Sanchez v. Mayorkas and the Perilous Future of Migrant Rights in the United States
In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Sanchez v. Mayorkas (2021) that all immigrants who entered the country illegally cannot obtain green cards, regardless of having already held temporary protected status. This decision highlights the vague way that U.S. court systems define “legal entry” into the United States— an issue which is a major concern among immigration attorneys and migrants alike, as its definition and application has lasting effects on present and future migrant populations. It is important to inspect the potential human rights implications of the Sanchez decision on migrants. Although the Supreme Court’s decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas does not directly contradict existing international immigration law, the dangerous legal precedent set in Sanchez highlights the United States’s critical need to take further steps towards compliance with existing human rights law as it pertains to migrants.
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Monetary Damages for Disability Discrimination: The First Step Towards Protecting the Right to Equal Access to Education
In the United States, access to a free public education is a right granted to all students, including students with disabilities. Specifically, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973) prevents any disabled individual from being discriminated against in federally-funded programs, including public schools. Likewise, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1990 endows disabled children with the right to a quality public education by requiring schools to provide disabled children with accommodations and support services. Although children who suffer traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are guaranteed that same right under Section 504 and IDEA, legal precedent regarding the intersection of TBI and education is scarce.
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fMRI v. the Frye & Daubert Standards of Evidence: Re-searching for the Truth
Although jurors are tasked as fact-finders in deciding criminal cases, the human brain is not inherently proficient in discerning truth-telling behavior. A 1991 study, for instance, revealed that Secret Service personnel were only able to detect liars about sixty-four percent of the time. Laypersons, who primarily comprise juries, fared worse, with accuracy rates no better than chance. Technology has attempted to fill this void by developing lie-detecting tests. However, from Lombroso’s 1895 pulse and blood pressure readings to Larson’s 1921 polygraph test, all existing pieces of technology have faced reliability concerns. Specifically, the scientific field of polygraph research likely will never progress far enough, as the “inherent ambiguity of the physiological measures” stifles any hope for improvement through further experimentation. To address these criticisms, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has taken center.
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Racially Restrictive Covenants Move Out of Homeowner Associations and Into Banks
While the pursuit of private property ownership is a distinctly American obsession, for many everyday Americans, this dream remains stubbornly elusive. Although the current housing market reflects increasing demand for property in a low supply market, the data consistently supports a historical truth: many consumers of color find themselves barred from obtaining real estate. In fact, Black Americans are statistically less represented than any other racial or ethnic group in the country, with only a 42 percent homeownership rate; Hispanic-Americans are only slightly ahead at 48.1 percent. [1] To this day, housing discrimination is among the most prominent examples of legal and industry-specific practices intended to spatially isolate racial and ethnic minorities. While the underlying intent to legally segregate homebuyers remains the same, the private institutions that engage in such discriminatory practices have morphed over the last few decades from homeowner associations (HOAs) to regional banks.
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The Paradox Of Right to Work Laws and International Human Rights Law
Right-to-work laws and the accompanying decline in unionization in the United States surfaced in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 (2018), where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public-sector union dues conflict with the First Amendment because such dues require workers to donate their money to public sector unions for political purposes.
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A Return to Public Square Trials? How Cancel Culture and Perp Walks May Undermine Trial Impartiality and Criminal Justice
A simple internet search of the term ‘cancel culture’ produces a series of daily stories on how online shaming has impacted an increasing number of individuals and companies, raising new social and legal questions. The term refers to the practice of withdrawing support or completely rejecting public figures or companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive, namely expressed through social media in the form of group shaming. This modern form of ostracism against someone who is ‘canceled’ depends, above all, on a judgement made in the court of public opinion. Unlike courts within a legally well-established judicial system, courts of public opinion rely on trends and opinions which may or may not be grounded in factual evidence.
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Vaccine Patents v.s. Public Domain in the Age of the COVID-19 Pandemic
The United States is currently experiencing an ongoing pandemic of the coronavirus disease. In an attempt to limit and mitigate the effects of the virus, multiple pharmaceutical companies have developed and begun widespread distribution of different vaccines, in compliance with federal regulations. In an effort to more effectively distribute vaccines and eliminate the threat of the virus, the federal government has the ability to invoke Section 1498 of Title 28 of the U.S. Code. The statute allows the government to directly control the manufacturing and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, provided that the patent owners are provided with appropriate compensation. Given the present circumstances and the detriment of the coronavirus pandemic on the country as a whole, as well as a wealth of historical precedent from previous similar national crises, it is more than appropriate for the American federal government to enact § 1498 and assume control over the production and administration of COVID-19 vaccines.
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Medical Malpractice in an Evolving America
As a result of a chronic physician shortage, especially in rural areas, the medical landscape is drastically changing to include more non-physician healthcare providers. [1] This demand for additional medical professionals allows Advanced Practitioner Registered Nurses (APRNs) — a class of registered nurses with additional graduate-level training — increased prescriptive and decision-making authority over patients’ health care than traditional registered nurses. This phenomenon introduces new challenges in the realm of medical malpractice, accountability, and scrutiny that has been, for decades, primarily focused on physicians. In considering questions of accountability for erroneous medical decision-making, a substantive increase in medical authority and jurisdiction over patients’ health needs to be logically accompanied by an increase in legal scrutiny.
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Uncontrolled Bloodflow: Blood Antiquity Sales in the UK
In January of 2021, the UK announced that it would no longer apply such restrictions to the importation of cultural goods as stipulated by 2019 European Union legislation. Though it is legally within the rights of the UK government to disregard these regulatory efforts, doing so fundamentally undermines their commitment to upholding key tenets of international law, specifically the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. When it comes to regulating the sale of blood antiquities, the UK government should thus rely upon international legal statutes and precedent to inform a prudent, long-term approach, rather than bowing to pressure from wealthy antiquities dealers.
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