Carrie E. Davenport, J.D. '05, Cornell University Law School, is the recipient of the 2005 Edward L. Dubroff Award from the American Immigration Law Foundation for her paper "A 'Brutal Need': How Application of Expedited Removal to Potential Refugees Violates the Fifth Amendment." The award, which is given annually to the law school student author of the best paper on immigration law, comes with an honorarium of $1,000. The paper is posted on the foundation's Web site http://www.ailf.org/awards/dubroff_index.asp and will be published by the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Davenport's paper looks at the constitutionality of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which amended the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to mandate the expedited deportation of certain classes of excludable non-citizens. She faults current hearing procedures, which "lack even the most fundamental elements of a fair hearing, operate completely outside the reach of the courts and provide largely illusory procedural protections." Warning that a fair hearing "truly may be the difference between life and death, torture or prolonged detention" for some immigrants facing deportation, she recommends that Congress "take[s] a hard look at the scheme it has created to ensure that the United States does not later regret turning its back on people who are persecuted by denying them a meaningful opportunity to be heard."

Davenport is a former student of Stephen Yale-Loehr, an adjunct professor of immigration law, and the fifth Cornell Law School student of his to win the award in the past 15 years. While studying law she worked as a litigation law clerk at Cornell's Office of University Counsel from May 2003 through May 2005. Following successful completion of the bar exam, she will be an associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York City, where she plans to concentrate her pro bono practice in the area of asylum law.