The University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law and the UA Little Rock Law Review invites scholars to submit paper proposals for the 2025 Ben J. Altheimer Symposium: Immigration Law, Access to Justice, and Rethinking the “Criminal Alien”.
The annual Altheimer Symposium brings together prominent scholars and speakers to explore topics of significant interest to the legal and scholarly community. The 2025 symposium will address the intersection of immigration and criminal law – or “crimmigration” – focusing particularly on questions of access to justice. The point of departure for the 2025 Altheimer Symposium will be a reflection upon the notion of the “criminal alien.”
In early 2024, Professor César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández published Welcome the Wretched: In Defense of the “Criminal Alien,” in which he argues that “a deeply flawed and racist criminal legal system and immigration system [has] converged to senselessly cruel effect.” In a book that draws upon a wide range of interdisciplinary sources, García Hernández “counters the fundamental assumption that criminal activity has a rightful place in immigration matters, arguing that instead of using the criminal legal system to identify people to deport, the United States should place a reimagined sense of citizenship and solidarity at the center of immigration policy.” Professor García Hernández will launch the 2025 Altheimer Symposium with a brief reflection on the book and the concerns that led him to write it. Scholars are invited to respond to García Hernández’s arguments and to explore the theme of access to justice for immigrants in the criminal and immigration systems.
The symposium aims to address the widespread recognition that the immigration system is broken, and the related recognition that the criminal legal systems, at both the federal and state levels, are often, erratically, and imperfectly used to enforce immigration law and policy. The symposium seeks paper proposals that address any aspect of the intersection of immigration and criminal law and policy, with solutions for addressing and improving failing aspects of U.S. immigration law. Following the symposium in the spring of 2025, accepted papers will be published in the UA Little Rock Law Review.
The symposuim will be held April 4, 2025. Proposals should be submitted no later than Friday, September 6, 2024. Accepted paper proposals and details of the 2025 Altheimer Symposium will be delivered no later than Monday, September 30, 2024.
Questions should be directed to the UA Little Rock Law Review Symposium Editor, Alycia Jameson, at acjameson@ualr.edu.
