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At Home in Two Countries: The Past and Future of Dual Citizenship

Peter J. Spiro

Although commonplace today, dual citizenship was once considered an abnormality, or even an abomination. Yet by the last decades of the twentieth century, perhaps fueled by the civil rights movement ... More

Although commonplace today, dual citizenship was once considered an abnormality, or even an abomination. Yet by the last decades of the twentieth century, perhaps fueled by the civil rights movement in America as well as worldwide liberation movements, a global emphasis on human rights helped chip away the stigma traditionally attached to dual citizenship. At Home in Two Countries charts the history of dual citizenship in America from strong disfavor to general acceptance. The status has touched many; there are few Americans who do not have someone in their past or present who has held the status, if only unknowingly. The history reflects on the course of the state as an institution at the level of the individual. The state was once a jealous institution, justifiably demanding an exclusive relationship with its members. Today, the state lacks both the capacity and the incentive to suppress the status as citizenship becomes more like other forms of membership. Dual citizenship allows many to formalize sentimental attachments. For others, it’s a new way to game the international system. This book explains why dual citizenship was once so reviled, why it is a fact of life after globalization, and why it should be embraced today.Less

At Liberty to Die: The Battle for Death with Dignity in America

Howard Ball

Over the past hundred years, average life expectancy in America has nearly doubled. Yet while longevity is celebrated as an achievement in modern civilization, the longer people live, the more likely ... More

Over the past hundred years, average life expectancy in America has nearly doubled. Yet while longevity is celebrated as an achievement in modern civilization, the longer people live, the more likely they are to succumb to chronic, terminal illnesses. In 1900, the average life expectancy was forty-seven years, with a majority of American deaths attributed to influenza, tuberculosis, pneumonia, or other diseases. In 2000, the average life expectancy was nearly eighty years, and for too many people, these long lifespans included cancer, heart failure, Lou Gehrig's disease, AIDS, or other fatal illnesses, and with them, came debilitating pain and the loss of a once-full and often independent lifestyle. This book poses the pressing question: is it appropriate, legally and ethically, for a competent individual to have the liberty to decide how and when to die when faced with a terminal illness? The book charts how the right of a competent, terminally ill person to die on his or her own terms with the help of a doctor has come deeply embroiled in debates about the relationship between religion, civil liberties, politics, and law in American life. Exploring both the legal rulings and the media frenzies that accompanied the Terry Schiavo case and others like it, the book contends that despite raging battles in all the states where right to die legislation has been proposed, the opposition to the right to die is intractable in its stance.Less

Beyond Deportation: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases

Shoba Wadhia

When Beatles star John Lennon faced deportation from the U.S. in the 1970s, his lawyer, Leon Wildes, made a groundbreaking argument. He argued that Lennon should be granted “nonpriority” status ... More

When Beatles star John Lennon faced deportation from the U.S. in the 1970s, his lawyer, Leon Wildes, made a groundbreaking argument. He argued that Lennon should be granted “nonpriority” status pursuant to the prosecutorial discretion policy of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)—a policy maintained by the INS’s successor, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In U.S. immigration law, the relevant federal agency exercises prosecutorial discretion favorably when it refrains from enforcing the full scope of the law against one or more persons. A prosecutorial discretion grant is important to an agency seeking to focus on the “truly dangerous,” conserve resources, and enforce immigration law with compassion. The Lennon case marked the first moment that the immigration agency’s prosecutorial discretion policy became public knowledge. Today, the concept of prosecutorial discretion is more widely known in light of the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a record number of deportations, and the stalemate in Congress over immigration reform. This is the first book to comprehensively describe the history, theory, and application of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law, unveiling the powerful role it plays in protecting individuals from deportation and conserving government resources. Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia draws on her experience as an immigration attorney, policy leader, and law professor to advocate for bolder standards of prosecutorial discretion, greater mechanisms for accountability when such standards are ignored, improved transparency about the cases involving prosecutorial discretion, and recognition of “deferred action” in the law as a formal benefit.Less

Getting in the Game: Title IX and the Women's Sports Revolution

Deborah L. Brake

In this first legal analysis of Title IX, the book assesses the statute's successes and failures, using a feminist theory lens to understand, defend, and critique the law. While the statute has ... More

In this first legal analysis of Title IX, the book assesses the statute's successes and failures, using a feminist theory lens to understand, defend, and critique the law. While the statute has created tremendous gains for female athletes, not only raising the visibility and cultural acceptance of women in sports, but also creating social bonds for women, positive body images, and leadership roles, the disparities in funding between men's and women's sports have remained remarkably resilient. At the same time, female athletes continue to receive less prestige and support than their male counterparts, which in turn filters into the arena of professional sports. The book provides a richer understanding and appreciation of what Title IX has accomplished, while taking a critical look at the places where the law has fallen short. The book fully explores the theory, policy choices, and successes and limitations of this historic law.Less

Intersexuality and the Law: Why Sex Matters

Julie A. Greenberg

The term “intersex” evokes diverse images, typically of people who are both male and female or neither male nor female. Neither vision is accurate. The millions of people with an intersex condition, ... More

The term “intersex” evokes diverse images, typically of people who are both male and female or neither male nor female. Neither vision is accurate. The millions of people with an intersex condition, or disorder of sex development, are men or women whose sex chromosomes, gonads, or sex anatomy do not fit clearly into the male/female binary norm. Until recently, intersex conditions were shrouded in shame and secrecy: many adults were unaware that they had been born with an intersex condition and those who did know were advised to hide the truth. Current medical protocols and societal treatment of people with an intersex condition are based upon false stereotypes about sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability, which create unique challenges to framing effective legal claims and building a strong cohesive movement. This book examines the role that legal institutions can play in protecting the rights of people with an intersex condition. It explores the relationship between the intersex movement and other social justice movements that have effectively utilized legal strategies to challenge similar discriminatory practices. The book discusses the feasibility of forming effective alliances and developing mutually beneficial legal arguments with feminists, LGBT organizations, and disability rights advocates to eradicate the discrimination suffered by these marginalized groups.Less

Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination

Tanya Katerí Hernández

Commanding greater public attention is the idea that discrimination against multiracial (racially-mixed) people is a distinctive challenge to the enforcement of civil rights law. This perspective is ... More

Commanding greater public attention is the idea that discrimination against multiracial (racially-mixed) people is a distinctive challenge to the enforcement of civil rights law. This perspective is based upon the belief that multiracials experience racial discrimination in a unique manner that makes it necessary to reformulate traditional civil rights law. Multiracials and Civil Rights, based upon a close examination of many multiracial discrimination legal cases in a variety of equality law contexts, demonstrates the fallacy and danger of that conjecture. The book elucidates the distinction between the presumed exceptional space that multiracial persons are rhetorically imagined to occupy in the public discourse, and the binary non-white versus white realities they actually experience when targeted for discrimination. Rather than point to a need for a shift away from the existing civil rights laws, the cases instead indicate the need for further support of the current structures. The book concludes that multiracial discrimination cases are helpful in highlighting the continued need for attention to white supremacy and for fortifying the focus of civil rights law on racial privilege and the lingering legacy of bias against non-whites.Less

No Undocumented Child Left Behind: Plyler v. Doe and the Education of Undocumented Schoolchildren

Michael A. Olivas

This book examines the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case of Plyler v. Doe. This decision resolved the issue of whether or not state laws could restrict the educational opportunities of immigrant ... More

This book examines the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case of Plyler v. Doe. This decision resolved the issue of whether or not state laws could restrict the educational opportunities of immigrant schoolchildren without legal status by denying them permission to enroll or requiring them to pay tuition. The Court determined that states and school districts could not do so without violating the doctrine of equal protection. This case has loomed larger in educational policy as the population of undocumented students has grown and as they graduate from secondary schools and attend colleges in increasing numbers.Less

Racial Reconciliation and the Healing of a Nation: Beyond Law and Rights

Austin Sarat

Charles J. Ogletree (ed.)

Racial Reconciliation and the Healing of a Nation: Beyond Law and Rights is a collection of works that invites readers to think beyond law and rights and to examine the social, political, cultural, ... More

Racial Reconciliation and the Healing of a Nation: Beyond Law and Rights is a collection of works that invites readers to think beyond law and rights and to examine the social, political, cultural, and psychological factors that fuel racial antagonism as well as other factors that might facilitate racial reconciliation. In doing so, this work offers varying ideas about the meaning of racial reconciliation and differing visions of what it would look like were it to be achieved. In those ideas and visions it calls attention to questions of power and the limits of the nation state. The work offers both a critical analysis of the barriers to progress and an examination of strategies beyond law and rights for moving America down the road toward racial reconciliation.Less

Revoking Citizenship: Expatriation in America from the Colonial Era to the War on Terror

Ben Herzog

Revoking citizenship has been an official part of American policy since the end of the nineteenth century. This book sheds light on the current state practice by looking at its transformation in the ... More

Revoking citizenship has been an official part of American policy since the end of the nineteenth century. This book sheds light on the current state practice by looking at its transformation in the United States from the colonial era to the War on Terror. Not limited to a legal studies perspective, it also places the revocation of citizenship within the framework of historical sociology. An examination is conducted of the laws and legal procedures involved in the revocation of citizenship, which include statutory bills, acts, and relevant constitutional amendments, proposed and legislated; court opinions, proceedings, and protocols of commissions regarding the loss of citizenship; and international and bilateral treaties. Consular correspondence, debates within the Department of State, and statistical data regarding the implementation of citizenship-revocation measures are examined, as well. The study of the revocation of citizenship simultaneously gives information about topical events and provides insight into the nature of rights in general in the modern world. The chapter shows that expatriation policy is an attempt to regulate and enforce the national world order. According to the national logic, national allegiance should be exclusive to a single nation-state, and multiple citizenships should not be allowed. The practice of taking away citizenship was introduced largely to eliminate dual citizenship, which poses a great challenge to the national logic that assumes full loyalty to one’s nation-state.Less

Run For the Border: Vice and Virtue in U.S.-Mexico Border Crossings

Steven W. Bender

Run for the Border offers a framework for a truly comprehensive border policy informed by the history of the last 150 yearsof border crossings in both directions. Although Congress has debated ... More

Run for the Border offers a framework for a truly comprehensive border policy informed by the history of the last 150 yearsof border crossings in both directions. Although Congress has debated so-called comprehensive immigration reform proposals for years, those proposals emphasize border security to prevent crossings by stereotypically menacing Mexicans headed north. The United States tends to approach reform unilaterally without engaging Mexico and other feeder countries to examine the economic factors that lure immigrants across a border separating a rich country from a poor one. This study envisions a more sweeping and compassionate border policy, informed in particular by the motivations of border crossings in both directions over the last century and a half. Viewed through this lens, a strong argument is made that Mexican migrant laborers are the most meritorious of border crossers in either direction, and that their crossings should be celebrated for contributing to U.S. labor markets and renewing the American dream that hard labor brings prosperity. At the other end of the spectrum, certain crossings harm both countries, particularly the trafficking of methamphetamines to supply U.S. users, trafficking children into the United States for sexual slavery, and fugitives crossing the border into Mexico to escape justice. Articulating a harm reduction agenda, the comprehensive border policy articulated here targets the crossings most damaging to the residents and ideals of the United States and Mexico after stripping away the stereotypes and myths that surround the immigration debate and border policy.Less

Tierra Y Libertad: Land, Liberty, and Latino Housing

Steven W. Bender

Tierra y Libertad: Land, Liberty, and Latino Housing surveys the terrain, culture, and history of Latino/as and housing. Employing a vital historical perspective, it traces its core theme of how ... More

Tierra y Libertad: Land, Liberty, and Latino Housing surveys the terrain, culture, and history of Latino/as and housing. Employing a vital historical perspective, it traces its core theme of how Latino/as once held expansive ranchland in the Southwest but are now primarily a landless population spread throughout the U.S. that clings to marginal property rights and precarious ownership through overcrowded urban rental units, transitory rural living arrangements, and, at best, home acquisitions financed by high-risk subprime mortgages. Land ownership and homeownership enable assimilation into the American dream and foster community contributions and participation. But the landscape of the Latino/a experience is marked by a long history of property loss and discriminatory exclusion, fostering the current dilemma in which critics rail at Latino/as for their transitory nature and supposed lack of allegiance and contribution to their local communities, yet structural, legal, and historical impediments keep Latino/as from the threshold of opportunity. Evolving as legal, business, and societal norms changed, an array of discrimination techniques accomplished the exclusion of Latino/as from the American dream. To establish sustained access to affordable housing for Latino/as will demand reform and commitment across many sectors to encompass law, land use zoning, mortgage lending, educational structures, and community initiatives. Above all, comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship is needed to stabilize Latino/a communities and help restore sustainable growth in national housing markets.Less

To Live Freely in This World: Sex Worker Activism in Africa

Chi Adanna Mgbako

Sex worker activists throughout Africa are demanding an end to the criminalization of sex work and the recognition of their human rights to safe working conditions, health and justice services, and ... More

Sex worker activists throughout Africa are demanding an end to the criminalization of sex work and the recognition of their human rights to safe working conditions, health and justice services, and lives free from violence and discrimination. To Live Freely in This World is the first book to tell the story of the brave activists at the beating heart of the sex workers’ rights movement in Africa—the newest and most vibrant face of the global sex workers’ rights struggle. African sex worker activists are proving that communities facing human rights abuses are not bereft of agency. They’re challenging politicians, religious fundamentalists, and anti-prostitution advocates; confronting the multiple stigmas that affect the diverse members of their communities; engaging in intersectional movement building with similarly marginalized groups; and participating in the larger global sex workers’ rights struggle in order to determine their social and political fate. By locating this counter-narrative in Africa, To Live Freely in This World challenges disempowering and one-dimensional depictions of “degraded Third World prostitutes” and helps fill what has been a gaping hole in feminist scholarship regarding sex work in the African context. Based on original fieldwork in seven African countries, including Botswana, Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda, Chi Adanna Mgbako draws on extensive interviews with over 160 African female and male (cisgender and transgender) sex worker activists, and weaves their voices and experiences into a fascinating, richly detailed, and powerful examination of the history and continuing activism of this young social movement.Less