American Criminal Record Exceptionalism

Review of: James B. Jacobs, The Eternal Criminal Record (Harvard University Press 2015)

Reforming the Good Moral Character Requirement for U.S. Citizenship

This Article explores the impact of the convergence of criminal law and immigration law on the most valued government benefit in the land: citizenship. Specifically, it examines how criminal history influences the opportunity to naturalize through the good moral character requirement for U.S. citizenship. Since 1790, naturalization applicants have been required to prove their good moral character. Enacted to ensure that applicants were fit for membership and would not be disruptive or destructive to the community, the character requirement also allowed for the reformation and eventual naturalization of those guilty of past misconduct. This Article shows that recent changes in immigration law and the handling of naturalization petitions by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have turned the good moral character requirement into a powerful exclusionary device. Since 1990, Congress has added hundreds of permanent, irrebuttable statutory bars to a good moral character finding based on criminal conduct. Where no bar applies, examiners may still deny an applicant on character grounds in their discretion, which they are doing with management encouragement and increasing frequency. The effect is the creation of bars to citizenship not found in the statute, subverting the statutory and regulatory scheme governing naturalization. The expressively punitive nature of the current good moral character provision and USCIS’s misguided priorities in handling naturalization applications force legal resident immigrants with criminal histories to permanently live in the shadows of full membership, never able to possess the full rights, privileges, and respect that citizenship can bring. The Article argues that a robust, inclusive notion of citizenship remains necessary despite its apparent diminishment in the twenty-first century world. Informed by insights from sociological research on community cohesion and criminological findings on desistance, it shows why there must be space for those residents with a criminal past to demonstrate their current fitness for membership. It urges statutory and agency reforms that would realign the good moral character requirement with its historical purpose and understanding and promote a naturalization scheme that, at no cost to public safety, promotes social cohesion and advances democracy and equality by making redemptive citizenship possible

A Child Litigant\u27s Right to Counsel

As the Supreme Court put it a half century ago, the right tocounsel for juveniles reflects “society’s special concern for children” and “is of the essence of justice.” In a variety of legal proceedings, from delinquency matters to child welfare proceedings to judicial bypass hearings, the law requires the appointment of counsel to child litigants. While coherent in the whole, the law regarding counsel for child litigants is a patchwork of state and federal constitutional rulings by courts and statutory grants. Legal scholarship about a child litigant’s right to counsel is similarly fragmented. Predominantly, legal scholars have examined arguments for a child litigant’s right to counsel at government expense by focusing on a particular kind of proceeding. This Article offers a unified theory for a child litigant’s right to counsel at government expense that spans judicial proceedings. In legal proceedings where significant legal rights or interests are at stake, fairness demands that child litigants have a right to counsel at government expense in those proceedings. In the main, the law coheres with the theory proposed here. However, one type of proceeding involving tens of thousands of juveniles annually with tremendous consequences stands as an unjustifiable outlier – immigration removal (deportation) proceedings

Activity Patterns And Population Biology In The Terrestrial Salamander Community At Saddle Mountain, North Carolina

The present research was performed to learn about activity patterns and population characteristics of salamanders at Saddle Mountain in Surry County, NC

Festschrift Symposium: Honoring Professor Samuel Pillsbury

The Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review is pleased to publish this Festschrift Symposium Honoring Professor Samuel Pillsbury. The following is an edited transcript of the live symposium held at LMU Loyola Law School on Friday, March 25, 2022

Reforming the Good Moral Character Requirement for U.S. Citizenship

This Article explores the impact of the convergence of criminal law and immigration law on the most valued government benefit in the land: citizenship. Specifically, it examines how criminal history influences the opportunity to naturalize through the good moral character requirement for U.S. citizenship. Since 1790, naturalization applicants have been required to prove their good moral character. Enacted to ensure that applicants were fit for membership and would not be disruptive or destructive to the community, the character requirement also allowed for the reformation and eventual naturalization of those guilty of past misconduct. This Article shows that recent changes in immigration law and the handling of naturalization petitions by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have turned the good moral character requirement into a powerful exclusionary device. Since 1990, Congress has added hundreds of permanent, irrebuttable statutory bars to a good moral character finding based on criminal conduct. Where no bar applies, examiners may still deny an applicant on character grounds in their discretion, which they are doing with management encouragement and increasing frequency. The effect is the creation of bars to citizenship not found in the statute, subverting the statutory and regulatory scheme governing naturalization. The expressively punitive nature of the current good moral character provision and USCIS’s misguided priorities in handling naturalization applications force legal resident immigrants with criminal histories to permanently live in the shadows of full membership, never able to possess the full rights, privileges, and respect that citizenship can bring. The Article argues that a robust, inclusive notion of citizenship remains necessary despite its apparent diminishment in the twenty-first century world. Informed by insights from sociological research on community cohesion and criminological findings on desistance, it shows why there must be space for those residents with a criminal past to demonstrate their current fitness for membership. It urges statutory and agency reforms that would realign the good moral character requirement with its historical purpose and understanding and promote a naturalization scheme that, at no cost to public safety, promotes social cohesion and advances democracy and equality by making redemptive citizenship possible

Agricultural Cooperative Statistics 2019

Excerpts from the report Introduction: Agricultural cooperative statistics are collected annually and published to provide information on the position and trends among the Nation’s farmer, rancher, and fishery cooperatives. These statistics are used for cooperative benchmarking, research, technical assistance, education, planning, and public policy. The collection, analysis, and dissemination of cooperative statistics by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) are authorized by The Cooperative Marketing Act of 1926. This report presents agricultural cooperative statistics for 2019 in table and chart format and consists of six sections: (I) overall summary cooperative statistics; (II) number of cooperatives, memberships, and employees; (III) business volume by State, and losses; (IV) Top 100 cooperatives; (V) benchmark statistics for cooperative comparisons; and (VI) cooperative statistical trends. Selected highlights are provided at the beginning of each section, and associated tables follow