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The Politics of a New Legal Regime: Governing International Crime through Domestic Immigration Law
Author(s) -
Rowen Jamie,
Hamlin Rebecca
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/lapo.12104
Subject(s) - law , immigration law , political science , criminal law , immigration , international law , citizenship , criminal justice , criminology , politics , sociology
Through an analysis of a unique and understudied unit within the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Unit (HRVWCU, or “the Unit”), this article addresses the following theoretical and policy question: once someone has been admitted to the United States and granted permanent residency, or even citizenship, how does the law facilitate the reversal of that decision based on acts committed long ago and far away? We argue that the HRVWCU has created a significant new way to govern immigration through crime—specifically international crime—while simultaneously trying to ensure justice for mass atrocities through immigration law. In offering an overview of the Unit's origins and approach in blending international criminal law, domestic criminal law, and immigration law, we show how this Unit reflects an expansion of crimmigration in the United States and abroad. In order to illustrate the dilemma of internationalized crimmigration, the article focuses on the Unit's cases related to war crimes in Liberia and Bosnia, which have two very different (at least from the perspective of international criminal law) types of alleged perpetrators: those who allegedly gave orders and those who allegedly followed orders.