Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont), the sponsor of a bill in the California legislature, thinks jury service would help advance the assimilation of immigrants by exposing them to an important civic process. Ben Boychuk, at City Journal, doesn’t agree, quoting political scientist Edward Erler: “The idea that legal immigrants can learn to become citizens through jury service is a dangerous experiment on the liberties of American citizens.”
Tagged as:
California,
immigration law,
juries
An immigration judge has ruled that the British government cannot deport convicted drug dealer Hesham Ali, who has never been in the country legally, because he has a girlfriend and making him leave would therefore violate his “right to family life” under the Human Rights Act [Telegraph]:
He convinced a judge he had a “family life” which had to be respected because he had a “genuine” relationship with a British woman – despite already having two children by different women with whom he now has no contact.
Ali also mounted an extraordinary claim that his life would be in danger in his native Iraq because he was covered in tattoos, including a half-naked Western woman – a claim which was only dismissed after exhaustive legal examination.
Meanwhile, Ted Frank argues that the case of the Tsarnaev family points up the longstanding problem of dubious or fraudulent asylum claims [Point of Law]
Tagged as:
asylum law,
immigration law,
international human rights,
United Kingdom
Once again a court has struck down an overreaching Obama administration regulation. This time it was the Eleventh Circuit that dismissed as “absurd” a Department of Labor rationale for asserting its regulatory authority over the H-2B guestworker program. I’ve got more details at Cato at Liberty.
Tagged as:
administrative law,
immigration law
- Federal taxpayers via National Cancer Institute grant dished out more than a million dollars to pay for laughable conspiracy-theory report smearing Tea Party [Hans Bader, more, Jacob Sullum on report from Stanton Glantz, whom we've often met before] “Rather than [being] a spontaneous popular phenomenon, opposition to the tea parties was nurtured by the government.” [@RameshPonnuru]
- Ken on why the relentless overuse of the epithet “bullying” gets on his (and my) nerves [Popehat; Clark at Popehat on New York police chiefs who feel bullied because someone won't sell them guns]
- On immigration, advocates of liberty can’t afford to ignore the future-polity angle [Eugene Volokh; Ilya Somin with a response]
- More on that wretched State of the Union retread, the Paycheck Fairness Act [Hans Bader, Ted Frank, 2009 DoL study, earlier here, here, here, here, here, etc.] Other dud SOTU ideas: federally paid universal preschool [Andrew Coulson, related, more, related on minority kids' results, yet more, Neal McCluskey on public infant care, Tyler Cowen] minimum wage hike [Chris Edwards, Veronique de Rugy]
- Woman sues fitness club over “sexually suggestive” exercises [CBS Dallas]
- Silent witness: undeveloped state of law, police, insurance contribute to widespread Russian use of dashboard cams [WaPo]
- Would-be assassin came dressed as postman: Danish free-speech advocate Lars Hedegaard interviewed [Spectator]
Tagged as:
bullying,
Denmark,
guns,
immigration law,
Russia,
traffic laws
Among the trip-ups are that lawyers are sworn by oath to uphold the laws of the land; that federal law bars the granting of state professional licenses to illegals; that federal law makes it unlawful to offer employment to them; and that clients might find themselves in a pickle were their attorneys whisked away on zero notice to face deporation. Nonetheless, the California Bar is pressing ahead with its recommendation of Sergio C. Garcia, 35, of Chico. [ABA Journal, Howard Bashman roundup, Bookworm Room]
Tagged as:
bar associations,
California,
immigration law,
lawyers
- U.N. rapporteur lectures U.S. on Indian rights, calls for “some form of land restoration” [IPSNews] “So, the UN Wants the U.S. to Return Land to Indian Tribes…” [Claudia Rosett] In Chapters 10 and 11 of Schools for Misrule, I discuss the growing cooperation between Indian land-claim activists in this country and international organizations both within and without of the U.N. system. (More: I expand theme into a Daily Caller piece).
- “Union Uses NAFTA To Fight Alabama Immigration Law” [Sean Higgins, IBD]
- “UN hunger expert investigates Canada” [Hillel Neuer, National Post]“Everyone’s grievances can thus be transformed into human rights violations” [Jacob Mchangama and Aaron Rhodes, Freedom Rights Project, PDF]
- Admittedly, at a “lefty Quaker school in the Northeast”: “You know international law is getting some traction when your fourth-grader is being taught about the Convention on the Rights of the Child.” [Peter Spiro, OJ]
- New Third Circuit opinion in remanded U.S. v. Bond case, which tested limits of treaty power, could tee up issue for another SCOTUS outing [Spiro/OJ, FedSoc Blog, Liberty and Law; earlier]
- “Canada’s Much Better and Very Different Alien Tort Statute” [Ku/OJ]
- Implementation of United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) could draw inspiration from U.S. experience with institutional reform lawsuits [Michael Perlin via Bagenstos]
Tagged as:
Alien Tort Claims Act,
Canada,
child,
disabled rights,
immigration law,
Indian tribes,
international human rights,
international law
- “A new target for tech patent trolls: cash-strapped American cities” [Joe Mullin, Ars Technica] Crowdsourcing troll control [Farhad Manjoo, Slate] “Why patent trolls don’t need valid patents” [Felix Salmon] “Why Hayek Would Have Hated Software Patents” [Timothy Lee, Cato] Et tu, Shoah Foundation? [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- Cory King case: “Not Everything Can Be a Federal Crime” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- “Ban on smoking in cars with young children clears Md. Senate” [WaPo]
- On religious exemption to birth control mandate, NYT wrestles with unwelcome poll numbers [Mickey Kaus]
- “Undocumented Law Grad Can’t Get Driver’s License, But Hopes for Fla. Supreme Court OK of Law License” [ABA Journal]
- Department of Justice launches campaign against racial disparities in school discipline [Jason Riley, WSJ via Amy Alkon]
- James Gattuso and Diane Katz, “Red Tape Rising: Obama-Era Regulation at the Three-Year Mark” [Heritage]
Tagged as:
immigration law,
patent trolls,
regulation and its reform,
school discipline,
smoking bans
- California’s Prop 65 and the numbness of overwarning [Tung Yin via Bainbridge]
- Time to kill off medical-method patents [Alex Tabarrok, Medical Progress Today]
- Spite decoration: “Gretna fence squabble continues in bitter fashion” [NOLA.com, Louisiana]
- “The Problem With Immigration Lawyers and How to Fix It” [Dzubow/Asylumist via Legal Ethics Forum]
- “Are NYC transit bus drivers prevented from calling police?” [Turkewitz]
- “Circumvention tourism” is travel intended to sidestep medical regulation [Glenn Cohen, Prawfs]
- Abolition of wasteful, arrogant California redevelopment agencies has Tim Cavanaugh ready to kiss a nurse in Times Square [Reason, similarly Gideon Kanner and Steven Greenhut]
Tagged as:
California,
eminent domain,
immigration law,
NYC,
patent quality,
Prop 65
A New Yorker writer sympathetically if uneasily profiles one of the many who choose to pursue legal immigrant status (with lawyers’ help) by petitioning for asylum on the basis of made-up atrocity stories. “‘I have never been raped,’ she admitted, giggling with embarrassment… ‘Telling that story makes me sad, because I know it’s true for someone.’” But not necessarily true for most of those in her position: “There’s one [a story] for each country,” explains a lawyer. “There’s the Colombian rape story — they all say they were raped by the FARC. There’s the Rwandan rape story, the Tibetan refugee story. The details for each are the same.” [Suketu Mehta, "The Asylum Seeker: For a chance at a better life, it helps to make your bad story worse," New Yorker](& Legal Ethics Forum)
Tagged as:
immigration law,
perjury
A. G. Sulzberger quotes me in yesterday’s New York Times on the wave of court challenges that has met legislation in state capitals on immigration, abortion, financing for Planned Parenthood, and other hot topics. Federal judges have recently issued injunctions blocking part or all of controversial state enactments on all these topics.
Tagged as:
immigration law,
New York Times
A front-page story in the New York Times details how some immigration middlemen engage in systematic coaching of false persecution stories. “West Africans claim genital mutilation or harm from the latest political violence. Albanians and immigrants from other Balkan countries claim they fear ethnic cleansing. Chinese invoke the one-child policy or persecution of Christians, Venezuelans cite their opposition to the ruling party, and Russians describe attacks against gay people. Iraqis and Afghans can cite fear of retaliation by Islamic extremists.”
Tagged as:
immigration law
- Jury rejects Jamie Leigh Jones rape claim against Halliburton/KBR. Next, a round of apologies from naive commentators and some who used the case to advance anti-arbitration talking points? [WSJ; Ted Frank/PoL and more; WSJ Law Blog (plaintiff's lawyers sought shoot-the-moon damages)]
- Time magazine vs. James Madison on constitutional law (spoiler: Madison wins) [Foster Friess via Ira Stoll]
- Andrew Trask reviews new Curtis Wilkie book on the Dickie Scruggs scandal;
- “Right to family life” evolution in human rights law deters UK authorities from deporting various bad actors [Telegraph]
- Paging Benjamin Barton: How discovery rules enrich the legal profession at the expense of the social good [PoL]
- USDA heeds politics, not science, on genetic crops [Henry Miller/Gregory Conko, PDF, Cato Institute Regulation]
- “Legal Questions Raised by Success of Monkey Photographer” [Lowering the Bar]
Tagged as:
agriculture and farming,
arbitration,
constitutional law,
Dickie Scruggs,
discovery,
immigration law,
international human rights,
United Kingdom
