Letter from the Editor-in-chief

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Publication year: 2022
• Citation: Vol. 4 No. 2

Letter From the Editor-in-Chief

[Page 149]

It is disappointing that the Inflation Reduction Act that was recently passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate and House on party lines did not contain one single immigration provision to reduce backlogs; improve immigration processing; legalize unauthorized immigrants, including Dreamers; reform immigration courts; or improve due process. Still, the bill did not include any of the 60 harmful immigrant amendments and this in itself is cause for celebration, according to Greg Chen's blog on Think Immigration. ¹ It is still sad that we have to celebrate a without any positive immigration provisions although the bill will address the climate crisis, lower prescription drug prices, and reduce the deficit.

Despite the stalemate in Congress, immigration attorneys have no choice but to continue to competently assist their clients even while the U.S. immigration system remains imperfect. The AILA Law Journal thus plays an invaluable role by curating high-quality articles that would guide attorneys to advance novel and innovative arguments on behalf of their clients. For this I pay tribute to my predecessor, Shoba Wadhia, who got the AILA Law Journal off the ground so successfully, and hope to inspire attorneys, law students, and others, as Shoba did, to contribute articles in the immigration field that will not just benefit attorneys but will also have a positive impact on the law.

The current volume fulfills this aspiration by publishing the articles from a star team of authors. Eric Lee and Sabrina Damast write on the doctrine of consular nonreviewability, which has hampered challenges to visa denials for decades. Most case law has been bad, but a few recent litigation successes should inspire attorneys to consider federal court action when consular officers engage in bad faith. The article includes a review of case law, as well as several recent district court successes and strategic considerations to evaluate when considering litigation.

Curtis F.J. Doebbler and Elisa Fornalé provide an overview of the U.S. practice of detaining asylum seekers and compare the U.S. practice to the international human rights obligations applicable to the United States. This comparison is made in the context of the international movement toward cooperation on matters of migration and refugees evidenced by the Global Compacts on Migration and on Refugees recently adopted under the United Nations auspices. This article concludes that...