3722 research outputs found
Sort by
Final Report of the Mexican Reintegration Project Study
Get PDFThe phenomenon of Mexicans returning to Mexico after an extended stay in the United States is an increasingly important one. Though estimates for the period from 2014 through 2019 show that more Mexicans have migrated to the United States than left, net migration is still well below that of peak net migration from 1995 to 2000. In the period of 2014-2019, the net migration of Mexican nationals to the United States was only 160,000 versus 2.3 million during the period from 1995 to 2000. From 2005–2014, the U.S. experienced an outmigration of Mexican nationals, as more Mexicans left the U.S. than entered (net migration), reversing a trend from the previous decade. Many of those returnees were deported, as the U.S. significantly increased its interior removals during that period. The U.S. deported 2,368,098 Mexican nationals back to Mexico, including a record 306,870 in 2012. Additionally, significant numbers of returnees have gone back to Mexico on their own. Some returned to join deported family members, while others returned to find better economic and educational opportunities than were available in the United States.
The ability of returnees and deportees to successfully reintegrate into Mexican society is dependent on a variety of factors. At a minimum, successful reintegration means that a returnee is able to find a job, obtain housing, address other economic necessities, and take care of their physical needs. But successful reintegration also requires addressing the detrimental mental and emotional health effects that often result from a return process that, at a minimum, is disruptive and that for many returnees, is very traumatic.
When a returnee arrives in Mexico, what factors determine whether they experience a successful reintegration? What can governmental and non-governmental organizations who work with returnees do to increase the opportunities for successful reintegration? What can returnees themselves do to help ensure a faster, more successful reintegration experience? Some factors–like age, gender, or deportation status–are determined before the returnee begins their journey to Mexico. Other factors– like access to social networks and jobs, language proficiency, and cultural knowledge–may be more amenable to policy reforms.
This research project began in 2019 and seeks to address these questions. The research team, made up of four legal scholars, a historian, and a sociologist, worked over the last four years to gather data from interviews with returnees, civil society, and governmental organizations. The research team was supported by a team of graduate and law students who participated in the interviewing process, the coding of interviews, translated interview transcripts and conference proceedings, and provided legal information through webinars.
Through this project and subsequent convening in Mexico City in May 2023, the research team began a conversation among people who have returned to Mexico, governmental actors, civil society organizations, lawyers, and academics. The goals of the conversation are to identify what leads to successful reintegration and what challenges to reintegration exist, to recommend policy reforms, and to develop concrete action to address the barriers to reintegration
The Unfulfilled Promise of Self-Determination in Court-Connected Mediation
Get PDFIn the context of mediation, party self-determination refers to the ability of disputants to have power, control, and autonomy in the process. There are numerous process design questions involved in running a mediation, no matter its subject matter. Consider just one example: “Should the mediation be conducted in-person, or virtually?” The answer to this question can have a profound impact on the direction and course of a mediation, including its outcome. Yet, in the context of court-connected mediation, disputing parties are not consistently provided the opportunity to give input on how such process design questions are resolved. In fact, these decisions are typically made by mediators, courts, program administrators, counsel, or others—all of which conflicts with the MODEL STANDARDS OF CONDUCT FOR MEDIATORS’ declaration that disputing parties may exercise self-determination at any stage of a mediation, including process design. In effect, this dynamic represents a significant failure regarding one of mediation’s core promises. The paper proposes a novel solution to this unfulfilled promise: the institution of an Opening Negotiation Session at the start of every court-connected mediation. This joint meeting would involve all participants (mediators, disputants, and counsel) to ensure party interests are accounted for in deciding how four specific process design questions, all explored in the paper, will guide the mediation. This opening negotiation can immediately impact how the mediation will be run as it moves forward, thereby dramatically enhancing party self-determination and leading to a more tailored, empowering, and accountable resolution process for all participants
Accuracy and Preferences for Legal Error
No full textLegal procedures used to determine liability trade-off type-1 errors (e.g., false convictions) against type-2 errors (e.g., false acquittals). After noting that people’s relative preferences for type-1 errors (compared to type-2 errors) appear to be negatively correlated with technological advancements, we study how the accuracy of evidence collection methods may affect the trade-off between these two errors. Counter-intuitively, we find that under some conditions, greater accuracy may result in a higher probability of type-1 error (or type-2 error) maximizing deterrence. Then, assuming both errors are decreasing in accuracy, we characterize the type-1 error that emerges under electoral pressures (when the median voter’s preferences are implemented): convictions occur more often than is socially optimal but less often than is necessary to maximize deterrence. Moreover, as the harm from crime increases, the median voter becomes less tolerant of type-1 errors as the legal system’s accuracy increases. We also show that, because the median voter is less averse toward type-1 errors than the average citizen, an increase in accuracy may reduce welfare
Energy in the USMCA
No full textThe USMCA reflects a disconnect between the actions needed to meet challenges to address the climate crisis and the actions the North American partners prefer to protect their access to energy resources and the distribution of energy in the region. The treaty has carveouts and exceptions that allow each of the three nations to move their individual energy agenda forward, sometimes at the expense of collective goals. As the chapter will explain, the lack of common ground leads to contradictions and a disconnect among the partners’ priorities. The U.S. can point to the USMCA as an example of its effort to achieve clean energy security in the long term by promoting environmental standards and ensuring the flow of energy products. The same treaty, however, can be used by Mexico to argue for policies in favor of developing fossil fuels through state-owned companies that infringe the rights of foreign investors producing renewable energy. The treaty allows both views to coexist. It is left to the dispute resolution bodies in the treaty to work out the inevitable conflicts
Social Costs of Dobbs\u27 Pro-Adoption Agenda
Get PDFAbortion opponents have long claimed that women denied access to abortion can simply give their children up for adoption. Justice Alito repeated this argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. Of course, this claim assumes away the burdens of the pregnancy itself, which can result in economic strife, domestic violence, health risks, and potentially death in childbirth. But even on its own terms, the argument that adoption is an adequate substitute for abortion access makes normative assumptions about adoption as a social good in and of itself, ignoring the social costs of adoption for birth parents and adoptees. Idealizing adoption then influences decisions about what constitutes a valid adoption, with courts minimizing the requirements for voluntary consent. In a new post-Roe landscape that narrows choices for those facing an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy, what reforms are necessary to ensure that birth parents are not coerced into adoptions they do not want?
First, this Article looks to patterns of adoption placement before and after Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, and relies on newly available empirical data since Dobbs, to paint a picture of the adoption landscape in a post-Roe world. It concludes that the Dobbs ruling will not appreciably increase the “domestic supply of infants” for adoption that Justice Alito predicts, leaving intact the highly-competitive market for adoptable infants that creates such fertile ground for coercion. Second, drawing upon insights from psychosocial literature the Article explains how pregnant persons make the decision about adoption, who relinquishes for adoption, and the salience of abortion to that decision; thus informing our understanding of laws and practices of consent in adoption. Third, the Article outlines many of the potentially coercive tactics that have been employed by adoption professionals to persuade birth parents to relinquish their constitutionally protected parental rights, including high-tech targeting of potential birth parents, the use of crisis pregnancy centers to steer pregnant persons to adoption, manipulating the emotional stress of pregnancy to procure consent, and taking advantage of the duress of circumstances of poverty. Fourth, the Article proposes reforms to adoption that give enhanced meaning to the requirement of consent: increased regulation of adoption agencies, independent options counseling, recognition of duress of circumstances as vitiating consent, greater procedural protection to include appointment of counsel, and judicial education about the realities of adoption.
In a world of coerced pregnancy, we have moved closer to a dystopian future of children created in order to be placed with strangers. Instead of adoption as a child welfare measure, where children without family are provided one, it becomes an operation to produce children to satisfy the wants of prospective adoptive parents. There are social costs in the commodification of children in this manner. In this environment, it is more important than ever for courts to carefully scrutinize consent in adoption cases in order to ensure meaningful choice
ESG, Public Pensions, and Compelled Speech
Get PDFInvesting based on Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) principles has dramatically increased in recent years. Many institutional investors— including public pension funds funded by mandatory contributions from government employees—now incorporate ESG principles into their investment and engagement strategies even though certain aspects of ESG, such as investing to reduce carbon emissions, are politically controversial. Over this same period, courts have reaffirmed that the First Amendment protects individuals from being compelled to associate with or to subsidize the speech of third parties. Indeed, applying this compelled speech doctrine, the Supreme Court recently overruled a forty-year-old precedent that allowed states to force nonunion members to contribute to public unions engaged in collective bargaining on their behalf.
This Article provides the first in-depth discussion of how the Court’s compelled speech doctrine might apply both in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Janus v. AFSCME and in light of the dramatic rise of ESG investing. In doing so, it explains how the Supreme Court’s post-Janus compelled speech doctrine will likely render state mandates requiring employees to contribute to public pension funds that invest according to ESG principles unconstitutional. And this Article also identifies two potentially serious consequences of the unconstitutionality of such mandates that current scholarship does not address. First, application of the compelled speech doctrine to public pensions may cause state and local governments significant financial distress, given that state employees might be able to withdraw all contributions (not just future contributions) to the public pension funds even as many of those funds are substantially underfunded. Second, extending the compelled speech doctrine to ESG investing might further hamper efforts to increase retirement savings among those least likely to save for retirement by precluding auto-enrollment of employees in retirement programs that invest according to ESG principles. Finally, this Article sketches some possible approaches to addressing these issues before concluding
No-Man\u27s-Land: Texas, Mexico, and International Deal-Making
Get PDFIn 2012, the United States and Mexico negotiated an agreement to determine how to address the transboundary hydrocarbon reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico. This agreement generally comported with international law’s commitment to safe, efficient, and effective exploitation. Notably, however, the agreement did not cover any possible transboundary hydrocarbon reservoirs discovered within the first nine nautical miles of Texas’s coastline. This Comment discusses the constitutional and international law implications of this gap in the 2012 agreement between the United States and Mexico and how Texas and Mexico may cooperate to resolve any potential issues. As Texas cannot enter into a treaty with Mexico, this Comment proposes that Texas’s best option is to negotiate a memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) with the Mexican federal government that directs how exploration, development, and production should be handled in the event of a transboundary reservoir discovery. Although not binding in the same sense as a treaty, such an instrument would indicate the parties’ consent to act in a manner that comports with international custom. Any breach of such an agreement could have serious reputational repercussions, making each party more likely to abide by the MOU’s terms
Adoption Ouroboros: Repeating the Cycle of Adoption as Rescue
Get PDFOuroboros—the circular symbol of the snake eating its tail; an endless cycle. As the U.S. recently withdrew from Afghanistan in chaos and Russia invaded Ukraine, the attention of Americans turned, as it frequently has in times of international conflict, to the plight of children in need of rescue. For many Americans, rescue is synonymous with adoption. The history of international adoption began with rescues following America’s wars in Europe and Asia and continues today through other violent upheavals. International adoption is an ouroboros, repeating the pattern of adoption as a response to humanitarian crises. But as human and charitable as the impulse to adopt children in crisis may be, it is often not in the best interests of children. They are separated from family, and perhaps never reunited. Their identities may be lost in the scramble to get them to safety. They may be trafficked rather than adopted through reputable means. In the midst of a highly disruptive crisis, their lives are further disrupted by being removed from their usual support networks—family and community. And once international adoption begins in a country in crisis, it continues long after the crisis ends, motivated by neocolonial impulses and financial motives. The often-destructive effects of international adoption in the midst of crises are furthered by the general lax regulation of international adoption. The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, as interpreted in the U.S., does not offer sufficient protection, and the U.S. fails to utilize all its available resources to prevent children being trafficked into international adoption by refusing to categorize illegal adoption as human trafficking. As the temptation to rescue children increases, the U.S. needs to do more to prevent the ouroboros of international adoption as a response to humanitarian crises
Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor\u27s Fight for Fairness
No full textA powerful true story and groundbreaking account of bias in the courtroom from CNN Chief Legal Analyst Laura Coates, recounting her time as a Black female prosecutor for the US Department of Justice.https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/black-history-month-2025-works/1005/thumbnail.jp
The Health Care Industry is Ready for a Revolution: Its Privacy Laws are Not
Get PDFThis paper highlights the costs and benefits associated with the gathering, storing, analyzing, and digitizing of health information; examines current privacy laws and their inadequacies in the new and constantly changing digital health world; and then provides a proposal framework to balance encouraging innovation while protecting individual autonomy. The article specifically proceeds as follows. This paper first discusses of the evolution of the health industry, from paper records to the wide array of sources generating health information today. Next, it considers the benefits to the ever-increasing amount of health information, which, while considerable can often be in tension with privacy and autonomy interests. It then examines the current privacy models applicable to the various sources of health information, and highlight the types of information left unprotected, as well as the ways in which individuals lack control over their health information. Finally, this paper introduces a framework that is flexible enough to adapt to different societal interests but maintains the integrity of the health system by ensuring that the individual’s interests remain the priority. Such a framework will allow individuals to be in control of their health information in a way that protects their individual interests and allows them to contribute to societal growth