Immigrants and the First Amendment: Defining the Borders of Noncitizen Free Speech and Free Exercise Claims

Friday, March 18, 2022; 9:00AM - 4:00PM

Online and In-Person

5 hours CLE credit
$60 - in-person attendance
$50 - via zoom

Not seeking CLE credit
$10 - in-person attendance
Free - via zoom

Free - zoom or in-person attendance for the UGA Law community

Larry Walker Room, Dean Rusk Hall
University of Georgia School of Law
225 Herty Drive, Athens, GA 30602

Registration Questions?
Please contact:
Katie Voyles
kmvoyles@uga.edu

Immigration law, as well as immigrant activism, are intersecting with the First Amendment in new and surprising ways. This year’s Georgia Law Review Symposium will bring together a diverse set of voices to discuss these exciting new crossovers, providing a forum to explore the nuances of the First Amendment’s scope as applied to immigrants, immigrant advocates, and potential immigrants outside of the country. This is an area of law that is becoming increasingly more topical, and many questions that arise from these areas remain unanswered or ambiguous.

Event Schedule

8:00 am - 9:00 am	Registration and Light Breakfast Refreshments
9:00 am - 9:10 am	Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:10 am - 10:35 am	Panel 1: “Immigrant Speech and Government Retaliation”
	Moderator Jason A. Cade, Associate Dean for Clinical Programs, Experiential Learning and J. Alton Hosch Associate Professor of Law, and Community Health Law Partnership Clinic Director at the University of Georgia School of Law Panelists Alina Das, Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law Charles H. Kuck, Kuck Baxter, LLC; Adjunct Professor at Emory University School of Law Daniel I. Morales, Associate Professor of Law and George A. Butler Research Professor at the University of Houston Law Center Clare R. Norins, Clinical Assistant Professor and First Amendment Clinic Director at the University of Georgia School of Law
10:35 am - 12:00 pm	Panel 2: “Back to the Future: Immigrant Speech Rights Yesterday and Tomorrow”
	Moderator Dr. Jonathan Peters, Associate Professor of Journalism at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications Panelists Michael Kagan, Director of UNLV Immigration Clinic and Joyce Mack Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Jennifer Koh, Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Nootbaar Institute for Law, Religion, and Ethics at Caruso School of Law, Pepperdine University Dr. Julia Rose Kraut, author of Threat of Dissent: A History of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation in the United States Gregory P. Magarian, Thomas and Karole Green Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm	Lunch (provided with registration)
1:00 pm - 2:15 pm	Panel 3: “The First Amendment’s Limits Abroad After Trump v. Hawaii: Free Exercise, Executive Power, and Justiciability”
	Moderator Nathan S. Chapman, Pope F. Brock Associate Professor in Professional Responsibility at the University of Georgia School of Law Panelists Christopher Lund, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Professor of Law at Wayne State University Law School Zachary Price, Professor of Law at University of California Hastings College of the Law Shalini Bhargava Ray, Associate Professor of Law at The University of Alabama School of Law
2:15 pm – 3:15 pm	Keynote Address by Ravi Ragbir
3:15 pm – 4:00 pm	Reception

Panels

“Immigrant Speech and Government Retaliation”

Despite being entitled to First Amendment rights, immigrants, particularly those without documentation, are highly vulnerable to government suppression of, or retaliation against, their exercise of free speech rights. Recent or ongoing cases in this area include Oldaker v. Giles in the Middle District of Georgia, which concerns first amendment claims brought on behalf of women alleging retaliation for medical abuse at an immigration detention center; and Ragbir v. Homan, which concerns the government’s retaliatory deportation of prominent immigrant rights activists.

“Back to the Future: Immigrant Speech Rights Yesterday and Tomorrow”

From John Lennon to Charlie Chaplin to many less famous immigrants, United States immigration history is riddled with deportation or exclusion decisions based on immigrants' expression. Looking to the future, it is possible that constitutional free speech rights are best shored up by legislative and administrative solutions.

“The First Amendment’s Limits Abroad After Trump v. Hawaii: Free Exercise, Executive Power, and Justiciability”

Trump v. Hawaii is the most recent high-profile iteration of immigration actions allegedly taken on the basis of religion. In addition to exploring first amendment issues respecting the religion of potential migrants, this panel will also cover issues relating to the differences in executive power as it pertains to potential immigrants as opposed to immigrants already on U.S. soil, as well as the difficulties associated with immigrants vindicating asserted constitutional rights from abroad.