Matching Items (2)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Law
Description
Protection orders are a common remedy for victims of domestic violence in Arizona, but problems of access and unnecessary complexity can prevent these orders from achieving their full potential impact. Through interviews with court officials and advocates, data collected from survivors of domestic violence and observation of court proceedings, this study takes a comprehensive look at how to make protection orders as effective and accessible as possible. This analysis concludes with a series of recommendations to improve the protection order process and guidelines for the information to be included in a comprehensive resource to help plaintiffs through the process.
ContributorsDavis, Lauren Elise (Author) / Durfee, Alesha (Thesis director) / Messing, Jill (Committee member) / Buel, Sarah (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
For asylum seekers pursuing claims in the United States, immigration court is often a hostile environment, as a site of exclusion and criminalization. Generations of social and political rhetoric about immigrants’ worth, deservingness of safety and dignity, and humanity are codified into law and policy, which is then enacted on the lives and petitions of thousands of immigrants pursuing their rights to refuge. Asylum seekers are fleeing violence and harms that are often compounded along the journey, in a continuum of structural and interpersonal violence throughout their migration and often continued in the destination country, through detention, deportation, and the court process itself. Immigration court’s purpose is to adjudicate asylum claims; while this decision is executed by judges, the court context where asylum seekers petitions are audienced are made up of prosecutors, legal advocates, expert witnesses, social workers, interpreters, court staff, and others who shape the way that petitioners’ claims are evaluated and the space in which asylum seekers’ claims are heard. This study uses a qualitative ethnographic method, drawing on human rights and critical theories to study immigration court as a culture, and to interrogate how members of this culture understand the nature of the court, their roles and relationships within the immigration enforcement system and how the immigration process identifies and responds to trauma. Data collection spanned 8 months, and included observation of 161 immigration hearings across the four Arizona immigration courts. Participants (n=73) represented various key professions within and adjacent to the court: judges, ICE trial attorneys, defense attorneys, court staff, interpreters, legal team members such as paralegals and social workers, detention center staff, and community advocates. Findings address the physical court space, the roles and professions that interact in the court, and the atmosphere of the court. These center securitization and the ideological friction of the court, credibility determinations as a site of contested power, hostility and adversariality, and the limited approach to human rights and narrow acknowledgement of trauma. These findings contextualize professional and policy recommendations, as well as implications for education and future research.
ContributorsMathis, Cherra M (Author) / Androff, David (Thesis advisor) / Cook Heffron, Laurie (Committee member) / Firoz, Malay (Committee member) / Messing, Jill (Committee member) / Castañada Acosta, Rocío (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024