Immigration Law Commons^™

Promoting Healing And Avoiding Retraumatization: A Proposal To Improve Mental Health Care For Detained Unaccompanied Minors Through A Best Interests Of The Child Standard, Francesca J. Babetski

William & Mary Law Review

Part I of this Note will describe the circuit split. It will provide background on the A.M. [A.M. v. Luzerne County Juvenile Detention Center] and Doe 4 cases, including an explanation of the major precedents on which the Third and Fourth Circuits based their respective decisions. Then, Part II will argue that A.M. and its deliberate indifference standard cannot appropriately be applied in cases involving detained unaccompanied minors, also called Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs). This almost twenty-year-old standard does not consider the latest information about immigration policy and the unique mental health needs of UACs such as Doe …

Legal Order At The Border, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

For generations, the United States has grappled with high levels of illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border. This Article offers a novel theoretical framework to explain why legal order remains elusive at the border. Drawing inspiration from Lon Fuller’s “interactional view of law,” I argue that immigration law cannot attract compliance unless it is general, public, prospective, clear, consistent, and stable; obedience with its rules is feasible; and the law’s enforcement is congruent with the rules as enacted. The flagrant violation of any one of these principles could frustrate the development of a functional legal order. Remarkably, U.S. immigration law …

Eu Migration Policy: Analyzing The Coercive Responses Of Transit Countries Within The Eu’S Framework Of Externalization, Emily Swan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper seeks to analyze the intersection between the EU’s increasingly securitized and externalized policies towards migration, and instances of the weaponization of migration on the EU’s external borders. Although scholars have analyzed cases in which states harness migrants as political weapons, depoliticized most depictions apply a moralistic lens that frames these cases as aberrant, decontextualized, and political events. This paper will complicate understandings of the weaponization of migration by analyzing how EU policies of externalization and securitization systematically shape the environment in which it becomes politically advantageous for leaders, such as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Alexander Lukashenko, to resort …

Internally Displaced Persons: Ordeals And Analyses Of The Possible Regimes Of Legal Protection Frameworks, Olawale Ogunmodimu

St. Mary's Law Journal

This present global community is complicated because of anxiety and uncertainty. It is thoroughly interconnected yet intricately partitioned. Pivotally, one could argue that the centrality to this global anxiety is identity and belonging. People want to identify with and belong to a political system, territory, and culture. It seems that there is a present world that mirrors the political emergence of the interwar period that had nationalism on the rise. There is hostility to non-citizens globally, whether as refugees, internally displaced peoples (IDPs), or immigrants seeking to join new political communities. This Article explains the difficulties that ensue from being …

Impacted Communities Leading Authentic Legal Mobilization: A Refugee-Led Access-To-Justice Story, Douglas Smith

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

I have a modest proposal to begin addressing the civil access-to-justice problem in the United States: eliminate the barriers for refugees to provide legal representation. In discussions of access to civil justice, immigration and immigrant rights compel our attention—images of children as young as three facing deportation without representation and non-citizens detained because of civil immigration infractions come to mind. But we hear less about the access-to-justice challenges of immigrants fighting for their rights to safe housing, public benefits, education for their children, or often-contingent or under-the-table jobs. The cries of immigrant communities about informal and formal threats from …

A Better Way: Uncoupling The Right To Counsel With The Threat Of Deportation For Unaccompanied Immigrant Children And Beyond, Laura Barrera

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

The stakes could not be higher in immigration court—families are separated; people are banished from their communities with little hope of ever legally returning; judges relegate individuals to seemingly arbitrary and indefinite detention in remote locations. Each of these hardships—and more—flow from the threat of deportation. As the Supreme Court noted in 1922, deportation “may result . . . in . . . all that makes life worth living.”

As has been the unfortunate norm in civil proceedings, many individuals face these trials without an attorney by their side because while the law states that respondents in immigration court …

Daca's Tax Benefits Highlight The Need For Broader Immigration Reform, Jacqueline Lainez Flanagan

Journal Articles

America’s aging population and declining birth rates are negatively affecting the nation’s Social Security and Medicare safety nets, reducing tax revenue, and weakening the broader economy.1 Meanwhile, immigration is increasing workforce participation by expanding the number of young adults in the United States.2 Despite political setbacks, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program exemplifies the economic and tax benefits of immigration, providing data and the impetus for a better way forward. Although not all DACA-eligible youth have registered for it, it is estimated that in 2017 alone, more than $2.2 billion in federal taxes were paid by DACA-eligible youth …

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

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Legal Ethics Of Family Separation, Milan Markovic

Faculty Scholarship

On April 6, 2018, the Trump administration announced a “zero tolerance” policy for individuals who crossed the U.S. border illegally. As part of this policy, the administration prosecuted parents with minor children for unlawful entry; previous administrations generally placed families in civil removal proceedings. Since U.S. law does not allow children to be held in immigration detention facilities pending their parents’ prosecution, the new policy caused thousands of children to be separated from their parents. Hundreds of families have yet to be reunited.

Despite a consensus that the family separation policy was cruel and ineffective, there has been minimal focus …

The Legal Ethics Of Family Separation, Milan Markovic

University of Richmond Law Review

On April 6, 2018, the Trump administration announced a “zero tolerance” policy for individuals who crossed the U.S. border illegally. As part of this policy, the administration prosecuted parents with minor children for unlawful entry; previous administrations generally placed families in civil removal proceedings. Since U.S. law does not allow children to be held in immigration detention facilities pending their parents’ prosecution, the new policy caused thousands of children to be separated from their parents. Hundreds of families have yet to be reunited.

Despite a consensus that the family separation policy was cruel and ineffective, there has been minimal focus …

Modalities Of Social Change Lawyering, Christine N. Cimini, Doug Smith

Articles

The last decade has seen the rise of new kinds of grassroots social movements. Movements including Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Sunrise, and #MeToo pushed back against long-standing political, economic, and social crises, including income inequality, racial inequality, police violence, climate change, and the widespread culture of sexual abuse and harassment. As these social change efforts evolve, a growing body of scholarship has begun to theorize the role of lawyers within these new social movements and to identify lawyering characteristics that contribute to sustaining social movements over time. This Article surveys this body of literature and proposes a typology …

Sanchez V. Mayorkas: Is This The End Of Green Cards For Temporary Protected Status Holders?, Thalia G. Rivet

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This Note was inspired by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas. This decision put an end to the decade-long circuit split over whether a Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) recipient, who entered the United States unlawfully, could still become a Lawful Permanent Resident (“LPR”). Since its inception, TPS holders have been denied an avenue to adjust their status despite their socioeconomic impact on the United States and every TPS-designated country. This Note will break down and analyze the decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas through (1) the examination of the circuit split cases, (2) the analysis of TPS holder’s …

Chevron: Fueling The Right Against Title 42 And The Denial Of U.S. Asylum Rights, Nicholas Pierre-Paul

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This Note was inspired by the questionable treatment of Haitian asylum seekers in Del Rio, Texas, where horseback U.S. officials charged at them using reins as whips, before immediately deporting them back to Haiti. The U.S. government justified its actions by claiming that Title 42 permits U.S. officials to prohibit the entry of individuals when there is a danger of introducing certain diseases, such as COVID-19. However, Title 42 conflicts with the United States’ codified commitment to the principle of non-refoulment, prohibiting it from returning certain refugees to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. Accordingly, the …

The Supreme Court In Crisis, David M. Hunt Library

2023 Event Invitations

The speakers will discuss recent decisions affecting abortion and gun rights, the public’s trust and confidence in the high court and cases the Court will decide before the summer involving LGBTQ rights, affirmative action, election law and immigration policy.

Speakers:

• Tom Gerety, former President of Amherst and Trinity Colleges, former Executive Director of the Brennan Center for Justice
• Adam Liptak, New York Times Supreme Court Correspondent
• David Rudenstine, Sheldon H. Solow Professor of Law at Cardozo and former Dean

Allowed To Stay: An Exploration Of Dhs New Guidelines To Dismiss Certain Immigration Cases, Jazmin E. De La Cruz Sanchez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) guideline issued with the intent of reducing case backlogs has led to the dismissal of many immigrants’ legal proceedings. Having their case dismissed has allowed those immigrants to stay within the United States essentially with no legal status. I argue in this paper that these changes have left many in a state that’s been termed liminal legality. Building on previous research that employs this concept, I specifically argue that being in this position affects one’s employment, income, prospects for upward mobility, and future legal standing. Although this new guideline was created to …

Contextualizing Corruption: Foreign Financing Bans And Campaign Finance Law, Lori A. Ringhand

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Colorblind Nationalism And The Limits Of Citizenship, Ming Hsu Chen

Cardozo Law Review

Policymakers and lawyers posit formal citizenship as the key to inclusion. Rather than presume that formal citizenship will necessarily promote equality, this Article examines the relationship between citizenship, racial equality, and nationalism. It asks: What role does formal citizenship play in excluding noncitizens and Asian, Latinx, and Muslim citizens racialized as foreigners? What effects does it have on the meaning of being American as a non-White citizen? The Article argues that commitments to colorblind equality and democratic self-governance of the nation stand in contradiction to aspirations to protect all persons within the nation. Consequently, individual rights designed to remedy racial …

Recognizing The Right To Family Unity In Immigration Law, Eugene Lee

Michigan Law Review

The Trump Administration’s travel ban and separation of families at the U.S.- Mexico border drew newfound attention to the constitutional due process right to family unity. But even before then, the right to family unity has had a substantial history. Rooted in the Supreme Court’s line of privacy rights cases, the right to family unity is amorphous. This ambiguity has given rise to disagreement regarding not only legal doctrine surrounding the right but also whether the right even exists. This Note clarifies this disagreement by offering a historical account of the right to family unity and an overview of three …

The Immigration Shadow Docket, Faiza W. Sayed

Northwestern University Law Review

Each year, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA)—the Justice Department’s appellate immigration agency that reviews decisions of immigration judges and decides the fate of thousands of noncitizens—issues about thirty published, precedential decisions. At present, these are the only decisions out of approximately 30,000 each year, that are readily available to the public and provide detailed reasoning for their conclusions. This is because most of the BIA’s decision-making happens on what this Article terms the “immigration shadow docket”—the tens of thousands of other decisions the BIA issues each year that are unpublished and nonprecedential. These shadow docket decisions are generally authored …

Prevention Or Creation Of Terrorism? The Sri Lankan Prevention Of Terrorism Act, Abigail Castle

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

Abstract

The tyrannical Sri Lankan Prevention of Terrorism Act (“PTA”) has been in effect for over forty years. Dating back to the decades-long civil war, the PTA has terrorized Sri Lankan citizens. The PTA authorizes the Sri Lankan government to arbitrarily detain citizens without warrants for up to eighteen months; use torture to extract confessions; and target protesters, minority groups, and political opponents. The PTA creates a breeding ground for numerous human rights violations with no accountability for the officials who commit human rights abuses. The use of the Act has intensified since 2019 with the Easter Sunday Bombings and …