In the definitional statute at 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(3), it states “The term ‘alien’ means any person not a citizen or national of the United States,” which would seem to suggest two things, that the statutory word “alien” is, well, the statutory word, and that replacing it with “non-citizen” isn’t too far a stretch. Then again, the definition is for application of the Title 8, Chapter 12, immigration and nationality, so there is a contextual overlay as well. But is it really an issue?

This opinion uses the term noncitizen unless quoting language from the immigration statutes or past opinions containing the term alien. There are two reasons behind this choice. First, use of the term noncitizen has become a common practice of the Supreme Court, see Patel v. Garland (2022) (Barrett, J.); United States v. Palomar-Santiago (2021) (Sotomayor, J.); Barton v. Barr (2020) (Kavanaugh, J.) (“This opinion uses the term ‘noncitizen’ as equivalent to the statutory term ‘alien.'”), whose lead on matters of style we ordinarily follow, and of the Board of Immigration Appeals, e.g., Matter of Dang (BIA 2022), whose decisions we review. Continue reading →

Dear Unnamed Developers Of Professional Executive Software (I’m calling you DOPES for short going forward):

I’ve been a regular user of one of your products for about five years now in my business. It was a perfectly fine piece of cloud-based software that allowed me to quickly access records, print reports I needed to send out to get paid, and generally manage the day to day affairs of my business. Continue reading →

It’s been there for as long as anyone can remember and it’s about as intrusive as it gets. But is it right? Is it lawful? Is it useful? It’s Question 26 of the New York Bar Exam.

Have you ever, either as an adult or a juvenile, been cited, ticketed, arrested, taken into custody, charged with, indicted, convicted or tried for, or pleaded guilty to, the commission of any felony or misdemeanor or the violation of any law, or been the subject of any juvenile delinquency or youthful offender proceeding?  Traffic violations that occurred more than ten years before the filing of this application need not be reported, except alcohol or drug-related traffic violations, which must be reported in all cases, irrespective of when they occurred.  Do not report parking violations.

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It was somewhat understandable, if very wrong, that the outraged villagers with Michelle Dauber holding the pitchfork and leading the mob would persist in their obsessive need to demonize Brock Turner, to do what they could to destroy him. This isn’t because he’s such a swell guy, or that his conduct was insignificant, but because he’s become a target of women suffering from some bizarre compulsion. Call it the Turner Syndrome.

[W]omen in the Dayton, Ohio area have revived the story in a sort of “whisper network” using TikTok and Facebook to warn each other about Turner, who is now 27. Continue reading →

There’s some issue with overtaxing the grid in California, but that’s not the only electricity problem facing the Riverside police, who are scouring PG&E’s electrical customer billings for the clearly criminal under-user.

In their lawsuit filed in March, Chen-Chen Hwang, 67, and her husband Jiun-Tsong Wu, 75, alleged that deputies from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department raided their two homes on Aug. 5, 2021. The couple’s lawyer, Alex Coolman, said the deputies suspected they were “stealing power to grow marijuana because their power consumption was low,” as per the Southern California News Group. Continue reading →

New Jersey’s favorite son, Dr. Mehmet Oz, demanded that his senatorial rival, Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman, fire two staffers from his campaign, ironically named “Horton.”

In 1993, Lee and Dennis Horton were accused of providing a ride to a friend who killed a man at a Philadelphia bar. The brothers, who insisted they were innocent, declined plea bargains that would have seen them released from prison in 5 to 10 years, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, and received life sentences instead.

They were ultimately released in 2021 after the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons, which Fetterman chairs, unanimously recommended that their sentences be commuted.

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There was once a time when a shake of the hands was good enough for a contract to be formed that people felt obligated to honor. In some instances, it was a valid contract. In others, it wasn’t. But either way, one’s word was one’s bond, and honoring one’s word was what one did. The point isn’t that people never found themselves unable to keep their word, but that when they didn’t, they felt shame for their failure to do so.

Is this still the case? Will this be how people feel going forward? Or is shame for failure to honor one’s obligation the latest “stigma” to fall out of favor? Continue reading →

There was no question that the old constitution from Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who seized power from socialist Salvador Allende, had to go, and who better than former student activist, 36-year-old leftist president Gabriel Boric, to create a glorious new Constitution that would change everything.

Chilean voters rejected a 170-page, 388-article proposal that would have legalized abortion, mandated universal health care, required gender parity in government, given Indigenous groups greater autonomy, empowered labor unions, strengthened regulations on mining and granted rights to nature and animals. Continue reading →

It was hard to miss with its prominent placement on the top right corner of the New York Times’ home page, and what it said was pretty shocking. American theater is a hotbed of racism?

In a way, it shouldn’t be surprising. The more sensitive a group is toward an issue, the greater the issue looms and the more damnable the group is. But it’s the irony of it all, the theater, those people most theoretically progressive, sensitive, empathetic, and open to rhetorical gibberish that appeals to the uneducated and shallow mind, would seem to be the least racist place one could find outside of the grievance studies department in academia. Yet, here we were, racism as the star. Who knew? Continue reading →

There’s a kid in Iowa or Kansas, somewhere that doesn’t appear on New York maps, named Derek who is constantly replying to my twits by going ballistic about my friendship with Mike Cernovich. Yes, that Mike Cernovich. I’ve known Mike for a long time now, as he was doing a blawg called Crime and Federalism with Norm Pattis back when SJ was born. Mike,  you see, is a lawyer, and a very smart one. That’s when we became friends.

And there’s another kid who used to be ridiculed for being a bit overweight, not being the best speller and being a little loose with details when he wrote at Above the Law, after winning David Lat’s “ATL Idol” contest by being very funny. And he was very funny, and very smart, and provocative but in a way that would have you rolling on the floor. Elie Mystal was a friend, he would jokingly call my “angry black man friend.” At least I thought he was joking, but he never came to dinner, so who knows? Continue reading →