Anna On Ya Law

Analyzes how political pressure, judicial background, and institutional structure shape decision-making in U.S. immigration courts, finding that asylum claims are more likely to be denied by judges with enforcement backgrounds and that inconsistent, biased, or flawed reasoning can affect life-or-death outcomes for asylum seekers.

Traces the historical roots of American citizenship and immigration policy by showing how colonies, states, and the federal government restricted movement and settlement long before modern border enforcement emerged. The book connects the development of birthright citizenship and federal immigration authority to the legacies of slavery and Native American dispossession.

Examines how the Reconstruction Amendments transformed citizenship and migration in the United States by expanding birthright citizenship and mobility rights for African Americans and the U.S.-born children of Chinese immigrants, while simultaneously undermining Native sovereignty and facilitating dispossession of Indigenous peoples during and after the Civil War.

Walks through the 1787 Constitution to find that the framers did not grant clear authorization for a national immigration power except for the naturalization clause, which pertains only to one narrow part of immigration policy.

Explains why the states, not the national government, were fully in charge of immigration policy until 1882.

Analyzes an array of factors that explain legal outcomes in immigration cases.

Examines how the internal operational rules of a federal court can affect legal outcomes for non-counseled political asylum applicants.

Examines the role of the Supreme Court and U.S. Courts of Appeals in immigration policy making in the United States, while also advancing scholarly understanding about the distinct and evolving missions and functions of the two highest federal appellate courts, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the Supreme Court.

Traces the legislative history of the visa lottery to show that the provision has not much to do with diversity and is in fact a product of pork barrel politics.