Think Immigration: Getting Back to Basics - How to Improve the Entire Immigration System

As part of our efforts to amplify the AILA Law Journal, Editor-in-Chief Cyrus Mehta shares some highlights as he describes the key topics from articles published in the newly released Fall 2024 edition of the AILA Law Journal and gives readers a tour of what lies ahead when they open the digital edition. AILA members, access your free digital copy of the Law Journal to read more!

This election cycle has been full of harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric, restrictions on asylum in violation of the law, and a backing away from America’s long held promise to give protection to people fleeing persecution. The reality is that no solution concerning the border will be complete if our immigration system is not comprehensively reformed. This is something we’ve needed for decades, and we’d all benefit. What won’t benefit America is destructive measures like “mass deportation” (for a reality check on the harm that would cause, see the American Immigration Council’s new report). The pressure on the Southern border will only be alleviated if there are alternative ways to come to the U.S. and the ossified visa caps and quotas are increased.

Into this narrative moment, we bring the Fall 2024 edition of the AILA Law Journal which carries a wide variety of articles that, while they do not focus explicitly on the border, still give readers pause to reflect on ways to improve our system:

• A newly updated piece from Ted Bromund and Sandra Grossman on “How to Challenge an INTERPOL Red Notice.” We’ve long seen that Red Notices are issued in an abusive manner to harass noncitizens perceived to be opponents of a regime who are seeking asylum and other immigration benefits such as adjustment of status. Practitioners who have clients experiencing the effect of a Red Notice will particularly benefit.
• Kristen Hommel’s “From a Skeleton Key to a Deadbolt: Why the American Passport is No Longer the Most Powerful in the World, and Why the Door Needs to Open” extols the benefits of a visa-free regime and compares the United States’s Visa Waiver Program with that of Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
• Yuu Shibata’s “Understanding EU Immigration Law: The Schengen Visa Scheme and the Latest EU Updates” aims to provide immigration practitioners with a comprehensive understanding of the technical and legal aspects of EU immigration law, with a particular focus on the Schengen Visa scheme and related border management systems, and allow us to reflect on how a similar immigration scheme could bring the U.S., Canada, Mexico and other Latin American countries closer together.
• Nicole Dillard’s “Same Time Next Year: How History Repeats Itself in Joy and Pain” is a powerful and poignant essay reflecting on how primarily Venezuelan asylum seekers were tricked into going to Martha’s Vineyard from Florida in 2022 and how intertwined this episode was with her own history as a Black American immigration attorney, especially in light of events in 1962, when a racist organization tricked Black Americans into going to Northern cities in a brazen attempt known as the Reverse Freedom Rides to “get liberals to tie themselves in knots.”
• Craig Shagin and Maria Vejarano in “This Makes No Sense” rightly lament that there are numerous provisions in our immigration laws that make no sense and cause unnecessary delays and expenses. Their practical article proposes three easy, noncontroversial fixes. We invite others to submit similar short articles proposing similar fixes to our immigration system in the hope that “This Makes No Sense” becomes a permanent column in the AILA Law Journal.

Our immigration laws will not get better unless we continue to advocate and share our expertise about how our existing system’s weaknesses harm America and how revisions and updates can give America what it needs to flourish. I hope this edition of the AILA Law Journal opens some eyes and gives us a bit of hope, too.

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