Michael Sullivan
Graduate Student
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E-mail: mjsulliv@princeton.edu
Specialization:
Michael Sullivan specializes in public law and political theory. His research interests focus in the areas of citizenship studies, immigration and nationality law, U.S. Constitutional law, international law, and law in society.
M.A. Princeton University (2006), M.A., Baylor University (2004), B.A., Wilfrid Laurier University (2002).
Thesis Title: Between Rules of Law: The State's Juridical Responsibilities to its Integrated Non-Citizen Residents
Committee:
Abstract: The non-citizen who is integrated into the society where he habitually resides, and indirectly, the vulnerable citizens who depend upon her are caught between two legal orders and two corresponding legal statuses. The non-citizen has the status of a legal person who possesses constitutional civil rights in common with all other individuals who are subject to the jurisdiction of the legal order where she resides. On the other hand, the non-citizen is also vulnerable to deportation as a subject to the will of the political community and its claims to exercise sovereignty and right to self-determination. My dissertation examines the duties that liberal democratic states, with a focus on the United States and its constituent legal and political orders, have towards their non-citizen long-term residents who are integrated into the common life of the community. In the United States, I argue that this responsibility is augmented by the position of the non-citizen resident as a person with constitutional civil rights in a common legal order which should be considered prior to the sub-constitutional justifications offered in defense of the American political community's right to detain and expel non-citizens without due process. I further develop a more generally applicable response by adapting a framework that was originally used to adjudicate dual nationality claims by international tribunals to a new context. I argue that states bear a primary responsibility for individuals who are subject to their jurisdiction and control, and that this responsibility increases when an individual is more closely linked to his state of residence than his state of nominal formal nationality through the equities of long-term residence, family and other community affiliations. I close by arguing that the ties of care and dependency between non-citizen parents who are settled in their state of residence and their citizen-children deserve special consideration by states in any decision concerning the non-citizen's right to remain in the country. I draw support for my position from countries that have applied "family integrity" provisions in their constitutions to prevent the separation of family members through deportation and international human rights instruments.
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