Professor Victor Romero publishes article in William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.—An article by Professor Victor Romero, titled “Border Decriminalization as a State Project: Lessons from Marijuana and Assisted Suicide Legalization Across the United States,” was recently published in the William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice.

He also presented this paper in February at the journal's annual symposium, titled “Decriminalizing Migration: Reforming Immigration Law to Protect Undocumented Communities.”

The paper’s abstract states: “He advocates for a second-best solution involving federal-state cooperative agreements wherein border states abutting both Mexico and Canada are given the option by the federal government to pass local legislation decriminalizing border crossings into their states as their communities desire. To the extent that the current presidential administration is trying to shrink the federal government in significant ways, such experimentation among these border states might be both politically and economically desirable as a way to develop a set of best practices for the entire country moving forward.”

Professor of Law Victor Romero is the Maureen B. Cavanaugh Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Penn State Dickinson Law. His research emphasizes the law's impact on marginalized groups. He is especially interested in borders and boundaries — both legal and cultural — and how these function. He has written on immigration policy and individual rights and analyzed Supreme Court and other federal court opinions through the lens of post-Brown v. Board of Education notions of equality and discrimination.