Implementing Family Unification Rights in American Immigration Law: Proposed Amendments

In this Article, Professor Guendelsberger examines the provisions of American immigration law that impede the entry of immediate family members of permanent resident aliens. It focuses particularly on the numerical limitations - the annual ceiling and the per-country ceiling on preference category visas - which force applicants from countries of high immigration demand to wait for long periods of time before visas become available. As a result, spouses and minor children of some permanent resident aliens enter immediately, while those from countries like Mexico or the Philippines must wait as long as eight years. The situation is further exacerbated by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The author analyzes the provisions of the Act affecting family unification and examines the constitutionality of the numerical limitations on visa allocation. In conclusion, family unity is such an essential components of individual liberty that provisions of immigration law should interfere with that right no more than is necessary to meet compelling national interests. In the alternative, Congress should eliminate the numerical ceilings on entry of the spouses and minor children of permanent resident aliens on humanitarian and constitutional grounds

Scoping the Sharing Economy: Origins, Definitions, Impact and Regulatory Issues

This report selectively draws on the systematic review of a large set of data sources, which is presented elsewhere, and comprises 430 secondary sources (Codagnone, 2016). The report also provides a critical overview of key analytical, empirical, and normative dimensions of the ‘sharing economy’. It reviews both the rhetorical and controversial debates currently surrounding the topics and the available empirical evidence in order to sharpen our understanding of relevant policy and regulatory issues. The broad umbrella term 'sharing economy' is critically assessed and a typology developed that identifies the commercial 'peer to peer' sharing economy as the main focus of both controversies and policy-relevant issues. Empirical evidence of the benefits and costs of the sharing economy and its implications for sustainability and employment is very limited and inconclusive, particularly as regards the European landscape. This critical review, hence, shows that, as yet, there are no unambiguous answers to some of the fundamental questions about the ‘sharing economy’. The available research is too limited and patchy to give us a comprehensive and coherent picture. This report’s main contribution is to clear some of the conceptual and empirical fog around the ‘sharing economy’ and to identify where possible answers might be found in the future. It is suggested that the definition of sharing platforms should focus on P2P activities, as most of the policy concerns are found there. These include regulatory and consumer protection issues resulting from the informal production of services, potentially unfair competition with formal B2C service providers, and questions related to dominance and market power of P2P platform operators as commercial businesses