The Voting Rights Act and the curious case of three‐judge district court panels

Mak, Maxwell; Sidman, Andrew H.

doi:10.1111/lapo.12186

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 35 publications

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“…Despite clear provisions to reduce the role of judicial discretion in deciding and reviewing in absentia cases, could it still be that circuit judges’ policy preferences affect their decision-making in the review of motions to reopen in absentia orders? Empirical evidence of preference-based judging in federal circuit courts abounds across a variety of case types (e.g., Bowie and Songer 2009; Bowie, Songer, and Szmer 2014; Broscheid 2011; George 1998; Haire 2006; Mak and Sidman 2020, 2022; Nelson, Hazelton, and Hinkle 2021; Sunstein et al 2006). This also holds for judging in the immigration context, both in immigration courts (e.g., Asad 2019; Miller, Keith, and Holmes 2015a; Ramji-Nogales, Schoenholtz, and Schrag 2007; but see, e.g., Kim and Semet 2020) and in circuit courts acting in a judicial review role (e.g., Hamlin 2014; Law 2005; Law 2010; Westerland 2009; Williams and Law 2012; but see Gill, Kagan, and Marouf 2019).…”

Section: Might Political Immigration Judging Still Emerge?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Congressional Constraint? The Review of In Absentia Immigration Removal Orders in Federal Circuit Courts

Boyd

Carlos

Taylor

et al. 2023

Political Research Quarterly

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Within the politically charged immigration system in the United States, Congress mandates the entry of in absentia removal orders against immigrants who fail to appear for immigration court hearings. Statutory guidance similarly constrains the ability of appellate courts to overturn those in absentia orders. In this article, we examine how federal circuit court judges make decisions in the review of in absentia orders when faced with discretion-revoking congressional statutory language pitted against a highly politicized area of law where policy preferences sit at the forefront of judges’ minds. Using an original dataset of U.S. Courts of Appeals cases decided from 2001 to 2020, we find that pro-immigrant decisions are rare, as intended by the governing statute. We also find, however, that judicial policy preferences predict the degree to which federal judges support the petitioning immigrant through statutory factors related to the adequacy of government notice and the presence of exceptional circumstances to justify nonappearance.

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