Immigration Law Commons^™

Chamber Of Commerce Of The United States V. Whiting: Giving The Green Light To States' Broad Use Of Immigration-Related Employer Sanctions, Bianca B. Garcia

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Will Contests: From Start To Finish., Joyce Moore

St. Mary's Law Journal

This Article primarily focuses on the practical problems facing attorneys and courts when evaluating and proving up a will or trust in contested cases. The focus extends further into the special procedural and evidentiary rules applicable to these actions, the use and misuse of summary judgment proceedings in these cases, and some observations regarding developing trends and strategies in will and trust contest litigation. Admittedly, this area of practice is a melting pot of presumptions, exceptions, threshold hurdles, capacity qualms, evidentiary issues, strategic clauses, and countless other headache-inducing legal issues. Yet, attorneys must diligently juggle all of them while also …

Undocumented Workers And Concepts Of Fault: Are Courts Engaged In Legitimate Decisionmaking, Christine N. Cimini

Articles

This Article examines judicial decisionmaking in labor and employment cases involving undocumented workers. Labor and employment laws, designed to protect all workers regardless of immigration status, often conflict with immigration laws designed to deter the employment of undocumented workers. In the absence of clarity as to how these differing policy priorities should interact, courts are left to resolve the conflict. While existing case law appears to lack coherence, this Article identifies a uniform judicial reliance upon “fault-based” factors. This Article offers a structure to understand this developing body of law and evaluates the legitimacy of the fault-based decisionmaking modalities utilized …

Rolling Back The Tide: Challenging The Criminalization Of Immigrants In Washington State, Angélica Cházaro

Articles

No abstract provided.

Rebellious State Crimmigration Enforcement And The Foreign Affairs Power, Mary Fan

Articles

The propriety of a new breed of state laws interfering in immigration enforcement is pending before the Supreme Court and the lower courts. These laws typically incorporate federal standards related to the criminalization of immigration ("crimmigration'), but diverge aggressively from federal enforcement policy. Enacting states argue that the legislation is merely a species of "cooperative federalism" that does not trespass upon the federal power over foreign affairs, foreign commerce, and nationality rules since the laws mirror federal standards. This Article challenges the formalist mirror theory assumptions behind the new laws and argues that inconsistent state crimmigration enforcement policy and resulting …

Beyond Saints And Sinners: Discretion And The Need For New Narratives In The U.S. Immigration System, Elizabeth Keyes

All Faculty Scholarship

Beyond Saints and Sinners examines the forces affecting the exercise of discretion in American immigration courts, and argues that in this present age of immigration anxiety, the same facts that place an individual in deportation proceedings may constitute the reasons a judge will, relying on discretion, deny them relief for which they are otherwise eligible. The article explores the polarized narratives told about "good" and "bad" immigrants, the exceptionally difficult task of adjudicating in overburdened immigration courts, and the ways in which these polarized narratives interact with psychological short-cuts, or heuristics, that affect judicial exercises of discretion. After engaging in …

Due Process And Local Administrative Hearings Regulating Public Nuisances: Analysis And Reform., Alex Cameron

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

A Judicial And Economic Analysis Of Attorney's Fees In Trust Litigation And The Resulting Inequitable Treatment Of Trust Beneficiaries., Charles Epps Ipock

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

Removal Of Independent Executors: Examining The Standard In Texas After The Addition Of Material Conflict Of Interest To Section 149c Of The Texas Probate Code., Elizabeth R. Kopecki

St. Mary's Law Journal

The State of Texas permits independent executors to operate with minimal court supervision. This allows executors to administer an estate with as little cost and delay as possible. Sometimes executors abuse this limited supervision and fail to manage estates properly. Fortunately, there are particular circumstances outlined in the Texas Probate Code which allow courts to step in and remove these harmful executors. Since the adoption of section 149C to the Texas Probate Code, grounds for removal have remained relatively specific. Recently, the legislature has added a new ground: “material conflict of interest.” Though no bright-line rule exists, there is precedent …

"U" Stands For Underutilization: The U Visa's Vulnerability For Underuse In The Sex Trafficking Context, Erin Bistricer

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The U Visa, established in 2000 under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization, was designed to provide legal status to victims of certain crimes, including sex trafficking, without fear of deportation. However, its implementation has been hindered by significant challenges, including delayed regulations, confusion among applicants, and reliance on law enforcement cooperation, which can be a barrier for traumatized victims. While the U Visa offers more flexibility than the T Visa by covering a broader range of crimes and requiring a lower standard of proof, its effectiveness is limited by factors such as annual caps, inadequate state anti-trafficking laws, …

Human Rights In The United States: Legal Aid Alleges That Denying Access To Migrant Labor Camps Is A Violation Of The Human Right To Access Justice, Reena Shah, Lauren Bartlett

All Faculty Scholarship

It is estimated that there are more than 86 million migrant workers worldwide, the vast majority of whom suffer poor living and working conditions. In the United States, more than 3 million migrant farmworkers, including at least 100,000 children, are estimated to labor in fields every year, many of whom lack access to justice, earn sub-living wages, and exist in dehumanizing circumstances. Farmworkers are among the most exploited and vulnerable populations in the United States; yet, distressingly, they are also the least protected by U.S. law and law enforcement.

Legal aid advocates in the United States attempt to raise awareness …

Immigration And Civil Rights: State And Local Efforts To Regulate Immigration, Kevin R. Johnson

Georgia Law Review

This Essay explains why U.S. immigration law and
enforcement raises some of the nation's most pressing civil
rights concerns of the twenty-first century. First,
immigration and immigration enforcement implicate a
greater diversity of "people of color," including people of
Latina/o and Asian ancestry, than that encapsulated by
the Black/white paradigm that historically has
dominated thinking about civil rights in the United
States. Second, immigration enforcement implicates civil
rights concerns different in kind than those raised by the
monumental efforts to dismantle Jim Crow and
desegregate American social life, which constituted the
long and hard-fought civil rights achievement of the
twentieth …

The Gangs Of Asylum, Linda K. Hill

Georgia Law Review

Should immigrants fleeing gang violence be entitled to
refuge in the United States? Today, the response of most
U.S. courts is "no." The principal means by which an
individual fleeing his home country seeks safety in the
United States is by qualifying for asylum or withholding
of removal. Notwithstanding some critical distinctions
between asylum and withholding of removal, each
protection requires a claimant to demonstrate his fear of

persecution is on account of race, religion, nationality,
membership in a particular social group or political
opinion. Yet rather than evaluating gang-based claims
upon existing refugee standards, the courts are
manipulating the …

Love And War, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

Legal historians: Find a window to read Rose Cuison Villazor’s “The Other Loving,” published in the NYU Law Review last fall. Although Villazor, Associate Professor of Law at Hofstra, does not identify primarily as a legal historian, she has written more than one historical work well worth a read. An earlier article examined alien land laws in the United States, telling the story of Oyama v. California (1948), which held unconstitutional a provision of California’s Alien Land Law that discriminated against owners of property bought by parents who were ineligible to become U.S. citizens. This more recent article, in …

Comment: Until The Plenary Power Do Us Part: Judicial Scrutiny Of The Defense Of Marriage Act In Immigration After Flores-Villar, Jessica Portmess

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Challenging Notions Of U.S. Citizenship: The Contributions Of Mexican Americans, Tracy E. Kirby

Master's Theses

The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, in which the idea of “citizenship” has had very strong intrinsic values, and has divided those who “have it” from those who “don’t,” since the first legal construction of such categories in 1790. Longstanding contradictions, characterized by ceremonies awarding citizenship to some and laws of exclusion, deportation, and forced removal for others, have embodied U.S. approaches to citizenship, and created a dichotomy between “citizen” and “alien.” This Master's Thesis will initiate a discussion and reformulation of what it means to be a citizen in the United States, and more importantly …

Polishing Treadmills At Midnight: Is Refugee Integration An Elusive Goal?, Woods Nash

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

It is often said that justice requires us to treat like cases alike. Accordingly, the U.S. refugee resettlement program provides all refugees—no matter where they are from, no matter their pasts—with very similar funding and services. Refugees, however, are far from alike. In this essay, I invoke Borgmann’s distinction between a “thing” and a “device” and draw on stories from my work with a resettlement agency to argue that our current, employment-driven system is in need of reform. Instead of being restricted to generic programs, refugee resettlement agencies should be funded to help each family achieve social integration in ways …

Challenging Detention: Why Immigrant Detainees Receive Less Process Than Enemy Combatants And Why They Deserve More, Faiza Sayed

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The "Padilla Advisory" And Its Implications Beyond The Immigration Context, Hanh H. Le

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Accessing Justice: The Availability And Adequacy Of Counsel Removal Proceedings: New York Immigrant Representation Study Report, Stacy Caplow, Peter L. Markowitz, Jojo Annobil, Peter Z. Cobb, Nancy Morawetz, Oren Root, Claudia Slovinsky, Zhifen Cheng, Lindsay C. Nash

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.