Immigration at the AALS

The Association of American Law Schools is holding their annual meeting this week, with this one being held in surprisingly cold (and at times wet) New Orleans.  This explains my sporadc blogging the last few days.

Although a plane delay made me miss the immigration professors field trip to the local U.S. immigration and border enforcement authorities (which was, by all accounts, well-organized by Professor Isabel Medina (Loyola-New Orleans), I did attend the Section on Immigration Law (co-sponsored by the Section on Administrative Law) program on Friday afternoon on “Adjudication in Immigration Law:  Concerns and Realities.”  It really was a super panel, with Mathilde Cohen (currently at Columbia) offering a wonderful comparative perspective based on fieldwork in immigration adjudication in France, Jill Family (Widener) and Jaya Ramji Nogales (Temple) providing careful analysis of issues at the intersection of administrative law, immigration law, and immigration adjudcation, and  Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Michael McGoings adding practical insights from the ground level about the formidable challenges of immigration judging.  Incoming section chair Lenni Benson (New York) was in great form as the insightful moderator who also kept the trains running on time.

KJ