Immigration @ AALS 2023: New Times, New Names

Registration is now open for the AALS annual conference. This year, it will be IN PERSON, if you can believe that, and in sunny San Diego, CA no less.

Your executive committee for the AALS section on immigration has worked up three panels for you:

• Wednesday, January 4, 2023: 3-4:40PM. New Voices in Immigration Law. This session will feature six WIPs. You'll soon get an email from me asking you to please come to this session and serve as a reader for one set of three WIPs. We've got an interesting balance of paper topics this year.

• •    GROUP ONE:
    
    • Nermeen Arastu and Qudsiya Naqui, Standing on Our Own Two Feet: Disability Justice as a Frame for Achieving Abolition and Dismantling Our Ableist Immigration System. Principal commentator: Daniel Morales
    • Jocelyn B. Cazares, Legalized Removals of Noncitizens Deemed to Have [In]Credible or [Un]Reasonable Fears: The Role of Discretion in the Review Process of Fear Determinations. Principal commentator: Jaya Ramji-Nogales
    • Richard H. Frankel, Restoring “Civil”ity in Immigration Proceedings. Principal commentator: Lenni Benson.

• •   GROUP TWO
    
    • Eunice Lee, Immigration in the Shadow of Death. Principal commentator: Angela Banks
    • Talia Peleg, The Dangers of ICE's Unrestrained Rearrest Power. Principal commentator: Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia
    • Carrie Rosenbaum, Arbitrary Arbitrariness Review. Principal commentator: Jayanth K. Krishnan

• Thursday, January 5, 2023: 8-9:30AM. Racism in Immigration Regulation. Our panelists are David Cook-Martín (University of Colorado, Boulder, Sociology), Kevin Johnson (UC Davis School of Law), Emily Ryo (USC Gould School of Law), and Claire Thomas (New York Law School). Karla McKanders (Vanderbilt Law School) will be the moderator. Do you need more than names? A little preview? Well, okay. If you insist.
  • Emily and Claire will be talking about their current projects that examine specific instances and effects of racism in immigration: Emily’s paper provides empirical evidence of racism in immigration enforcement proceeding results, and Claire’s focuses on the use of the concept of statelessness as a vehicle for racial discrimination.
  • Kevin will bring his career-long exploration of racism in immigration law, including recent work on the political climate that resulted in the Chinese Exclusion Act, to the table.
  • David is a professor of sociology and author of Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas—he will add a non-law perspective to the discussion.
  • Karla is currently working on a project that explores the role of racism in narratives about immigration law’s origins, which perfectly sets her up to weave the panel topics together.

• Thursday, January 5, 2023: 10-11:40AM. Leveraging Service Opportunities to Maximize Student Learning in Immigration Law. This panel will feature discussion amongst immprofs Kif Augustine-Adams, Lenni Benson, Richard Boswell, and Violeta Chapin, moderated by David Thronson.

We are excited about these programs and hope to see you all there.

-KitJ