In criminal law, an individual must be deemed competent to stand trial, yet our immigration courts routinely order the deportation of incompetent noncitizens. A removal proceeding against a noncitizen—where an outcome of deportation often risks life-threatening harm—continues apace even if the noncitizen has been deemed incompetent by the immigration judge. In place of halting proceedings, the immigration judge imposes “safeguards” pursuant to a provision of the immigration code that neither defines nor explains the term. In practice, judges’ application of the term “safeguards” is often absurd. The implications of continuing a proceeding against a noncitizen with a disability affecting competency are significant. Unlike criminal defendants, noncitizens facing removal carry the burden for much of the proceeding, so their participation and understanding is critical to having a fair shot. Yet noncitizens are routinely ordered deported even though they do not understand or meaningfully participate in removal proceedings.

By unifying a small but rich body of literature from immigration, disability, and criminal competency scholarship and cases, this Article closes a gap in understanding how the machinations of the immigration legal system result in the removal of noncitizens whose disabilities render them incompetent. It takes stock of the immigration agency’s failure to answer foundational questions about how its competency framework should work. This shortcoming results in what I call “safeguards theater,” in which the immigration courts push proceedings forward despite clear indications the noncitizen did not understand.

In place of the current practice, this Article instead argues for the application of disability law. Federal disability law guarantees a person with a disability meaningful access to immigration court, so a removal proceeding after a competency determination must be accessible to the noncitizen. This Article’s proposal would curtail the immigration courts’ reliance on safeguards theater and allow noncitizens meaningful judicial review of competency issues. Finally, the Article questions whether a person with a disability affecting competency should undergo removal proceedings at all.

This Note seeks to shed light on the life-threatening danger of extreme heat in un-air-conditioned Texas prisons. The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) starkly limits the relief available to those suffering and dying in these prisons. This Note proposes an amendment to the legislation that could create a path toward lasting relief for incarcerated people. After analyzing the effects of increasing heat on the particularly vulnerable prison population, this Note analyzes how the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit have handled claims alleging constitutionally violative prison conditions under the Eighth Amendment—in short, ineffectively, if at all. This Note then details the many ways in which the PLRA thwarts incarcerated people’s ability to even get to the courts in the first place. Given these legislative and judicial hurdles, this Note ultimately proposes an amendment to the PLRA that could allow for relief from dangerous, life-threatening conditions in overheated Texas prisons.

The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees criminal defendants “the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State.” Voir dire, the procedure during which the prosecution and the defense may challenge prospective jurors for cause or exercise peremptory challenges, purports to uphold this right. When the prosecution has access to cellular geolocation data on prospective jurors that the defense lacks, however, it may jeopardize the defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights.

This Note proposes a solution to that problem in the form of an addition to Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. By amending Rule 16 to specifically compel government disclosure of prospective jurors’ cell site location information (CSLI) to the defense, the criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury is significantly more likely to be protected. Moreover, this addition to Rule 16 would guide courts’ adaptation to technological advances, as well as restore the information equilibrium between criminal defendants and the government.