Raquel E. Aldana

Position Title

Executive Committee Member

Martin Luther King Jr. Professor, School of Law

Raquel E. Aldana joined UC Davis in 2017 to serve as the inaugural Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Diversity with a law faculty appointment. She returned to full time law teaching at King Hall in 2020. Aldana is a graduate of Arizona State University (earning a bachelor’s degree in English and another in Spanish) and Harvard Law School. Aldana’s research has focused on transitional justice, criminal justice reforms and sustainable development in Latin America, as well as immigrant rights. Aldana teaches asylum and refugee law and immigration law. She has also taught international human rights, lawyering for immigrants, “crimmigration,” international labor law, Latin American comparative law, international public law, and specialized seminars such as the Central American migration corridor and the Comparative Perspectives on Force Migration in the Americas.

Relevant Research Materials/Published Works:

Books

Understanding Immigration Law (Lexis-Nexis 2020) (3rd Ed.) (with Kevin Johnson, Bill Ong Hing, Enid Trucio-Haynes and Leticia Saucedo).

From Extraction to Emancipation, Development Reimagined (edited collection, with Steve Bender) (American Bar Association and Carolina Academic Press 2018).

Global Issues in Immigration Law (West Academic Publishing 2013) (with Beth Lyon, Won Kidane, and Karla McKanders).

Everyday Law for Latinos (Paradigm Publisher 2008) (with Steve Bender and Gilbert Carrasco).

Chapters in Books

The Challenges and Potential of an International Human Rights Regime to Manage Migration in Compassionate Migration & Regional Policy in the Americas (William Arrocha et al., eds. Palgrave Macmillan) (forthcoming).

Local Immigration Regulations after 9/11 in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in Contemporary Politics, Law, and Social Movements (Oxford University Press 2015).

Immigration Federalism and Rights in Immigration Regulation in Federal States: Challenges and Responses in Comparative Perspectives (edited collection of essays) (Sasha Baglay and Delphine Nackache, eds.) (Springer 2013).

The International Rights of Migrants in Handbook on Human Rights (Thomas Cushman, ed.) (Routledge Books 2011).

Making Civil Liberties Matter in Local Immigration Enforcement (The Police Foundation 2009).

Of Katz and “Aliens”: Privacy Expectations and the Immigration Raids, 41 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1081 (2008), reprinted in AILA’s Guide to Worksite Enforcement & Corporate Compliance (Josie Gonzalez, et al. eds.) (2008).

Articles and Essays

Border Solutions from the Inside. Forthcoming April 2021, University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review., UC Davis Legal Studies Research Paper Forthcoming

A Look Back at the Warren Court’s Due Process Revolution through the Lens of Immigrants, 51 U. OF THE PACIF. L. REV. 633 (2020) (with Thomas O’Donnell).

A Comparative Reflection on Refugees and National Security: What We Should Learn from Europe about Responding to Homegrown Terrorism, 37 Immi. & Nationality L. Rev. 651 (2016).

Congressional Dysfunction and Executive Lawmaking During the Obama Administration, 91 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 3 (2016)

Raising the Bar: Law Schools and Legal Institutions Leading to Educate Undocumented Law Students (with Beth Lyon and Karla McKanders) 44 Ariz. St. L. J. 5 (2012).

Silent Victims No More?: Moral Indignation and the Potential for Latino Political Mobilization in Defense of Immigrants, 45 Hous. L. Rev. 73 (2008).

Of Katz and “Aliens”: Privacy Expectations and the Immigration Raids, 41 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1081 (2008).

The Subordination and Anti-Subordination Story of the U.S. Immigrant Experience in the 21st Century, 7 Nev. L. J. 713 (2007) (Lat Crit Symposium Cluster Introduction).

On Rights, Federal Citizenship, and the “Alien”, 46 Washburn L. Rev. 101 (2007).

Aliens in our Midst Post-911: Legislating Outsiderness Within the Borders (With Sylvia Lazos) (Book Review), 38 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1683 (2005).

The September 11 Immigration Detentions and Unconstitutional Executive Legislation, 29 SIU L. J. 5 (2004).

Proposed Projects

https://compassioninimmigration.faculty.ucdavis.edu/

Other Publications

Connecting Past and Present: Central America’s Forced Migration as an Unfinished Project of Building Just Nations Post-Colonization, Post-Conflict (with Mario Mancilla and Luis Mogollon, Border Humanitarian Health Initiative (2020).

Stakeholder Perspectives Report: November 09, 2018 Focus Group Findings on Migrant Legal-Mental Health Intersectionality (with Patrick Marius Koga) (2019).

Investing in Rising Scholars and Serving the State of California, HSI Taskforce Report (Co-Chair).

Op-Ed, Debunking Three Myths Behind “Chain Migration” and “Low-Skilled” Immigration, Jan. 2018.

Travel Ban 3.0: Legalese Cannot Mask a Harsh and Misguided Policy, Sept. 2017.

Content by Raquel E. Aldana

Image of people walking with a map of the world in the background.

Lessons From Colombia's Response To Venezuelan Forced Displacement

Lessons from Colombia’s response to Venezuelan forced displacement

Author(s)

Raquel E. Aldana, Efrain Cruz, Sandra Morello Peña, Kari Peterson.

Published in

SSRN

Publication Date

September 21, 2023

Abstract

Nearly 80 percent of the world’s refugees are hosted by low to middle-income countries, a figure that has remained fairly constant for decades in the annual data provided by the United Nations High Commissioners for Refugee (UNHCR). These countries, which usually neighbor nations from which the largest forced displacement of peoples originate, have responded to millions of refugees within their territory usually with little notice from nations outside the region. Yet, their response, by necessity, have varied substantially from that of upper to high income countries which, with few exceptions, have restricted the flows of refugees into their territories through policies that include interdiction and externalization. In contrast, nations hosting the largest flows of refugees have adopted laws and policies that grapple, with varying degrees of success, with the presence of refugees in-country. Colombia, which in recent years has occupied second or third place as a host to one of the largest forced displacement of peoples, primarily Venezuelans, is exceptional among these few nations for their remarkable efforts to secure the legal, economic and social integration of approximately 2.5 million Venezuelans in its territory. This article documents these efforts. We examine Colombia’s path toward its adoption of a 10-year temporary protection program with the option to stay permanently which it has granted to date to over a million Venezuelans. We also document the program’s implementation with a focus on the social and economic integration of Venezuelans in Colombia as well as the overall impact of the program on Colombia’s economic and social indicators. In general, Colombia’s experience offers a hopeful story of how a burden sharing model can function to permit a nation to provide a more welcoming and humane response to refugees.

Migrant deaths in Mexico put spotlight on US policy that shifted immigration enforcement south

Border Solutions from the Inside

Author(s)

Raquel E. Aldana

Published in

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Publication Date

January 22, 2021

Abstract

This essay provides an analysis of urgent and pragmatic solutions to the persistent forced migration challenges in Central America’s Northern Triangle that President Joe Biden could undertake in the first two years of his administration. Its focus is on measures that the United States can undertake to help these nations avert the enormous humanitarian crisis brought about by the pandemic and recent hurricanes, including starvation, a surge in violence, and a rise in extreme poverty, all of which are fueling an increase in forced migration from the region. Specifically, the essay is focused on two measures: (1) Stabilizing the flow of remittances from the U.S. to the region; and (2) increasing and strategically reorienting aid to these nations to the most vulnerable communities affected by the pandemic.
Read more here.

Taming Immigration Trauma

Author(s)

Raquel E. Aldana

Published in

SSRN

Publication Date

July 26, 2022

This article documents the United States’ century-long efforts to humanize our borders. In the end, law has been insufficient to tame immigration law’s enforcement. How the United States enforces borders, however, can and should be more humane. Two important principles should guide this process. First, the United States should recognize that borders’ impacts are as severe as other forms of punishment especially when the means to enforce the immigration power have become indistinguishable from criminal enforcement. Second, human trauma should guide immigration policy toward meaningful inclusion. After significant reckoning over the travesty of shutting our borders, the United States has embraced certain experiences of trauma as grounds for welcoming immigrants or has shown mercy to permit immigrants to stay when family and communal bonds in the United States are strong. Yet, the discretionary nature of these central efforts to humanize borders has not translated to sustaining gains. Borders are still open and shut at the whims of xenophobia and nationalistic tendencies to blame the 'other' during difficult socio-political and economic crisis. Moreover, the lack of basic due process protections in immigration law and punitive enforcement practices function as significant barriers that undermine substantially the very efforts to expand immigration’s inclusion.