Gifts for Immprofs: LAWn Signs

Cute Kids Asserting Their Rights

It’s never too early to think about great holiday gifts for the immprofs in your life (and maybe their clients). Here’s my first recommendation of the season: LAWn signs.

LAWn signs are a way of signalling to law enforcement officers that they do not have a license to approach your home.

Helpfully, LAWn signs come not only in form of signage in your front yard but also tee shirts, luggage tags and stickers. Here is a link to the entire store. I, for one, am hoping they soon develop decals for laptops and cell phone cases.

My OU colleague Stephen Henderson and prawf Andrew Guthrie Ferguson (UDC) are the brains behind the project. They developed LAWn signs in conjunction with their law review article exploring recent 4th amendment SCOTUS decisions, which explains how LAWn signs might actually have legal effect following Florida v. Jardines. It’s a short and compelling read. I highly recommend it.

I know curmudgeons out there are saying, but the 4th amendment is different in the world of immigration. After all, there’s an right to suspicionless searches at the border and its functional equivalents, and only reasonable suspicion is needed for immigration-related searches within 100 miles of the border.

Okay, fine, you have a point. But that doesn’t take away from the awesomeness of these signs for those who want to send a day-to-day message about the limitations of the 4th Amendment. And that’s something we can all get behind.

-KitJ