by Armin von Bogdandy, Flávia Piovesan, Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor, Mariela Morales Antoniazzi

The Inter-American Human Rights System (IAHRS) fosters structural transformations throughout the Americas. This collection of analyses builds upon the studies on Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina and Latin American transformative constitutionalism to map out both the ground-level human rights impact of the IAHRS and the institutional characteristics that have enabled such fundamental changes in social reality. The volume starts with essays framing the concept and context of IAHRS impact. Then it navigates thematic analyses on specific rights and types of violations that are front and center to the protection of human rights in Latin America. The concluding essays explore whether and how it is possible to optimize the actions of the Inter-American System, indicating possible paths to increase positive human rights impact. The editors contend that the IAHRS victim-centric approach, community of practice, and openness to institutional reinvention have enabled it to create a virtuous cycle that catalyzes human rights in the Americas, furthering democracy and the Rule of Law throughout the continent.

Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2024. 705p.

GLABERSON, STEVIE; TSE, EMERALD; TUCKER, EMILY

From the document: "[W]hat if the government had access to a copy of your DNA and could track you based on this involuntary, unstoppable trail without your consent? [...] This dystopia is fast becoming reality for millions of people, many of them already vulnerable because of over-policing, excessive surveillance, or economic insecurity. The federal government is amassing a huge trove of DNA, starting with a racialized, often traumatized, and politically powerless group: noncitizens. And it is using the federal agency that operates with the fewest practical constraints and least oversight -- the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -- to do it. That's what this report is about. [...] The 2005 DNA Fingerprint Act -- which passed with little public scrutiny as an amendment to the reauthorization bill for the popular Violence Against Women Act -- for the first time extended compulsory DNA collection to people outside of the criminal legal context: detained noncitizens. But because of the exceptions in the implementing regulations, and because previous administrations thought it was a good idea to use those exceptions to avoid escalating DNA collection from noncitizens, DHS never mounted a large-scale DNA collection program. That is, until 2020. This report, which is based on publicly available records, as well as interviews with people who have had their DNA taken by immigration authorities and legal service providers working with them, is the first attempt to examine in-depth what happened after the 2020 rule change, and to explain the legal and political implications of these developments."

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY. LAW CENTER. CENTER ON PRIVACY & TECHNOLOGY. 21 MAY, 2024.

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

BY CHARLES SUMNER.

“HISTORY has been sometimes called a gallery, where, in living forms, are preserved the scenes, the incidents, and the characters of the past. It may also be called the world's great charnel house, where are gathered coffins, dead men's bones, and all the uncleanness of the years that have fled.”

Massachusetts. JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY, 1853. 134p.

By Flore Berger

Mali has long been an important origin and transit country for West African migrants travelling to North Africa. Its role has expanded in recent years as preferred migration routes have shifted westwards from Libya into Algeria. In 2023, however, the political and security situation in northern Mali changed significantly. MINUSMA (the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali) withdrew from Mali after nearly a decade on the ground. This in turn contributed to the outbreak of hostilities between the Cadre Stratégique Permanent (Permanent Strategic Framework – CSP) and the Forces Armées Maliennes (Malian Armed Forces – FAMa), operating with the support of Russia’s Wagner Group, marking the de facto end of the 2015 Algiers Peace Agreement. The Malian transitional military government officially terminated this accord on 25 January 2024. Taking advantage of Mali’s international isolation and internal turmoil, violent extremist groups – including the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (Group to Support Islam and Muslims – JNIM) and Islamic State Sahel Province (IS Sahel) – stepped up their activities, notably by imposing blockades on major northern towns, most notably Timbuktu by JNIM and Ménaka by IS Sahel. These events altered the security equilibrium that, in recent years, had allowed migrants to travel through large parts of northern Mali, particularly Timbuktu, with little difficulty. While none of the developments, individually or collectively, drastically disrupted the movement of migrants and the functioning of human smuggling networks, they did have localized and short- to medium-term effects on flows, route safety, methods and means of transport, and prices. Timbuktu was by far the most significantly affected hub. A blockade was imposed by JNIM at the beginning of August, bringing movement to an immediate halt. Later, however, even as the blockade continued, flows resumed, with migrants using the river to get to Timbuktu rather than overland travel. The safety of movement in and around the city, including on the route to Algeria, deteriorated sharply, and the cost of the journey for migrants almost doubled. Gao was similarly affected by the resumption of hostilities between the CSP and FAMa. This region has always been much more volatile, however, with migratory flows through the city fluctuating greatly depending on the season and the security situation.

Mali’s third major migration route, through the western Kayes region and into Mauritania and Senegal, is a key area to watch. Movements through the south-west have not been directly affected by the upheaval in the north, and a growing number of Malians and West Africans are using this option. This is the latest Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) monitoring report on human smuggling in Mali. It builds on the series of annual reports that has been issued by the GI-TOC since 2019, tracking the evolution of human smuggling in Mali, as well as the political, security and economic dynamics that influence it.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)’s Observatory of Illicit Economies in North Africa and the Sahel. 2024. 30p.

By The International Drug Policy Consortium

The signing organisations (the International Drug Policy Consortium, Amnesty International, the Global Alliance against Traffic in Women, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the Women and Harm Reduction International Network) welcome the initiative to prepare a report on the decriminalisation of poverty and homelessness, to be presented at the 56th session of the Human Rights Council in June-July 2024. We also welcome the background paper shared by consultation.

In order to ensure that the report creates effective and consistent standards for the decriminalisation of poverty and homelessness, we strongly encourage the Special Rapporteurs to include in the conclusions section explicit recommendations for the decriminalisation of drug use and possession of personal use, and of sex work, as the criminalisation of both activities is a major driver of contact between law enforcement and people living in poverty in public spaces, is discriminatory, and has harmful effects on the enjoyment of a broad range of human rights. This informal paper provides a number of key arguments supporting that inclusion.

London: International Drug Policy Consortium, 2024. 9p.

By Natalia Ollus, Anniina Jokinen

HEUNI’S SECOND STUDY on exploitation of migrant workers and trafficking in persons for the purpose of forced labour was published in 2013. The report “We’ve got people lined up behind the door”: Placing the Trafficking and Exploitation of Migrant Workers in Context in the Restaurant and Cleaning Sectors in Finland was prepared as part of an EU-funded project looking into the issue in Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Sweden. The study was a follow-up to HEUNI’s first study on the topic, launched two years earlier, and aimed at providing a more in-depth analysis of selected sectors, recruitment methods and the business model of exploitation in Finland. In addition to research, the project organized multi stakeholder meetings to establish a dialogue between key labour actors. It also produced the first set of concrete guidelines for employers and recruitment agencies and other actors for the prevention of trafficking for forced labour and labour exploitation. The report kickstarted HEUNI’s work with businesses and corporate social responsibility, a topic which is today a core theme in HEUNI’s work and services. The report found that most migrant workers coming to Finland seek work due to economic reasons and many are willing to compromise regarding the employment and the working conditions, as long as they can earn more than at home. Recruitment of migrant workers in the restaurant and cleaning sectors is carried out either via recruitment and employment service companies or via relatives, acquaintances and word-of-mouth. The study uncovered several cases where migrant workers paid unreasonably high recruitment and placement fees in order to secure a job in Finland. Different forms of underpayment of wages were common, often in connection with poor terms of employment, irregular or excessive working hours, and difficult working conditions. The study argued that many of the exploited workers seemed to be weighing the pros and cons of disclosing their experiences of exploitation to the authorities versus the risk of losing their job, their means of income and perhaps even their residence right if they disclosed their experiences of exploitation. Similar findings have been made in more recent studies and media articles covering exploitation in cleaning and in the restaurant sector. The study “We’ve got people lined up behind the door” argues that the exploitation of migrant workers should be seen as part of a larger, structural context, where dishonest and exploitative actors engage in economic crime and distort free competition. Thus, exploitation is not a stand-alone, specific phenomenon, but part of a larger societal and historical development. In the report we also argue that a focus solely on trafficking for forced labour makes it difficult to see and understand the larger structural and contextual factors that facilitate exploitation of migrant workers. Trafficking does not take place in isolation from the larger context of exploitation of migrant workers. Therefore, exploitation can perhaps best be understood as a continuum rather than as clear-cut, separate phenomena. We also make many more arguments, which are still very valid and relevant. By relaunching the report in English as a standalone report, we hope it will find a new international readership.

Report Series no. 76b. Helsinki: HEUNI 2024. 170p.

By Anniina Jokinen, Anna-Greta Pekkarinen, Veikko Mäkelä, Saija Korkeakangas, Natalia Ollus, Roosa Näsi

Hundreds of migrant victims of human trafficking or labour exploitation are identified in Finland each year. Human trafficking is a serious crime that violates human rights and personal liberty and integrity. The consequences of exploitation and its effects on an individuals’ capacity and work ability vary. Many victims of trafficking wish to stay in Finland and find a path to fair employment in which the statutory terms of employment are fulfilled, and they receive an appropriate salary to provide for themselves and their family. This path is different for each person and because of that, it is important to consider their individual circumstances. Based on international agreements Finland must offer trafficking victims protection and assistance and therefore, in the long run, also improve their work ability and integration into Finnish society. Little is known, however, about issues which relate to employment of victims of trafficking and exploitation. The topic has not been studied in Finland and is quite novel also internationally – in most countries less attention has been paid to employment and long-term support needs in comparison to the trafficking victims’ identification process and initial support (e.g. McCarthy 2018, 105, 120; Shigekane 2007, 114–115; Surtees 2013). This report is an English version of the original Finnish study that examined the challenges of the organisation of employment services to migrant victims of trafficking in Finland. The English version is shorter than the Finnish report, and only the empirical part of that study has been translated. The report has been written in cooperation by HEUNI and the National Assistance System for Victims of Trafficking as part of the IKUT-project. The National Assistance System for Victims of Human Trafficking is an authority tasked with helping trafficking victims in Finland. It offers services for potential victims, their underage children as well as people assisting with the investigation. The Assistance System is also the national centre of knowledge for assisting trafficking victims in Finland, providing consultation and training. The IKUT-project run by the Assistance System focuses on building the employability skills and working life competence of victims of human trafficking in Finland through training modules and direct support. Furthermore, the project aims to increase the awareness of the private sector on human trafficking and to facilitate the private sector’s anti-trafficking work. The project is funded by the European Social Fund,

Research questions, data and methodology The research questions of the study at hand are the following: 1. What kind of challenges or structural deficiencies related to employ ment do migrant victims of trafficking face in Finland at the moment? 2. What kind of actions or services would be of use to migrant victims of trafficking to support their employment?

Report Series, No. 96b. Helsinki: HEUNI, 2022. 104p.

By Samantha Lyneham and Isabella Voce

The National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking and Slavery 2015–19 provides the strategic framework for Australia’s response to human trafficking and slavery for the five-year period from 2015 to 2019. The National Action Plan is founded on the need to prevent human trafficking and slavery; detect, investigate and prosecute offenders; and protect and support victims. Four central pillars underpin this strategy: prevention and deterrence, detection and investigation, prosecution and compliance, and victim support and protection.

The Commonwealth Government has oversight of the National Action Plan, with core activities undertaken by members of the Interdepartmental Committee on Human Trafficking and Slavery and complementary activities undertaken by members of the National Roundtable on Human Trafficking and Slavery. The Department of Home Affairs commissioned the Australian Institute of Criminology to undertake this review to inform the development of the next National Action Plan.

Research Report no. 17. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2020. 33p.

By The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington

The machinery of mass deportation, through which millions are separated from their families and communities, is hidden in plain sight. Each year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removes tens of thousands of people from the US on private charter flights operated out of airports across the country, including Boeing Field in King County. Reports have surfaced of egregious human rights abuses on some flights, and violations of immigrants' rights to due process are routine. Using the Freedom of Information Act, UW student researchers and the UW Center for Human Rights obtained ICE's national database tracking these flights, and are following the money to document the corporations and municipalities that profit from ICE Air's deportation flights.

Seattle: The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington 2019

By Canada. Public Safety Canada

Sex trafficking is highly gendered and disproportionately affects women and girls. Statistics Canada reported that 96% of detected victims of human trafficking between 2011 and 2021 were women, and that 45% of all detected victims were aged 18 to 24 and 24% under the age of 18. Although exact numbers are unknown, Indigenous and non-Indigenous women and girls are disproportionately represented among sex trafficking victims, as reported in the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Other populations at higher risk of being trafficked or targeted by human traffickers for sex trafficking include: •Youth in or who had been in the child welfare system; •2SLGBTQl+ persons, especially transgender men and women and gender non-conforming individuals; •Migrants; and •People experiencing social or economic marginalization. With regards to labour trafficking, the gender and age of victims differs across Canadian regions and economic sectors, however, the data is limited.

[Ottawa] : Public Safety Canada = Sécurité publique Canada, January 2023. 35p.

By Shreya Bhat and Hui Yin Chuah

This report explores the financial dimension of human smuggling across Southeast Asia, drawing insights from extensive 4Mi surveys conducted between December 2022 and August 2023. Focusing on the experiences of refugees and migrants from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Somalia, and Myanmar who engaged smugglers during their journeys, the report sheds light on how refugees and migrants finance their smuggling journey.

Key findings include:

• In Thailand, smuggling fees constituted 85% of the journey costs among Rohingya and Vietnamese respondents, the highest among all groups.

• In Malaysia, 57% used a smuggler for part of or the whole journey, with Rohingya most commonly using several smugglers for different parts of the journey.

• The average smuggling fee to Indonesia was USD 2,651. Afghan respondents paid the highest average smuggling fees (USD 5,748), and Somali respondents the lowest (USD 1,356)

Geneva, SWIT: Mixed Migration Centre, 2024. 362.

By Leroy Pernell

There is a war being waged against African Americans, and their ability to speak out against racial injustice, which is more intense than any past attempt at suppression, since post-reconstruction in America. This war has been characterized by state legislative initiatives aimed at denying consideration or discussion of Critical Race Theory. Under the guise of “Anti-WOKE,” states, such as Florida have sought not only to prevent serious discussion of Critical Race Theory, but to broaden the attack to deny advocacy or discussion of the more general issue of systemic role of race in our understanding of American jurisprudence, as well. These actions have, to date, resulted in legal challenges drawn from First and Fourteenth Amendment considerations. While these constitutional issues are currently in litigation and have yet to be determined, there has not been additional consideration of the possible impact of silencing voices of communities of color in ways reminiscent of the voiceless role of slaves. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibition of” Badges of Slavery” suggests an analytical perspective that has heretofore not been discussed. This brief commentary explores both the history and possible current application of the Badges of Slavery doctrine as a counter to current state legislative efforts at silencing. Because the author is currently involved in litigation challenging these attacks on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds, discussion of those issues are not addressed here. Instead, this commentary focuses exclusively on an argument not made – the Thirteenth Amendment ban on badges of slavery. enter Abstract Body

Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4633259

Editors:  Rebecca Adami, Anna Kaldal , and  Margareta As

How can human rights for children born outside their national jurisdiction with parents deemed as terrorists be safeguarded? In what ways do children risk being discriminated in their welfare rights in Sweden when treated as invisible part of a family? How can we do research on children’s rights in not just ethically sensitive ways but also with respect for children as rights subjects? And what could be a theory on social justice for children? These are questions discussed in studies from different disciplines concerning children’s international human rights, with a special focus on the realization of the CRC in Sweden.

Leiden: Brill, 2023. 

By Olivier Marie and Paolo Pinotti

The association between immigration and crime has long been a subject of debate, and only recently have we encountered systematic empirical evidence on this issue. Data shows that immigrants, often younger, male, and less educated compared to natives, are disproportionately represented among offenders in numerous host countries. However, existing research, inclusive of our analysis of new international data, consistently indicates that immigration does not significantly impact local crime rates in these countries. Furthermore, recent studies underscore that obtaining legal status diminishes immigrants' involvement in criminal activities. Finally, we discuss potential explanations for the apparent incongruity between immigrants' overrepresentation among offenders and the null effect of immigration on crime rates.

JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES. VOL. 38, NO. 1, WINTER 2024. (pp. 181-200)

By Jonathan Hafetz

The U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay has long been synonymous with torture, secrecy, and the abuse of executive power. It has come to epitomize lawlessness and has sparked protracted legal battles and political debate. For too long, however, Guantánamo has been viewed in isolation and has overshadowed a larger, interconnected global detention system that includes other military prisons such as Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, secret CIA jails, and the transfer of prisoners to other countries for torture. Guantánamo is simply—and alarmingly—the most visible example of a much larger prison system designed to operate outside the law.

Habeas Corpus after 9/11 examines the rise of the U.S.-run global detention system that emerged after 9/11 and the efforts to challenge it through habeas corpus (a petition to appear in court to claim unlawful imprisonment). Habeas expert and litigator Jonathan Hafetz gives us an insider’s view of the detention of “enemy combatants” and an accessible explanation of the complex forces that keep these systems running.

In the age of terrorism, some argue that habeas corpus is impractical and unwise. Hafetz advocates that it remains the single most important check against arbitrary and unlawful detention, torture, and the abuse of executive power

New York; London: NYU Press, 2011. 331p.

BY ROGER J. R. LEVESQUE  

In the wake of the civil rights movement, the legal system dramatically changed its response to discrimination based on race, gender, and other characteristics. It is now showing signs of yet another dramatic shift, as it moves from considering difference to focusing on neutrality. Rather than seeking to counter subjugation through special protections for groups that have been historically (and currently) disadvantaged, the Court now adopts a “colorblind” approach. Equality now means treating everyone the same way.

This book explores these shifts and the research used to support civil rights claims, particularly relating to minority youths’ rights to equal treatment. It integrates developmental theory with work on legal equality and discrimination, showing both how the legal system can benefit from new research on development and how the legal system itself can work to address invidious discrimination given its significant influence on adolescents—especially those who are racial minorities—at a key stage in their developmental life.

Adolescents, Discrimination, and the Law articulates the need to address discrimination by recognizing and enlisting the law’s inculcative powers in multiple sites subject to legal regulation, ranging from families, schools, health and justice systems to religious and community groups. The legal system may champion ideals of neutrality in the goals it sets itself for treating individuals, but it cannot remain neutral in the values it supports and imparts. This volume shows that despite the shift to a focus on neutrality, the Court can and should effectively foster values supporting equality, especially among youth.

New York; London: New York University Press, 2015. 304p.

By Tuesday Reitano and Prem Mahadevan

This brief brings together key lessons emerging from GI-TOC research on the smuggling of migrants (SOM) between 2015-23. The research emphasises (1) The need to provide sufficient opportunities for legal migration (2) The importance of timing for enforcement-led responses (3) The adaptive nature of the smuggling industry, with route changes being implemented swiftly in response to seemingly formidable obstacles to population movement.

Hostility towards migrants has increased in the aftermath of COVID-19, however drivers of migration have intensified. Regional smuggling markets and routes are consolidating under influential poly-criminals, while governments crack down on smaller players. To counter this, state intervention efforts might consider prioritising the slowing, and ideally, the reversal of this consolidation. This would require a holistic approach that addresses migrant smuggling through development interventions, over solely concentrating on interdiction measures.

Policy implications

• Legal migration prospects offer a clear boundary between lawful and unlawful entry, facilitating prompt action for those not using established channels.

• Setting up humanitarian support infrastructure along smuggling routes could help mitigate power imbalances between migrants and smugglers

• Multilateral intelligence collection states with visa-free travel arrangements between them, could use tracking to detect criminal consolidation on key routes, enabling targeted interdiction and counter-action against smuggling networks.

• Differentiating between migrant smuggling networks: standalone operations vs. career criminal groups.

• Partnering with NGOs and CSOs could help map smuggling networks, as they often have access to migrant accounts.

• Strengthening of data collation capacity within law enforcement agencies could build up a longterm evidence base to curate policy responses.

Briefing Note 28

The Hague: Serious Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE), 2024. 10p.

Edited by Alejandra J Josiowicz, Irasema Coronado 

The Americas are witnessing an era of unprecedented human mobility. With their families or unaccompanied, children are part of this immense movement of people. Children Crossing Borders explores the different meanings of the lives of borderland children in the Americas. It addresses migrant children’s struggle to build a sense of belonging while they confront racism and estrangement on a daily basis.

Unified in their common interest in the well-being of children, the contributors bring an unrivaled breadth of experience and research to offer a transnational, multidimensional, and multilayered look at migrant childhoods in Latin America. Organized around three main themes—educational experiences; literature, art and culture, and media depictions; and the principle of the “best interest of the child”—this work offers both theoretical and practical approaches to the complexity of migrant childhood. The essays discuss family and school lives, children’s experience as wage laborers, and the legislation and policies that affect migrants.

This volume draws much-needed attention to the plight of migrant children and their families, illuminating the human and emotional toll that children experience as they crisscross the Americas. Exploring the connections between education, policy, cultural studies, and anthropology, the essays in this volume navigate a space of transnational children’s rights central to Latin American life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2022. 255p.

By Deborah M. Weissman, Angelina Godoy,  Havan M. Clark

Immigration enforcement has long served as an indicator of the prevailing visceral fears and loathing toward the Other. The foreign is always suspect. Foreigners in great numbers are especially suspicious. These developments are historically tied to the conventions of colonialism, expanded as a function of foreign policy, and to be sure, ideology.' By the mid-2010s, the Global South was characterized as "shithole countries,"  populated by people who were terrorists, rapists, murderers, and corrupt drug dealers. According to former President  Donald J. Trump, immigrants "aren't people. The[y] are animals, further describing them as "bad  thugs and gang members."  These representations have shaped a retributive agenda and have served to create a structure with roots in federal policies and branches in localities throughout the country through which to expel noncitizens. Deportation is a legal concept about which much has been written.' But it is more complicated. For noncitizens, forced expulsion is a lived experience occurring in time and space-an act against the body, mostly black and brown bodies. In this Article, we part ways with the well-established narratives of deportation and the punishment/non-punishment paradigm to conceive of deportation not only as a legal concept, but as a physical act-the final act-that is, the culmination of the immigration enforcement dragnet.  The physical removal of persons from the United States requires a complex system comprised of aviation networks and their various components, airports and airplanes, hangars and flight crews, and an array of physical restraints to intimidate, punish, or subdue deportees.'" We examine this infrastructure to illuminate the circumstances of expulsion and the egregious rights violations often suffered by deportees-violations that are almost always hidden from public view. Part I examines the full dimensions of deportation as a legal concept whereby courts readily admit the harms of expulsion while simultaneously deny its character as a form of punishment." The courts' construction of deportation as a nonpunitive sanction to which a range of constitutional procedural safeguards are not applicable serves to conceal the violence that occurs and distracts from the physical abuse and maltreatment associated with the final act. The legal treatment of deportation elides what, as Jacqueline Rose has written, is conveyed by "the technical term for the returning of migrants to their country of origin [that] is 'refoulement' (to push back or repulse) which also happens to be the French word for the psychoanalytic concept of repression. Part II then describes deportation as an act by which the body is seized and ultimately transported to airports and boarded onto airplanes''-sites previously not considered in the scheme of the immigration removal system's apparatus." It describes the heretofore hidden machinery of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") Air's network of mass deportation and further describes the perils upon removal occasioned by ICE flights.' Part III examines the "legal" trajectories of forced expulsion. It demonstrates how hostility toward immigrants has given rise to an ever-expanding deportation apparatus by which growing numbers of immigrants, including those seeking shelter from persecution, are stripped of legal protections.  It chronicles the subversion of legal processes that result in a heightened risk of wrongful deportation and thus by which immigrants reach the point of the final act of removal." It also illuminates how the ICE Air machinery, which executes deportation orders arising within an unfair system, is complicit in the various legal violations by giving effect to such orders and further curtailing whatever rights remain at the moment of the final act of deportation  Part IV takes up concerns largely unaddressed in legal scholarship: the detailing of human rights abuses on airplanes and airports-sites that function as the terminal instrumentalities of banishment. It describes the physical and psychological abuses that deportees experience during the final act of removal to demonstrate the urgency of immigrant rights advocacy at these sites. It then identifies the violations of international human rights treaties committed by the United States.25 We do so mindful that invoking human rights law in an effort to reframe the discourse occurs at a time when the question of whether these norms have any relevancy in the United States is very much at issue.  The issue of the relevancy of human rights-or lack thereof-is not a new concern, to be sure. As Jack Goldsmith stated over two decades ago, "We can now better understand how and why the United States perpetuates the double standard. The explanation is not subtle. The United States declines to embrace international human rights law because it can."  However, as Part IV argues, immigrants' rights advocates have nonetheless seized on international norms that apply locally and globally to realize an expanded vision of justice when addressing the harms wrought by ICE Air's deportation machinery. The need to call attention to U.S. exceptionalism with regard to human rights requires that scholars and activists seek their implementation as a means to encourage a discourse of hope and an expectation of realization. Stated otherwise, "all theory must end in practice or come to nothing as theory."  Part V examines airports and airplanes as sites of resistance in the context of immigration federalism debates.  We build on the literature that has called attention to the importance of political geography and immigration devolution policies to underscore the importance of new forms of local activism as a means to assert immigrant rights. Even as growing numbers of localities craft policies to protect immigrants, forming a first wave of resistance to federal anti-immigrant policies, a second wave of subnational advocacy is emerging, seeking to contest both the mechanisms by which people are drawn into the system of immigration enforcement and the institutions which detain them. It is in this context that we identify the campaigns to disrupt the aviation deportation machinery, and the importance of focusing on the local as a means to ensure accountability for individuals whose human rights have been violated. Deportation is a term frequently associated with nativist sentiment and revulsion for those who appear foreign, as well as a type of "cleansing" as consequence of aggressive annexation of territory. 4 The efforts to accelerate the removal of noncitizens from the United States has reconfigured the historic narrative about the nation's relationship with immigration and immigrants. Concerns for the humanity of immigrants requires attention to all facets of the injustices of deportation, including the sites of the final act of removal. As we demonstrate, this may be accomplished through a variety of political and legal strategies designed to call attention to the ways that deportation violates the protection of rights that exist at the very local to the very global levels of law. Notwithstanding our descriptions and analyses of innovative and important anti-deportation campaigns to mitigate the deliberate infliction of human suffering on immigrants, we do not suggest that these strategies ensure success. In the face of the deportation dragnet machine and the aviation networks that are hidden from the public, it would be presumptuous to suggest victory. What this Article offers is a way of understanding and modeling new forms of resistance at sites previously overlooked-resistance that must stand in for the protection of rights until the structures of immigration laws and processes can be humanely reset.  

Hofstra Law Review Volume 49 Issue 2 Article 5 12-1-2021, 63 pages

By Emily Ryo and Ian Peacock

In the current era of intensified immigration enforcement and heightened risks of deportation even for long-term lawful permanent residents, citizenship has taken on a new meaning and greater importance. There is also growing evidence that citizenship denials in their various forms have become inextricably linked to immigration enforcement. Who is denied citizenship, why, and under what circumstances? This article begins to address these questions by developing a typology of citizen denials and providing an empirical overview of each type of citizenship denial. Taken together, the typology of citizenship denials and the accompanying empirical overview illustrate the close connection between immigration enforcement and citizenship rights in the United States

USC CLASS Research Paper No. CLASS19-31, USC Law Legal Studies Paper No. 19-31, 47 pages