakers should grapple with social science demonstrating racism persists in the modern administrative state. This Essay examines the uses and misuses of social science and expertise in immigration policymaking. More specifically, it highlights three immigration policies that dismiss social scientific findings and expertise as part of presidential and agency decision-making: border control, crime control, and extreme vetting of refugees to prevent terrorism. The Essay claims that these rejections of expertise undermine both substantive and procedural protections for immigrants and undermine important functions of the administrative state as a curb on irrationality in policymaking. It concludes …

Separate But (Un)Equal: Why Institutionalized Anti-Racism Is The Answer To The Never-Ending Cycle Of Plessy V. Ferguson, Maureen Johnson

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Biased Damages Awards: Gender And Race Discrimination In Tort Trials, Goran Dominioni

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

Current U.S. tort law incentivizes potential tortfeasors to target members of underprivileged social groups by using gender and race-based statistical tables life expectancy; work-life expectancy and average wage) to award damages. Legal scholars have long criticized this practice from the point of view of distributive justice but supported it on welfarist grounds. Recent research in law and economics has however cast doubts on the efficiency of this practice. On this basis, some propose abandoning it in favor of gender and race neutral tables. In this article, I contribute to this debate by analyzing from a behavioral law and economics perspective …

The Violence Against Women Act, Implicit Bias, And Judicial Training, Lorena Espino-Piepp

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) must be amended to include implicit bias training for Family Court judges and staff to address the systemic barriers faced by undocumented Latina immigrant women in accessing justice. These women often face compounded discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and immigration status, which undermines their ability to obtain immigration relief through VAWA protections. The author contends that without such training, the judicial system perpetuates inequities, as judges and court personnel rely on stereotypes that disproportionately harm women of color.

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

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Finality Of A Conviction: A Noncitizen's Right To Procedural Due Process, Daniela Mondragon

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

“I Am Undocumented And A New Yorker”: Affirmative City Citizenship And New York City’S Idnyc Program, Amy C. Torres

Fordham Law Review

The power to confer legal citizenship status is possessed solely by the federal government. Yet the courts and legal theorists have demonstrated that citizenship encompasses factors beyond legal status, including rights, inclusion, and political participation. As a result, even legal citizens can face barriers to citizenship, broadly understood, due to factors including their race, class, gender, or disability. Given this multidimensionality, the city, as the place where residents carry out the tasks of their daily lives, is a critical space for promoting elements of citizenship. This Note argues that recent city municipal identification-card programs have created a new form of …

Proving Identity, Jonathan Weinberg

Pepperdine Law Review

United States law, over the past two hundred years or so, has subjected people whose race rendered them noncitizens or of dubious citizenship to a variety of rules requiring that they carry identification documents at all times. Those laws fill a gap in the policing authority of the state, by connecting the individual’s physical body with information the government has on file about him; they also can entail humiliation and subordination. Accordingly, it is not surprising that U.S. law has almost always imposed these requirements on people outside our circle of citizenship: African Americans in the antebellum South, Chinese immigrants, …

Veterans Banished: The Fight To Bring Them Home, Alejandra Martinez

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

Abstract forthcoming.

Judge Posner's Road Map For Convention Against Torture Claims When Central American Governments Cannot Protect Citizens Against Gang Violence, Steven H. Schulman

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

Abstract forthcoming.

The Unconstitutional Application Of Apprehension And Detention Laws: Section 236(C) Of The Immigration And Nationality Act, Rigoberto Ledesma

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

Abstract forthcoming.

The Shadow Immigration System, David Russell

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Executive Disorder: The Muslim Ban, Emergency Advocacy, And The Fires Next Time, Abed Ayoub, Khaled Beydoun

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

On January 27, 2017, one week into his presidency, Donald Trump enacted Executive Order No. 13769, popularly known as the “Muslim Ban.” The Order named seven Muslim-majority nations and restricted, effective immediately, the reentry into the United States of visa and green card holders from these states. With the Muslim Ban, President Trump delivered on a central campaign promise, and as a result, injected Islamophobia into American immigration law and policy.

The Muslim Ban had an immediate impact on tens of thousands of Muslims, directly affecting U.S. visa and green card holders currently outside of the country, while exacerbating fear …

A Modest Memo, Yxta Maya Murray

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

A Modest Memo is a satire in the form of a legal memo written for President-Elect Donald Trump circa November 2016. It counsels Mr. Trump to obtain Mexican funding for a United States-Mexico “Wall” via United Nations Security Council sanctions. These sanctions would freeze remittances (that is, “hold them hostage”) until Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto wired the United States sufficient monies for construction. The memo, which is entirely the product of my imagination and legal study, contemplates one of the many possible worst case scenarios threatened by the Trump presidency. Through the arts of law and literature, I aim …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Deborah Gonzalez's Post: Why I Marched... 1-25-2017, Deborah Gonzalez

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The Institutional Case For Partisan Gerrymandering Claims, G. Michael Parsons

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

For voters hoping the Supreme Court’s 2017 Term brings relief from partisan gerrymandering, the end of the 2016 Term was inauspicious. In Cooper v. Harris, the majority assumed the legitimacy of “partisan advantage” arguments while the dissent—including Justice Kennedy—warned about the “serious institutional and federalism implications” of judicial intervention in the redistricting process. If past is prologue, this concern for institutional and structural interests does not bode well.

On Normative Effects Of Immigration Law, Emily Ryo

Faculty Scholarship

Can laws shape and mold our attitudes, values, and social norms, and if so, how do immigration laws affect our attitudes or views toward minority groups? I explore these questions through a randomized laboratory experiment that examines whether and to what extent short-term exposures to anti-immigration and pro-immigration laws affect people's implicit and explicit attitudes toward Latinos. My analysis shows that exposure to an anti-immigration law is associated with increased perceptions among study participants that Latinos are unintelligent and law-breaking. In contrast, Ifind no evidence that exposure to pro-immigration laws promotes positive attitudes toward Latinos. Taken together, these results suggest …

Deported By Marriage: Americans Forced To Choose Between Love And Country, Beth Caldwell

Brooklyn Law Review

As the fiftieth anniversary of Loving v. Virginia approaches, de jure prohibitions against interracial marriages are history. However, marriages between people of different national origins continue to be undermined by the law. The Constitution does not protect the marital rights of citizens who marry noncitizens in the same way that it protects all other marriages. Courts have consistently held that a spouse’s deportation does not implicate the rights of American citizens, and the Constitution has long been held inapplicable in protecting the substantive due process rights of noncitizens facing deportation. Given the spike in deportations over the past decade, hundreds …

When Giving Birth Becomes A Liability: The Intersection Of Reproductive Oppression And The Motherhood Wage Penalty For Latinas In Texas, Dania Y. Pulido

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

Abstract forthcoming.

Pushing An End To Sanctuary Cities: Will It Happen?, Raina Bhatt

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Sanctuary jurisdictions refer to city, town, and state governments (collectively, localities or local governments) that have passed provisions to limit their enforcement of federal immigration laws. Such local governments execute limiting provisions in order to bolster community cooperation, prevent racial discrimination, focus on local priorities for enforcement, or even to a show a local policy that differs from federal policy. The provisions are in the forms of executive orders, municipal ordinances, and state resolutions. Additionally, the scope of the provisions vary by locality: some prohibit law enforcement from asking about immigration status, while others prohibit the use of state resources …

The Lawyer's Obligation To Correct Social Injustice!, James F. Gill

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Presidential Legitimacy Through The Anti-Discrimination Lens, Catherine Y. Kim

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The Obama administration’s deferred action programs granting temporary relief from deportation to undocumented immigrants have focused attention to questions regarding the legitimacy of presidential lawmaking. Immigration, though, is not the only context in which the president has exercised policymaking authority. This essay examines parallel instances of executive lawmaking in the anti-discrimination area. Presidential policies relating to workplace discrimination, environmental justice, and affirmative action share some of the key features troubling critics of deferred action yet have been spared from serious constitutional challenge. These examples underscore the unique challenges to assessing the validity of actions targeting traditionally disenfranchised groups—be they noncitizens, …