Professor Jennifer Koh, "Zombies in Immigration Adjudication" -- Jotwell

Professor Jennifer Lee Koh's article, "Zombies in Immigration Adjudication," is published in Jotwell.  The article is a review of Sarah Vendzules's article, "Guilty After Proven Innocent: Hidden Factfinding in Immigration Decisionmaking," 112 Cal. L. Rev. 697 (2024).

Excerpt from "Zombies in Immigration Adjudication"

The analogies used to convey the dysfunctions of immigration adjudication to outsiders are often colorful, but not hyperbolic. The gambling game of roulette describes asylum decisionmaking, because the luck of the draw largely determines whether a noncitizen will receive asylum or not. Except, of course, in the case of “asylum-free zones,” where immigration judges simply deny almost all the time. Immigration judges decide cases that carry death penalty-like consequences with the resources of traffic court. And so on. Sarah Vendzules adds another powerful analogy to this list: zombies. More precisely, the practice of immigration adjudicators treating certain forms of evidence like zombies, irrefutable and “effectively impossible to kill.” (P. 697.)

The complete article may be found at Jotwell