Immigration Law Commons^™

Reevaluating Politicized Identity & Notions Of An American Political Community In The Legal & Political Process, Marvin L. Astrada Jd, Phd

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of Zero Tolerance And The Demise Of Family, Mariela Olivares

Georgia State University Law Review

This article explores the intersection of immigration law and family law and argues that the current regime dedicated to decimating immigrant families in the United States does not comport with the history and spirit of immigration law and policy. Policies shifting away from family unity and towards an inhumane treatment of immigrant families is anchored in the political rhetoric that normalizes the oppression of immigrants. By characterizing immigrants as nonhuman—even “animals,” as described by President Donald Trump—the current slate of anti-immigrant policies that specifically target families is normalized. Part I discusses contemporary immigration law that terrorizes the family unit and …

Cooperative Federalism And Sijs, Shani M. King, Nicole Silvestri Hall

UF Law Faculty Publications

Recognizing the plight of young immigrants who have suffered abuse, neglect, or abandonment, and cannot be reunited with a parent, Congress has accorded those who qualify Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS). SIJS has created an expedited path for them to permanent residency and, ultimately, citizenship. The statutory scheme Congress crafted is unusual in that it requires each applicant to obtain a state court order finding that they meet the requirements for SIJS before the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service decides whether to confer that status on them. The implementation of this scheme has been fraught with difficulty, representing for …

Language Access And Due Process In Asylum Interviews, Pooja R. Dadhania

Faculty Scholarship

The Department of Homeland Security does not provide interpreters to asylum applicants during their asylum interviews, instead requiring them to supply their own. This Article challenges this deprivation of language access as a procedural due process violation because it denies limited English proficient asylum seekers meaningful access to the statutorily created affirmative asylum process. The Department of Homeland Security's failure to provide interpreters can silence limited English proficient asylum seekers by depriving them of the opportunity to meaningfully present their claims. Asylum seekers, especially those who are low income or speak rare languages, face significant challenges in finding suitable interpreters. …

Constitutionally Unaccountable: Privatized Immigration Detention, Danielle C. Jefferis

Indiana Law Journal

For-profit, civil immigration detention is one of this nation’s fastest growing industries. About two-thirds of the more than 50,000 people in the civil custody of federal immigration authorities find themselves at one point or another in a private, corporate-run prison that contracts with the federal government. Conditions of confinement in many of these facilities are dismal. Detainees have suffered from untreated medical conditions and endured months, in some cases years, of detention in environments that are unsafe and, at times, violent. Some have died. Yet, the spaces are largely unregulated. This Article exposes and examines the absence of a constitutional …

A Dive Into Eb-5: A Need For Complete Modernization Of U.S. Investor-Based Immigration Program Or Eb-5 (Employment-Based Immigration: Fifth Preference), James Reiser

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lawful Permanent Residency: A Potential Solution For Temporary Protected Status Holders In The Eastern District Of New York, Cody M. Gecht

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Protect Unauthorized Workers? Imperfect Proxies, Unaccountable Employers, And Antidiscrimination Law's Failures, Angela D. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores a gap in the scholarship regarding the unauthorized workplace. It describes and names the two main justifications on which advocates and courts have relied to extend federal antidiscrimination protections to unauthorized workers. First, the proxy justification insists that workplace protections must include unauthorized workers because their protection is necessary to protect U.S. citizen and authorized workers. Second, the deterrence/accountability justification states that workplace protections must include unauthorized workers because it will deter employers from future violations of antidiscrimination laws and hold them accountable for violations of immigration law. While these justifications have led to some protection for …

Surfacing Contexts Of Violence In Novel Forms Of The Reproductive Justice Framework Through Lessons From Latin America: A Study Of Brutality, Migration And Bodily Autonomy And Progressive Solutions For Use In Public Health, Angelica M. Campos

CMC Senior Theses

In the last 5 years, Latin America has witnessed a tenacious wave of pañuelo verde and #NiUnaMenos activism. Sparked by increasing mortality rates associated with unsafe, clandestine abortions and femicide, the praxes and fundamental elements of these social movements have proven themselves useful not only in garnering international attention on issues relating to bodily autonomy, but in the synthesis of their respective sociopolitical solutions as well. In the United States, similar efforts have been spearheaded by the lauded reproductive justice framework, which has often been credited for centering the plight of women of color in both reproduction and social justice. …

Darkside Discretion In Immigration Cases, Shoba Wadhia

Faculty Scholarship

"Darkside Discretion" refers to a situation where the noncitizen satisfies the statutory criteria set by Congress to be eligible for remedy but is denied by an adjudicator in the exercise of discretion. Imagine a woman who arrived in the United States six months ago who meets her burden of proving she is a refugee based on a fear of persecution by the government in her home country because of her religious beliefs, but who is denied asylum for discretionary reasons. This kind of decision exposes the "darkside" of discretion because it reflects how the government uses the tool of discretion …

The Case Against Chevron Deference In Immigration Adjudication, Shoba Wadhia, Christopher Walker

Faculty Scholarship

The Duke Law Journal’s fifty-first annual administrative law symposium examines the future of Chevron deference—the command that a reviewing court defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute the agency administers. In the lead article, Professors Kristin Hickman and Aaron Nielson argue that the Supreme Court should narrow Chevron’s domain to exclude interpretations made via administrative adjudication. Building on their framing, this Article presents an in-depth case study of immigration adjudication and argues that this case against Chevron has perhaps its greatest force when it comes to immigration. That is because much of Chevron’s theory for congressional delegation …

Covid-19 And Prisoners’ Rights, Gregory Bernstein, Stephanie Guzman, Maggie Hadley, Rosalyn M. Huff, Alison Hung, Anita N.H. Yandle, Alexis Hoag, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

As COVID-19 continues to spread rapidly across the country, the crowded and unsanitary conditions in prisons, jails, juvenile detention, and immigration detention centers leave incarcerated individuals especially vulnerable. This chapter will discuss potential avenues for detained persons and their lawyers seeking to use the legal system to obtain relief, including potential release, during this extraordinary, unprecedented crisis.

Coordinating Injunctions, Bert I. Huang

Faculty Scholarship

Consider this scenario: Two judges with parallel cases are each ready to issue an injunction. But their injunctions may clash, ordering incompatible actions by the defendant. Each judge has written an opinion justifying her own intended relief, but the need to avoid conflicting injunctions presses her to make a further choice – “Should I issue the injunction or should I stay it for now?” Each must make this decision in anticipation of what the other will do.

This Article analyzes such a judicial coordination problem, drawing on recent examples including the DACA cases and the “sanctuary cities” cases. It then …

Reevaluating The Adjudication Of Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude, Colleen Muñoz

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Criminalizing immigration status has tainted the lives of permanent residents in the United States for years. A minor misdemeanor conviction imposes the threat of extreme penalties for noncitizens and their continued residence in the United States. Specifically, a conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude can prevent a noncitizen from seeking admission, threaten deportation proceedings, and jeopardize his or her ability to naturalize as a United States citizen. Crimes involving moral turpitude remain undefined in the Immigration and Nationality Act, causing courts to adjudicate the crimes arbitrarily.

In the absence of statutory or administrative direction, jurisdictions across the United States …

Manipulating Risk: Immigration Detention Through Automation, Kate Evans, Robert Koulish

Lewis & Clark Law Review

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security arrests as many as 500,000 migrants per year and detains more than 350,000 of them through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Since 2012, ICE has relied on an automated Risk Classification Assessment (RCA) system to recommend whom to detain and whom to release. The authors are the first to obtain access to its algorithm and this Article is the first to make that system’s methodology public. While purportedly basing these recommendations on indicia of flight risk and risk to public safety, the RCA in fact relies on an algorithm driven by political preferences. By …

Destigmatizing Disability In The Law Of Immigration Admissions, Medha D. Makhlouf

Faculty Contributions to Books

In U.S. immigration law, disability has historically been associated with deviance, and has served as the basis for legal barriers to entry and eventual citizenship. For example, immigrants with actual and perceived physical and intellectual disabilities, mental illness, and other health conditions have been deemed “inadmissible” to the United States based on the belief that they are likely to become dependent on the government for support. Although the law has evolved to accommodate immigrants with disabilities in some ways, significant legal barriers still exist on account of the widespread, persistent characterization of disability as a “bad difference” from the norm. …

Migration As Reparation: Climate Change And The Disruption Of Borders, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article examines the legal and moral basis for migration as a form of reparation for the harms inflicted on the states and peoples of the Global South through climate change and through centuries of predatory economic policies. Using Central American migration to the United States as a case study, the article explains that susceptibility to climate change is a function of two variables: exposure and social and economic vulnerability. High-emitting affluent states are disproportionately responsible for Central America’s exposure to climate change due to their historic and current greenhouse gas emissions, their unwillingness to curb these emissions, and their …

Immigration Policy As A Defense Of White Nationhood, Juan F. Perea

Faculty Publications & Other Works

President Trump's vilification and expulsion of undocumented Latino migrants is only the latest episode of the mass expulsion of Latinos. This essay places Trump's border enforcement policies into historical context as a defense of white national identity. Despite many asserted justifications for this mistreatment of migrants and refugees, the only justification that survives scrutiny is the need to reassure anxious whites that their racial status is being defended.

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Reform 'Em: Expanding Oversight Of Privately-Operated Immigrant Detention Centers, Katherine Rollins

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Immigration Judiciary's Need For Independence: Breaking Free From The Shackles Of The Attorney General, Daniel R. Buteyn

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.