Abstract
Immigrant parents are currently burdened with unique risks to their parental rights, risks that bear little relation to their ability to care for their children. Recent developments in family and immigration law, historical cultural prejudices against non-Western parenting traditions, and poor immigrants’ limited access to the U.S. legal system are largely to blame. This Note explores the inadequacies in our legal system contributing to the struggles of immigrant parents to maintain family unity and connects the current situation to the disproportionate number of terminations of parental rights within the Native American community in the mid-twentieth century. It suggests that a federal statute modeled on the Indian Child Welfare Act may be able to comprehensively address the issues identified herein.
Recommended Citation
Andrapalliyal, Vinita B.
(2013)
"History Repeats Itself: Parallels Between Current-day Threats to Immigrant Parental Rights and Native American Parental Rights in the Twentieth Century,"
University of Massachusetts Law Review: Vol. 8:
Iss.
2, Article 6.
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.umassd.edu/umlr/vol8/iss2/6