Professor of Law Emeritus William C. Banks was interviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education on his involvement as a legal expert in the “LA Eight” Palestinian immigration case from the 1980s. The article compares that case with the current immigration case of Mahmoud Khalil.
The key difference between the immigration crackdown in the 1980s and today, Banks said in an interview, is that Trump-administration officials “simply aren’t playing by the rules” when it comes to giving activists their due process.
The case revolves around a disability discrimination lawsuit by a fired cocktail waitress who’d asked to wear comfortable black shoes to work instead of the required high heels.
One takeaway was to keep essential job functions gender-neutral when possible. Macfarlane said it depends on the job, and how the employer defines what it considers an essential function.
“With a cheerleading uniform, you could say that you want to have everyone in the same thing, you want to be able to maximize what is most attractive,” she said, in an example of an all-woman professional cheer squad. “But we’re far afield from that … this is a job where people are supposed to be able to deliver drinks quickly.”
In fact, Macfarlane continued, she might argue that high heels could be a liability in a work environment that depends on speed and carrying heavy trays of food or drink.
The idea that the black high heels are an essential function of the work of cocktail servers at this company “should have been interrogated,” she said.
Another takeaway was that granting an accommodation may be the easiest solution, even as the ADA doesn’t actually require workers to produce a doctor’s note at all — let alone produce a note containing specific prescriptive language for a certain brand of shoes — in order for them to wear what works best for them.
“The interactive process is supposed to be flexible, and a conversation. If you can defer to the employee’s preference, you should,” she said. “There’s something really irrational and punitive about the way this came down, because the easy solution is, ‘Of course, you can wear your Skechers. Thank you for letting me know.’ Move on.”
She said it’s a bad human resources decision that led to lawyers on both sides “because someone wants to wear black Skechers.”
Professor Casey Weissman-Vermeulen, Director of the Housing Clinic, spoke with the Daily Orange about local housing advocate CNY Fair Housing and its future as federal grants and funding are diminished for education initiatives.
CNY Fair Housing is a local nonprofit organization that receives funding through grants from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. It responds to tenant or renter discrimination cases by conducting investigations and taking legal action when necessary. But it now faces the elimination of grant funding for its education and outreach efforts, which are being challenged in court.
CNY Fair Housing’s mission, Weissman-Vermeulen said, extends beyond legal enforcement. He also said the organization also works to raise awareness about how housing discrimination impacts individual families and the greater community.
“Issues of discrimination and then isolating folks to areas of concentrated poverty, lead to all kinds of problems that we all sort of collectively pay for in terms of folks not being able to access jobs and being upwardly economically mobile or perhaps engaging in crime or non-legal economic activity,” Weissman-Vermeulen, a former attorney for CNY Fair Housing, said.
Ansca Pakop LL.M.’25 is proud to be the first person from Papua New Guinea to attend the Syracuse University College of Law, and he plans to make the most of his time here. Almost 9,000 miles away from his island home in the Oceania region, Pakop is looking forward to spending the next year in Syracuse on a Fulbright grant to expand his already extensive legal knowledge by earning a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree with a particular interest in international law and national security.
A working attorney for over a decade, Pakop has a LL.B., MBA and a master’s degree in economics and public policy from the University of Papua New Guinea. After holding a number of positions in many areas of the law, he is currently the legal counsel for the Climate Change & Development Authority in Papua New Guinea. His work is key to protecting the environmentally vulnerable island, and he has been involved in drafting, advising and interpreting climate change-related legislation and regulations, including Papua New Guinea’s Climate Change (Management) Act and the U.N. Paris Agreement Implementation Act.
Papua New Guinea became independent from Australia in 1975. With 13 million people speaking more than 800 languages, it is both the most populated Pacific island state and the most linguistically diverse in the world. Its large supply of minerals, particularly copper and gold, as well as petroleum and natural gas, both spur the economy and contribute to some of the major environmental issues that the island faces, including deforestation, erosion, greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, natural disasters and flooding.
Pakop’s interest in adding national security and international law to his resumé comes from Papua New Guinea’s urgent need to update its outdated national security policies, legislation and international intelligence operations, which date back to when the island was still an Australian colony. Its resources, economic potential and geographic location make Papua New Guinea of interest to world powers like Australia, China and the United States. In fact, the U.S. is currently investing a great deal there, including the renovation of a naval base to be used by the U.S. Navy, as a strategic location in close proximity to China.
Pakop is eager to learn as much as he can through the LL.M. program in order to bring that knowledge back home. He is pleased with his experience so far, calling it “quite intense and competitive.”
“I’m enjoying my classes, the diversity and the academic environment here,” he says. “We have such excellent and renowned faculty at Syracuse Law, many of whom have insights into things like NATO and cybersecurity that interest me. I’m learning such quality information through lectures and enriching classes.”
In addition to his studies, Pakop has also joined the Student Bar Association (SBA), as well as the African Graduate Students Network.
Once he has earned his LL.M., he plans to return to Papua New Guinea’s Climate Change & Development Authority. He would also be open to working with his government’s defense or security agencies in the future.
“An LL.M. degree from Syracuse Law in the United States will be very helpful and prestigious for me when I return to Papua New Guinea,” Pakop says. “I am certain that the things I’m learning about international law will help my work and further my career. And, I will also have the strength of the Syracuse Law network behind me, even when I’m back on the other side of the world.”
Crandall Melvin Professor Shubha Ghosh spoke with the National News Desk about possible remedies in the Google antitrust ruling.
“The courts generally, and I don’t see a change in this, tend to like contractual remedies like trying to make sure contracts are not being used in a way that is anti-competitive, and that’s more their bailiwick,” said Ghosh, Director of the Syracuse Intellectual Property Law Institute. “That’s something they may be more comfortable with in terms of just not having the kind of exclusivity arrangements that Google might have had with Apple, in terms of just trying to open up like the data.”
The College of Law recently held a Disability Awareness Panel, a part of Syracuse’s Disability Cultural Center’s Disability Pride Month.
Rachel Dubin and Professor Cora True-Frost L’01, two of the featured panelists, shared their personal experiences and legal insights in navigating education for people with disabilities.
The two highlighted the challenges people face in education, including finding accommodations, and the need for legal intervention in preventing non-inclusive policy.
“Law really matters, and so the person who is protected needs to understand what their possible accommodations can be legally, and finding that answer can be very difficult for the person who has disabilities and is entitled to these protections,” said True-Fost.
Dean Terence Lau L’98 recently spoke with NBC News on how new automotive tariffs will impact consumers. One anticipated way is for auto insurance premiums to increase.
It will cost insurance companies more to replace damaged car parts that are subject to tariffs. “When you get into an accident, your car insurance company is the one that’s going to be buying those parts to repair your vehicle,” said Lau, who was previously a trade lawyer for Ford Motor Co. “Many products are imported, and so I expect that we will see some upward pressure on car insurance premiums.”
For consumers, Lau advised: “Don’t panic. Because when you panic, you make bad decisions.”
When Yu-Shiuan “Carr” Lin L’25 LL.M. decided to pursue a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in the United States, his thoughts weren’t only on the court of law but also on the basketball court. Since middle school, Lin has been a big fan of “the famous Carmello Anthony,” who played for Syracuse University’s Men’s Basketball in 2002-03, leading the team to its first NCAA Championship.
Currently pursuing a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) at National Chengchi University College of Law in Taipei, Taiwan, Lin discovered that his home school had a partnership with Syracuse University College of Law that would allow him to pursue an LL.M. as part of his studies. “Not only can I go to the school where Carmello Anthony played, but Syracuse Law’s LL.M. program will help me get my master’s degree as soon as possible.”
Lin’s interest is in environmental law, and he comes to Syracuse Law with a number of internships where he conducted research on urban planning, food security and environmental impact assessment. Recently, he had the opportunity to attend The Asian American Bar Association of New York’s: Navigating OCI with Corporate Attorneys in New York City, where he was able to network with partners from several 20 top law firms of Vault Law 100. There, he met a partner who had worked on various projects surrounding financing energy and infrastructure development in Asia, and they discussed how there are not enough attorneys practicing in areas like energy or the environment in that part of the world. This experience encouraged Lin’s interest in eventually returning to his home to help contribute to environmental law efforts. Although, since joining the LL.M. program, he says he can also see himself rolling his environmental law knowledge into international law, as well.
He is enjoying the LL.M. program in Syracuse and has met others from countries all over the world with different levels of professional experience. “It’s amazing to discuss the U.S. legal system with other students who are already practicing at big law firms and are high level professionals with a lot of experience in their own countries, while I am still earning my law degree,” he says. “So far, it’s just what I imagined it would be here, though, and I find the workload very accommodating and more collaborative. Of course, the curriculum is pretty intense, but I like that I have some space to explore other interests.”
Some of those interests include participation in the General Counsel Symposium held at Syracuse Law in September; the 2024 Fall Conference of the Asian American Bar Association of New York, which he attended as part of the Law School’s Asian-Pacific American Law Student Association; and the 2024 International Law Association Weekend organized by the American branch of the International Law Association (ABILA) that he attended in New York City with the Syracuse Law’s International Law Society.
After Lin completes his LL.M. next year, he will return to Taiwan for mandatory military service. After he completes that requirement, he plans to come back to the U.S. to take the New York State Bar Exam.
“Taking the bar in New York State has many advantages for me, as it is the biggest bar association in the United States,” he explains. “Passing the New York State Bar will give me eligibility to handle foreign affairs and legal issues related to imports/exports and the manufacturing industry, which we are so famous for in Taiwan. Businesses there have to deal with U.S. law all the time.”
As he eagerly awaits the opportunity to see his first basketball game in the Syracuse University JMA Wireless Dome in the coming months, he intends to continue to learn as much as he can about U.S. culture and also its perspective on the law. Lin is making the most of his time at Syracuse Law and says he knows that completing the LL.M. program is sure to give him “a home court advantage” in his legal career.
“Symbolically, it puts the military right in the center of immigration enforcement,” said Banks, who has studied and written about the use of the military in the U.S. interior.
“When (the military) has been deployed in recent years, including in the Bush and Obama (administration) … they’ve been undertaking activities that we would not call law enforcement. The worry, historically, about putting soldiers in the position of cops is that they’re not trained to do that. Their orientation is entirely different — they’re trained as warfighters, not as law enforcers,” he said.
On Oct. 31, 1980, a baby boy was born in Santiago, Chile, to a poor, young, Indigenous mother. He was whisked away before she was allowed to hold him, and later she was told that the baby had died. But, he was very much alive, taken away by a ring of traffickers who created fraudulent documents and sold him into international adoption. It would be decades before Jimmy L. Thyden González L’21, would discover the circumstances surrounding his birth and use his knowledge of the law to fight for the rights of thousands of other counterfeit adoptees around the world.
Amazingly, Thyden González’s story is not unique. Tens of thousands of babies had been victims of a scheme under Chile’s then dictator Augusto Pinochet, who believed that kidnapping the children of poor, Indigenous and often single women was a way to reduce the country’s poverty rate and improve economic conditions. His twisted rationale meant that the Chilean government would not have to support as many poor families, and, in turn, it would create an economic boom through fees paid by unwitting adoptive parents throughout Europe and North America. Corrupt doctors, judges, government officials and clergy were an integral part of running this horrific system of child trafficking, which, according to the Chilean government, took approximately 20,000 children away from their parents between the 1950s and 1990s. However, it is estimated by civil and nonprofit groups working to address the harms that the actual number is closer to 50,000.
Thyden González was adopted from a Chilean orphanage at age 2 by an American couple who had no idea that the child’s papers and backstory were fraudulent. They believed his birth mother had willingly given him up, being too young and poor to care for her baby. His paperwork called him “Carlos,” but the couple named him James “Jimmy” Thyden, and he had a happy childhood growing up in Virginia.
After high school, Thyden González joined the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served for 19 years. In 2011, just before he was preparing to be deployed to Afghanistan, his adoptive mother gave him his adoption records. As Thyden González looked through them, he began to notice discrepancies. One, for example, said he had been born in a hospital in Chile to a “known mother.” Another said he had “no living family.” Papers also indicated that his mother’s name was Maria González, which, unfortunately, was a very common name in that country. At the time, he had no idea what the real story was, but he put those thoughts in the back of his mind as he headed off to Afghanistan.
Upon his return, he often thought about investigating his adoption story, but he wasn’t quite sure how to begin. Many in his adopted family told him he was loved and that he should be grateful for the life he had been given, but he continued to feel a question that needed answering. Thyden González thought about traveling to Chile to research his background, but that required permission from the military and finances In addition, he spoke no Spanish and knew little of the culture.
Thyden González separated from the Marines in 2018 and earned an undergraduate degree from Liberty University, and then used the G.I. Bill and Syracuse’s commitment to the Yellow Ribbon Program to earn a law degree from the Syracuse University College of Law with the intention of being a criminal defense lawyer fighting the disparities toward people of color within the criminal justice system.
Making Connections to Find his Chilean Family Link
In 2023, his wife came across an article about a man who had been the victim of illegal adoption in Chile. The story felt very familiar to Thyden González, and he decided the time had come to find out more about the circumstances surrounding his birth and adoption. Notably within the article was mention of a nonprofit organization in Chile, Nos Buscamos, working to reunite families. An organization which he describes as “two ladies working with their laptops to change the world.”
Thyden González got in contact with them, eventually sending copies of his paperwork— and quickly learning that the attorney and social worker who had handled his adoption were some of the most notorious traffickers in Chile. He was advised to submit his DNA to MyHeritage, which had been supplying DNA kits to women in Chile in the hopes of finding some of the trafficked children. As a lawyer, he was hesitant at first, but, knowing there was the possibility of reuniting with his family, he finally decided to do so. Just 42 days later, the DNA results connected him with a woman from Chile identified as his mother’s cousin. He emailed the woman, who was herself skeptical but did tell him that there was a Maria González in her family and that she was alive.
Soon, he received a message from his aunt saying, “We found her, and she wants to meet you.” It was only after that that Thyden González first heard the true story of what had happened to him and his mamá on the day he was born, and how, since that day, she believed her son had died. Soon, he was frequently texting with his mamá in his “terrible Spanish,” as he raised the money to travel to Chile.
At the same time, González got in contact with other Chilean’s who had been illegally adopted, one of whom, Adrian Reamey, was making a documentary about the issue and wanted his legal expertise. She asked him to accompany her to Chile as part of the documentary-making process. Finally, he had the opportunity to reunite with his mamá and meet his family!
The reunion was tearful and overwhelming, as he hugged his mamá for the first time, surrounded by other relatives who welcomed him joyously. Thyden González, his wife and children, were able to spend a week getting to know his mamá. Soon after, he officially added “González” to his name, making him Jimmy L. Thyden González in honor of his Chilean heritage.
Gonzalez hugs his birth mother for the first time during his visit to Chile.
In the two weeks that followed, González stayed in Chile with the documentary film crew, meeting with government officials, where he learned that the Policia De Investigaciones De Chile (PDI), the civilian police department, had only five individuals in the entire country investigating illegal adoptions. No one was truly working to provide any kind of closure or reparations for the thousands of mamás and their stolen babies.
González returned to the U.S., put his law practice on hold and decided the best way he could help would be to get an LL.M. in international human rights, which he completed last year at American University’s Washington College of Law.
Gonzalez meeting his Chilean relatives for the first time in his visit to Chile.
Creating a Nonprofit to Help Others Affected by Illegal Trafficking Link
At the same time, he created a nonprofit organization, Grafting Hope, to help those impacted by illegal human trafficking obtain reparations. The organization has already brought a great deal of awareness to these counterfeit adoptions, which, unfortunately, still continue at some level even today. Thyden González has met with officials in Chile and the U.S., making connections through both embassies. He also had the opportunity to brief the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances, testifying on the atrocities of these illegal adoptions.
When he heard that the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric Font, planned a visit to the U.S., Thyden González started a grassroots effort through a group chat with other impacted adoptees asking them to come to Washington, D.C. Thyden González collected many of their stories with Nos Buscamos and Reamey and presented them to Boric, telling him, “These are our stories, and we need your help. We, too, are Chilean.”
Thyden González has since been working non-stop to make those impacted families whole again. In addition to Grafting Hope, he is collaborating with Chilean law firm Colombara Estategia Legal. Together he sued the Chilean government, fighting for reparations on the basis that it failed to protect these babies and their mothers, thereby violating their human rights. He has filed suit asking the Chilean government to acknowledge the harm caused and establish a commission to identify all victims, both mamás and children, as well as recognize the identity and citizenship of those stolen babies and their descendants. Thyden González himself cannot claim Chilean citizenship under his chosen identity since the name on his adoption papers was fraudulent. He also walks a fine line because unwinding his adoption might nullify his American citizenship with the chance that this retired, disabled U.S. Marine could be deported. But, if he can’t clarify his adoption and be cleared as an American citizen, it will be nearly impossible for him to bring his mamá and family to the U.S. to care for them.
Jimmy Thyden González stands at the Supreme Court after presenting a criminal complaint in Santiago, Chile, on July 1, 2024. Photograph: Esteban Félix/AP
Still, every day, he continues the fight, and his improved Spanish language skills have made it easier to keep in touch with his mamá. Thyden González recently published an op-ed in The New York Times telling his story and has been using various media outlets to continue to raise awareness of counterfeit adoption. Last November, he also shared his experience with students at Syracuse Law.
“It is not lost on me that I came to Syracuse Law to study criminal defense and was, in fact, the victim of a crime from the day I was born,” he says. “I intend to continue to advocate and fight, not only for myself and my mamá, but for every mamá out there who lost a child to this horrendous counterfeit adoption scheme. It has become my passion, and the center of my identity and my career. I don’t intend to stop until there is a resolution, but I also know it’s going to take time. Still, I hope to see that day come soon.”
