'Conditional Admission' and Other Mysteries: Setting the Record Straight on the 'Admission' Status of Refugees and Asylees
Posted: 13 Aug 2013 Last revised: 8 Sep 2014
Date Written: August 12, 2013
Abstract
Asylees and resettled refugees are (unconditionally) admitted to the United States, with the same panoply of procedural and substantive rights enjoyed by other admitted noncitizens. Despite their admitted status, the case law relating to refugees and asylees remains deeply flawed, because it ignores the plain language of the statute (including a definition of “admission” enacted in 1996), it triggers absurd procedural outcomes, and it adheres to precedent formulated in response to regulations that were later repealed. In light of the absence of scholarly analysis of refugee and asylee admission status; the relative paucity of scholarship on the important topic of admission; and the legislative debates underway regarding immigration law, it is high time to demonstrate why refugees and asylees are (unconditionally) admitted to the United States.
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