The Administration of Immigration

Friday, October 25, 2019

The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State invites you to our public policy conference, “The Administration of Immigration.”

Perhaps no area of American law is as complexly administered as our nation’s immigration system. This system involves criminal and civil statutes, enforced by federal and state officials and often involving private or quasi-public actors. It involves rulemaking, adjudication, grantmaking, and governmental operations by multiple federal agencies, giving rise to some of our nation’s most interesting administrative law cases. These issues implicate domestic policy and foreign policy, and there has historically been no single central White House staff dedicated to coordinating interagency action in the immigration space.

Our conference on The Administration of Immigration will center around new scholarship that the Gray Center has helped to incubate. These papers explore ways to improve our nation’s immigration system, addressing such topics as the costs and benefits of immigration, public administration of the immigration system, and the moral underpinnings of immigration law. As with all Gray Center events, this conference will seek to bring the lessons of administration and administrative law to bear on this particular area of law, and take the lessons of this particular area of law back to the general practice of administration.

Authors and panelists will include private practitioners, public interest lawyers, government attorneys, and academics, collectively contributing many decades of varied experience to a discussion on some of the thorniest issues our nation’s immigration system faces today. Please join us for what will be a wide-ranging and thoughtful set of discussions on these important new papers.

Agenda

All sessions held in Van Metre Hall Auditorium at George Mason University’s Arlington, VA campus 

8:15 – 8:55 am – Registration and Breakfast, Van Metre Hall, Multi-Purpose Room

8:55 – 9:00 am – Welcome, Van Metre Hall Auditorium

Adam White, Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State and Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

9:00 – 10:15 am – Panel 1: Big Picture: Moral Underpinnings of Immigration Law

William W. Chip, Member, Board of Directors, Center for Immigration Studies
Craig S. Lerner, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Cassandra Burke Robertson, John Deaver Drinko – BakerHostetler Professor of Law, and Director, Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Moderator: Andrew Kloster, Deputy Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

10:15 – 10:30 am – Break

10:30 am – 11:45 am – Panel 2: Is Immigration Law Special? National Security, Special Courts, and “For This Ride Only” Law

Aram A. Gavoor, Visiting Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School
Brianne J. Gorod, Chief Counsel, Constitutional Accountability Center
Ilya Shapiro, Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute

Moderator: Jesse Panuccio, Public Service Fellow, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, and former Acting Associate Attorney General of the United States

11:45 – 11:55 am – Break

11:55 am – 1:00 pm – Luncheon Keynote, Van Metre Hall, Multi-Purpose Room

James McHenry, Director, Executive Office of Immigration Review, The United States Department of Justice

1:00 – 1:10 pm – Break

1:10 – 2:25 pm – Panel 3: Costs of Our Immigration System: Who Does the Burden Fall On?

Julie Axelrod, Chief Litigation Counsel, Center for Immigration Studies
Ming Hsu Chen, Associate Professor of Law and Faculty-Director, Immigration Law and Policy Society, Colorado Law School, University of Colorado Boulder,
Zachary R. New, Joseph & Hall P.C.
Adam White, Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State and Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

Moderator: Andrew Kloster, Deputy Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

2:25 – 2:40 pm – Break

2:40 – 3:55 pm – Panel 4: Judicial Review and Immigration Law

Michael Kagan, Joyce Mack Professor of Law, William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
David Rubenstein, Professor of Law, and Director, Robert J. Dole Center for Law and Government, Washburn University School of Law
Christopher Walker, Associate Professor of Law, The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law, and Director, The Moritz Washington, D.C. Summer Program

Moderator: Adam White, Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State and Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

3:55 pm – Adjourn

Research Papers for the Conference

• A Seat at the Table for Citizens: Why the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Applies to Immigration and How Best to Implement this Long Overdue Reform
  Julie Axelrod, Chief Litigation Counsel, Center for Immigration Studies
• Silence and the Second Wall, Ming Hsu Chen, Associate Professor of Law and Faculty-Director, Immigration Law and Policy Society, University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado Law School, and Zachary R. New, Joseph & Hall P.C.
• E-Verify: Mining Government Databases to Deter Employment of Unauthorized Aliens, William W. Chip, Member, Board of Directors, Center for Immigration Studies
• The Forgotten FISA Court: Exploring the Inactivity of the ATRC, Aram A. Gavoor, Visiting Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School, and Timothy Belsan
• Chevron‘s Asylum: Re-Assessing Deference in Refugee Cases, Michael Kagan, Joyce Mack Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law
• “Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude”: The Puzzling and Persistent (and Constitutional) Immigration Law Doctrine, Craig S. Lerner, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
• Litigating Citizenship, Cassandra Burke Robertson, John Deaver Drinko – BakerHostetler Professor of Law, and Director, Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University School of Law; and Irina D. Manta, Visiting Professor at the St. John’s University School of Law, and Professor of Law and Founding, Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University
• Recalibrating Judicial Review in Immigration Adjudication, Christopher Walker, Associate Professor of Law, The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law, and Director, The Moritz Washington, D.C. Summer Program