About

Alina Das is a scholar associated with New York University School of Law. She has contributed to the discourse on immigration detention policy, focusing on the legal and constitutional issues surrounding the detention of noncitizens. Her work critically examines the current immigration detention system, highlighting its lawlessness and the failure of courts to protect the substantive rights of detained immigrants. Das argues that the political branches have an interest in ensuring civil conditions for detained immigrants, and she contends that the failure to uphold this interest underscores systemic issues within the detention framework.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Law
• Aesthetics
• Criminology
• Art

Selected publications

• Deportation and Dissent: Protecting the Voices of the Immigrant Rights Movement

  NYLS Law Review · 2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  This article asserts that federal government retaliation against immigrant rights activists poses a severe threat to freedom of speech and the democratic values protected by the First Amendment. Part I describes the recent pattern of retaliation against immigrant rights activists in the United States and its threat to the vibrancy of immigration policy debate. Part II explores how immigrants have been particularly vulnerable to retaliation, by discussing legal precedent and identifying protective mechanisms that have eroded over time. Part III outlines measures that can be taken to protect immigrant voices through robust administrative, legislative, and judicial oversight. Part IV concludes this article.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Criminalizing Immigrants

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2019-06-13

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Antidemocracy in America is a collective effort to understand the fragility of American democracy and how to protect it from the buried contradictions that Trump’s victory brought into view. It offers essays from leading scholars on topics including race, religion, gender, civil liberties, protest, inequality, immigration, and the media.

  PublisherDOI

• Administrative Constitutionalism in Immigration Law

  2018-03-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The direct application of constitutional norms in immigration law has long been stymied by unique doctrinal and institutional barriers. Scholarship has focused on the role that federal courts may play in indirectly advancing constitutional norms through statutory interpretation and the use of subconstitutional norms in immigration cases. Despite the limited role of federal courts vis-à-vis the administrative state in the shaping of immigration law, less attention has been paid to the role of the executive branch in this arena. This Article addresses and critiques the current state of administrative constitutionalism in immigration law. As this Article describes, the executive branch has underutilized its power to enforce constitutional norms in immigration law. Despite extensive opportunities for advancing constitutional norms in immigration adjudication, federal immigration officials have failed to embrace their role in constitutional decisionmaking. This Article argues that federal agencies can and should play a larger role in enforcing constitutional norms in immigration law.

  Publisher

• Inclusive Immigrant Justice: Racial Animus and the Origins of Crime-Based Deportation

  eYLS (Yale Law School) · 2017-11-01 · 18 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The merger of immigration and criminal law has transformed both systems, amplifying the flaws in each. In critiquing this merger, most scholarly accounts begin with legislative changes in the 1980s and 1990s that vastly expanded criminal grounds of deportation and eliminated many forms of discretionary relief. As a result of these changes, immigrant communities have experienced skyrocketing rates of detention and deportation, with a disparate impact on people of color. Despite increasing awareness of the harshness of the modern system, however, many people still view criminal records as a relatively neutral mechanism for identifying immigrants as priorities for detention and deportation. Drawing on the early history of crime-based deportation, this essay argues that criminal records have never been a neutral means for prioritizing immigrants for detention and deportation from the United States. Rather, as this essay sets forth, racial animus has driven the creation and development of crime-based deportation from the beginning.

  Publisher

• Self-Representation, Civil Gideon, and Community Mobilization in Immigration Cases

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2016-03-31 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Immigration issues are American issues. One out of every eight people living in America is an immigrant, whose status or lack thereof may place them at risk of deportation. One out of every five children is the child of an immigrant, and over 16 million people in America live in families with at least one undocumented immigrant. And the threat of deportation is significant. Immigration law is complex and lawful immigrant status—whether as a visa holder, refugee/asylee, lawful permanent resident, or individual with some other form of authorization to remain in the country—is difficult to obtain and keep. Authorization may expire and even forms of “permanent” status are subject to revocation because of past criminal conduct and other civil immigration violations. Under the various grounds of “removal” (the legal term for deportation), nearly 400,000 individuals are deported each year. The immigration system is largely a system of self-representation. Forty-one percent of noncitizens end up representing themselves in removal proceedings. The number is much higher for the detained immigrant population, where over 80% are pro se. Categorized as a “civil” legal process, removal proceedings do not provide a right to counsel. Instead, individuals in removal proceedings must rely on the limited resources of nonprofit legal service providers or pay for private representation. Although causation is unclear, those without legal representation are ten times more likely to be deported than those with counsel. Moreover, those with counsel may not receive effective representation, given the wide variation in quality among those who represent immigrants in removal proceedings.

  PublisherDOI

• Unshackling Habeas Review: Chevron Deference and Statutory Interpretation in Immigration Detention Cases

  2014-07-16 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This article questions the application of Chevron deference in federal court habeas review of statutory immigration detention challenges. Since the enactment of a mandatory detention statute for immigrants facing deportation, the Board of Immigration Appeals — an administrative body within the U.S. Department of Justice — has played an increasingly important role in interpreting the scope of detention for thousands of immigrants each year. Federal courts have long served as an important check against executive detention through habeas review and have declined to accommodate other deference norms in the immigration detention context. Federal courts have nonetheless applied Chevron to immigration detention cases without questioning whether such deference to the agency is appropriate. This article argues that federal courts should reject the application of Chevron when exercising habeas review of statutory immigration detention challenges. This article further argues that federal courts, whether or not fettered by Chevron, should apply interpretive norms that properly account for the important physical liberty interest at stake.

• The president’s executive order: what difference will it make for immigrants?

  2014-11-21

  preprint
  PublisherDOI

• Immigration Detention: Information Gaps and Institutional Barriers to Reform

  2013-01-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This Article examines and critiques the institutional design choices underlying the civil immigration detention system in the United States. The stated objective of this system is to effectuate removal orders and ensure public safety during the removal process by detaining noncitizens who pose a flight risk or danger to the public. The design choices utilized to achieve this objective, however, hinder the effective acquisition and use of information regarding flight risk and danger. Reliance on mandatory detention, evidentiary limitations, and shifting burdens of proof create a presumption of detention. As a result, decision makers lack the means or the incentive to collect and use information to release individuals who do not pose a flight risk or danger— including individuals who may not ultimately be removed from the United States—at significant cost to the administration of the immigration system as a whole.

  PublisherOA PDF

• The Immigration Penalties of Criminal Convictions: Resurrecting Categorical Analysis in Immigration Law

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2010-01-01 · 31 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Immigrants and Problem-Solving Courts

  Criminal Justice Review · 2008-08-14 · 21 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Problem-solving courts are increasingly imposing requirements that adversely affect immigrant defendants seeking to participate in alternative sentencing and diversion programs. Upfront guilty pleas, admissions of guilt, and jail sanctions may leave immigrants at risk of deportation and other negative immigration consequences—even if they successfully complete court-ordered programming and the court ultimately dismisses the charges against them. These consequences in turn affect defendants' families and communities and complicate the work of key players in the criminal justice system. This article explains why immigrant defendants are at risk and how problem-solving courts may adopt programs and policies that address these concerns for immigrant communities.

  PublisherDOI

Labs

• The Legal Labyrinth of Immigrant DetentionPI

Awards & honors

• Immigrant Defense Project Champion of Justice Award
• Daniel Levy Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in Im…
• New York State Youth Leadership Council Outstanding Attorney…
• NYU Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Award
• NYU Law School Podell Distinguished Teaching Award