By Doug Coulson

All judges legitimize their decisions in writing, but US Supreme Court justices depend on public acceptance to a unique degree. Previous studies of judicial opinions have explored rhetorical strategies that produce legitimacy, but none have examined the laudatory, even operatic, forms of writing Supreme Court justices have used to justify fundamental rights decisions. Doug Coulson demonstrates that such “judicial rhapsodies” are not an aberration but a central feature of judicial discourse.

First examining the classical origins of divisions between law and rhetoric, Coulson tracks what he calls an epideictic register—highly affective forms of expression that utilize hyperbole, amplification, and vocabularies of praise—through a surprising number of landmark Supreme Court opinions. Judicial Rhapsodies recovers and revalues these instances as significant to establishing and maintaining shared perspectives that form the basis for common experience and cooperation.

Amherst, MA: Amherst College Press, 2023. 285p.

By Mohamed Daghar

Summary: In September 2014 Kenya banned the exportation of labour to the Middle East because workers were being trafficked by criminal networks offering them jobs. This policy brief focuses on the criminals who continue to drive this market and examines attempts by the government and other stakeholders to outlaw the practice. While the measures in place are commendable, they are inadequate. Many gaps still enable criminals to continue operating in a lucrative, quasi-regulated market. The field study conducted revealed that human trafficking persists in Kenya. Key findings ∙ Kenyans trafficked to the Middle East are often exposed to inhumane conditions that many reports describe as ‘modern slavery’. ∙ Despite reforms intended to prevent this, the trafficking of Kenyans to the Middle East continues. ∙ Stakeholders approach the issue mainly as a human rights concern rather than as a humantrafficking crime. ∙ The interventions in place are inadequate and the exclusive focus on rights has diverted attention from the criminality involved. ∙ Reassessing the problem as human trafficking will shift attention to Kenya’s ability to both protect its workers abroad and combat transnational crime.

ENACT - Africa, 2020. 16p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

Edited by Jabari Asim

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “In the course of completing this book, I have on more than one occasion fielded well-intentioned queries regarding the progress of "Twelve Angry Men," although I have never burdened this project with such a broad and inaccurate title. I realize that misperceptions of this sort can be seen as illustrating the extent to which Reginald Rose's play has penetrated American imaginations, but they more likely result from people of various ethnicities quickly assuming that any black man's contribution to discussions of justice will inevitably be angry. It's ironic that no matter what subject is being addressed, convenient categorization becomes a trap that we black men must evade if we want to be heard, much less understood. Our fellow citizens' inability (or, in some cases, unwillingness) to recognize our true selves accompanies our struggle across widely disparate contexts. It is as easy to see us as angry as it is to assume that we are criminal-minded. While anger is certainly expressed in these pages, it is merely one of a host of responses, as varied and eloquent as the men who have written them….”

NY. Harper Collins. 2001. 185p.

By American Immigration Council

From the document: "The United States has broad authority to detain certain categories of migrants and others seeking humanitarian protection as their proceedings wind their way through the immigration legal system. This detention is 'civil' by definition (as opposed to criminal), meaning that it should not be punitive in nature. Despite this technical legal distinction, most immigration detention infrastructure is indistinguishable from the criminal detention context, in some instances using the same facilities and private corporations to operate detention centers and jails. [...] Alternatives to detention (ATDs) are defined as 'any legislation, policy or practice, formal or informal, that ensures people are not detained for reasons relating to their migration status. Alternatives to detention can refer to a wide range of programs that run the gamut from no governmental intervention to extensive surveillance and restrictions on liberties. Generally, alternatives to detention in the immigration context fall into the following categories: 1. Release on your own recognizance (i.e., no detention and no conditions on release)[;] 2. Release on conditions[;] 3. Release on bail/bond or other surety[;] 4. Community-based supervised release or case management[;] 5. Designated residence at a specific accommodation center[;] 6. Electronic tagging and/or tracking[;] 7. Home curfews[.]"

American Immigration Council. 2023. 10p.

By John Ketcham and Daniel Di Martino

Since the summer of 2022, more than 70,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City, stretching public resources to their limit. The massive influx has been particularly challenging given the city’s “right to shelter,” the result of a 1979 lawsuit, Callahan v. Carey, and corresponding consent decree, which required the city to provide immediate shelter to those who request it, regardless of the number of applicants or the availability of resources. In order to comply with this requirement, the city has housed some 40,000 migrants in shelters—which has led to an approximately 70% spike in the shelter population in a single year. NYC is currently supporting more than 170 emergency shelters and 10 additional large-scale humanitarian relief centers. Shelters and relief centers simply cannot house all the newly arrived migrants, which has forced the city to procure approximately 4,500 hotel rooms in unionized facilities, often through expensive contracts …

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2023. 19p.

By Adam Isacson, Ana Lucia Verduzco, and Maureen Meyer

Over 10 days in late April and early May 2023, a team of researchers from the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) visited Honduras to examine the challenges of migration at a historic moment of human mobility in the Americas. We wanted to understand international migration through Honduras, which grew quickly from a trickle to a torrent after migration through Panama’s treacherous Darién Gap region began on a large scale in 2021. WOLA and other groups have examined the migration phenomenon in the U.S.-Mexico and Mexico-Guatemala border regions, and other organizations have looked at the DariÈn Gap. The situation of migrants crossing Honduras, however, has received very little attention….

Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), 2023. 29p.

By Ana María Ibáñez, Sandra V. Rozo and Dany Bahar

Do undocumented migrants change their propensity to report or commit a crime after receiving a regular migratory status? This paper studies a massive amnesty program that gave regular migratory status to over 281,000 undocumented Venezuelan migrants in Colombia. Findings suggest that the amnesty did not result in more crimes committed by Venezuelan migrants, only an increase in the number of crimes they reported. Results are very strong for reports of domestic violence and sex crimes and are almost entirely driven by Venezuelan women, suggesting that empowerment is an important mechanism underlying the behavior change.

Policy Research Working Paper 9833. New York: The World Bank, 2021. 48p.

By Thomas Pearson

This dissertation consists of three chapters concerning migration and immigration policy. The first chapter studies how increased U.S. deportations affect Mexican labor markets using variation in migrant networks and Secure Communities (SC), a policy which expanded local immigration enforcement. I show that in the short run, deportations increase return migration and decrease monthly earnings for local Mexicans with less than a high school degree. Deportations also increase net outflows within Mexico and emigration to the U.S. The negative short run effects are not driven by falls in remittance income or increases in crime as deportations increase both the share of households receiving remittances and the total amount received and they do not affect homicide rates. The results instead point to increased labor market competition as a result of return migration. Lastly, I show that the negative short run effects of this labor supply shock are larger in localities with worse infrastructure and less access to the financial sector. These results help explain the large negative effects on earnings as many migrants return to less developed regions where these frictions are prevalent. The second chapter studies how immigration status affects crime reporting and victimization. I focus on Deferred Action for Early Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a policy that temporarily protects youth from deportation and provides work authorization. For identification, I compare likely undocumented immigrants around the policy's age eligibility cut-off over time. DACA eligibility of the victim increased the likelihood that the crime was reported to the police, which is consistent with DACA reducing fears of deportation. DACA eligibility also decreased victimization rates for women. Overall, the results suggest that immigrant legalization increases engagement with police and reduces the likelihood of victimization. …

Boston: Boston University, 2022. 255p.

By Rakib Ehsan

This paper argues that the ongoing small-boats emergency on the English south coast involves two injustices – a dysfunctional asylum system which is overburdened as a result of illegal unauthorised migration and increasingly leaves some of the world’s most persecuted peoples by the wayside, along with the unfairness of the UK’s most deprived local authorities disproportionately bearing the load of accommodating such arrivals. The report issues a stark warning over the mounting costs of the small-boats emergency and the risk of it fuelling public resentment – especially in post-industrial areas and left-behind coastal towns. The mid-estimate of hotel accommodation alone – at £2.2bn – exceeds the entirety of the Government funding allocated for Round 2 of the Levelling Up Fund (£2.1 billion) and is three and a half times the £630 million government investment to tackle homelessness in the UK.Recommendations include the introduction of an annual cap on refugees which is democratically determined by the UK Parliament and prioritises women and children in conflict-affected territories and insecure displacement camps. The report also calls for the curbing of the power of judicial interventions – both foreign and domestic – which is thwarting the UK Government’s efforts to tackle the small-boats emergency.

London: Policy Exchange, 2023. 58p.

By Priscilla Solano https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7636-385priscilla.solano@soc.lu.sand Douglas S. Massey

Drawing on the concept of a “complex humanitarian crisis,” this paper describes how outflows of migrants from Central America were transformed into such a crisis by intransigent immigration and border policies enacted in both Mexico and the United States. We describe the origins of the migration in U.S. Cold War interventions that created many thousands of displaced people fleeing violence and economic degradation in the region, leading to a sustained process of undocumented migration to the United States. Owing to rising levels of gang violence and weather events associated with climate change, the number of people seeking to escape threats in Central America has multiplied and unauthorized migration through Mexico toward the United States has increased. However, the securitization of migration in both Mexico and the United States has blocked these migrants from exercising their right to petition for asylum, creating a growing backlog of migrants who are subject to human rights violations and predations both by criminals and government authorities, leading migrants to label Mexican routes northward as a “corridor of death.” We draw on data from annual reports of Mexico's Red de Documentación de las Organizaciones Defensoras de Migrantes (Network for the Documentation of Migrant Defense Organizations) to construct a statistical profile of transit migrants and the threats they face as reported by humanitarian actors in Mexico. These reports allow us to better understand the practical realities of the “complex humanitarian crisis” facing undocumented migrants, both as unauthorized border crossers and as transit migrants moving between the southern frontiers of Mexico and the United States.

Journal on Migration and Human SecurityVolume 10, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 147-172

By Isabel Gil-Everaert https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6426-2igil@colmex.mx, Claudia Masferrer, and Oscar Rodríguez Chávez

This paper explores the ways in which contemporary mobility dynamics in Mexico have changed over the last decade, leading to protracted displacement. It focuses on three populations: (1) the internally displaced due to violence; (2) Mexican nationals returning from the United States, both voluntarily and due to deportation; and (3) populations seeking asylum in Mexico and the United States. These three populations are not usually analyzed together and do not squarely fall under the traditional legal definitions. The paper outlines ways that situations of protracted displacement and insecurity present challenges in four interconnected arenas of life: housing, legal status, employment, and emotional well-being. For governments and local communities, protracted displacement requires immediate humanitarian responses and the development and implementation of public policies focused on integration. The paper concludes with a set of policy recommendations based on its findings.

Journal on Migration and Human SecurityVolume 11, Issue 1, March 2023, Pages 125-148

By The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General

We conducted this evaluation to review CBP’s screening process of a suspected terrorist and the timing of ICE’s subsequent arrest following the suspected terrorist’s release into the United States. What We Recommend - We made three recommendations to ensure CBP effectively resolves inconclusive Terrorist Watchlist matches and ICE has immediate access to Global Positioning System data relevant to its law enforcement operations.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2023. 24p.

By René Leyva-Flores , Cesar Infante , Juan Pablo Gutierrez , Frida Quintino-Perez , MariaJose Gómez-Saldivar , Cristian Torres-Robles

Objectives: The objectives of the study are to 1) estimate the burden of physical, sexual, and psychological violence among migrants in transit through Mexico to the US; and 2) examine the associations between experiencing violence and sociodemographic characteristics, migratory background, and health status in this vulnerable population.

Results: The overall prevalence of suffering from any form of violence was 29.4%. Nearly 24% reported physical violence, 19.5% experienced psychological violence, and approximately 2% reported sexual violence. TTTs experienced a significantly greater burden of violence compared to men and women. Violence occurred more frequently among migrants from Central America (30.6%) and other countries (40.0%) than it did among Mexican migrants (20.5%). Experiences involving sexual, physical and psychological violence as well as theft and even kidnapping were described by interviewees. Migrants mistrust the police, migration authorities, and armed forces, and therefore commonly refrain from revealing their experiences.

Conclusion: Migrants are subjected to a high level of violence while in transit to the US. Those traveling under irregular migratory conditions are targets of even greater violence, a condition exacerbated by gender inequality. Migrants transiting through Mexico from Central American and other countries undergo violence more frequently than do Mexican migrants. Protective measures are urgently needed to ensure the human rights of these populations.

PLoS One. . 2019 Aug 21;14(8):e0220775.

By International Organization for Migration and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University.

Despite efforts, large numbers of children continue to fall victim to traffickers worldwide, due to inequitable social, economic, environmental and political factors that engender exploitative and discriminatory practices. A critical component of countering trafficking is reliable and up-to-date data, to empirically ground interventions, though actionable data are limited, and child victims are typically hard to reach. This report, based on analysis of extensive, globally sourced data, is the first of its kind and analyses primary data from more than 69,000 victims of trafficking of 156 nationalities, trafficked in 186 countries, who registered with IOM in its 113 countries of operation, using the IOM Victims of Trafficking Database (VoTD) - the largest available international database of individual victims of trafficking.

International Organization for Migration and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. 2023. 88p.

By Yvon Dandurand, Darryl Plecas, John Winterdyk and Vivienne Chin

The International Centre for Criminal Law Reform (ICCLR) conducted a qualitative survey and analysis of the types of services and supports most needed by survivors of labour and sex trafficking, including the perceived usefulness and effectiveness of these services. The study also examined service delivery models, source of referrals, models of inter-agency collaboration, and accessibility of relevant services in British Columbia and Alberta for meeting the needs of labour and sex trafficking survivors (including those at risk of or are currently being trafficked). Previous research has revealed a lot about the needs of victims and survivors of human trafficking and their difficulty in accessing relevant services. Their needs are multiple and complex, but, by now, they are well known. These needs include health care (including mental health and in some cases addiction treatment), legal, financial (immediate and longer-term), protection (e.g., safe houses), housing, emotional and psychological support, connection with the justice system, and in the case of survivors of transnational trafficking, translation, assistance with respect to their immigration status, communication with home and repatriation, travel assistance, etc. The needs of trafficked survivors are not uniform and are contextualized by the purpose for which they are trafficked, particularly such as those for sexual exploitation or labour exploitation. The needs are also different for Canadian and foreign victims. There are also gender-based differences in the needs of survivors. Finally, survivors of human trafficking require during the criminal justice process when they are involved as witnesses for law enforcement and the prosecution.

Vancouver, BC : International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy, 2023. 72p.

By Digidiki, V., J. Bhabha, K. Connors, H. Cook, C. Galez-Davis, C. Hansen, M. Lane, S. Laursen, and L. Wong,  The International Organization for Migration and the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University.

Despite efforts, large numbers of children continue to fall victim to traffickers worldwide, due to inequitable social, economic, environmental and political factors that engender exploitative and discriminatory practices. A critical component of countering trafficking is reliable and up-to-date data, to empirically ground interventions, though actionable data are limited, and child victims are typically hard to reach. This report, based on analysis of extensive, globally sourced data, is the first of its kind and analyses primary data from more than 69,000 victims of trafficking of 156 nationalities, trafficked in 186 countries, who registered with IOM in its 113 countries of operation, using the IOM Victims of Trafficking Database (VoTD) - the largest available international database of individual victims of trafficking.

The report shows that child trafficking is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon that continues to spread and evolve within and across borders. No age range, no gender and no nationality are immune to child trafficking; it is a truly global phenomenon. However, the study provides evidence of important trends and dynamics, linked to factors such as age, gender and geography, that help further our understanding of the phenomenon, with the potential to inform policy and programming.

Geneva: IOM, 2023. 88p.

By Rebecca Nhep, Kate van Doore

  Orphanage trafficking refers to the process of children being transferred or recruited into orphanages for the purpose of exploitation and profit. Whilst much work is being done on strengthening child protection systems and deinstitutionalisation, orphanage trafficking as a driver of institutionalisation remains under researched despite being an issue that heavily impacts upon the ongoing institutionalisation of children. In some countries, an ‘orphanage industry’ has even emerged due to the high levels of tourist, volunteer and foreign donor interest in assisting orphaned children. As the first project of its kind in the world, this study assesses the legal, policy and procedural frameworks in both domestic and international law across Nepal, Uganda and Cambodia, where orphanage trafficking continues to undermine domestic efforts to stem the overuse of institutionalisation of children.

Brisbane: Griffith University, 2021. 66p.

By Rebecca L. Feldmann

An inherent tension underlies the duty to prevent trafficking. On the one hand, nation-states are required to take border control measures aimed at preventing trafficking. At the same time, such measures must respect international obligations toward asylum-seekers and other migrants relating to the free movement of people. In the past twenty years, countries such as the United States have developed increasingly sophisticated systems designed to regulate and restrict the movement of people across borders. However, the same period has seen an increasing disregard for the human rights of the very people who are crossing those borders. In order to fully meet the duty to prevent trafficking, states must come to recognize the importance of involving victims of this crime in the solution, which will never happen if countries demonize all migrants as criminals and traffickers. In short, states that seek to lead the fight against human trafficking need to work with victims (including foreign national victims in the state’s territory) and other partners (such as non-governmental organizations and victims’ attorneys) to ensure that their rhetoric more closely matches reality.

Utah Law Review, 659 (2023)

By Lucia Bird

Governments need to ensure responses to migration and human smuggling don’t make it more dangerous for migrants and more lucrative for criminals. Mobility has been a key facet of resilience across much of the African continent throughout its history, and those on the move have long relied on the support of smugglers to facilitate the journey. However, the birth of the modern migrant smuggling industry as a multi-million global business is much more recent, as is the perception of the migrant smuggler as a highly organised criminal figure.

ENACT Africa, 2021. 88p.

by Joe Eyerman, Melissa M. Labriola, Bella González

Reducing the prevalence of all forms of human trafficking, including sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and child sexual exploitation, is a national priority that puts the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a prominent role. Given the scale, evolving nature, and complexity of labor trafficking, combating the problem poses a significant challenge. The DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) anti–human trafficking program is assessing the current state of and future needs for labor trafficking research in the United States. This effort will serve as a starting point for future social science–based S&T anti–human trafficking research and actions focused on labor trafficking.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2023.