iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

do you still believe in a US-Iran peace deal? because at 43 it's marginal

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

i hope they've already cast jeremy irons as pam bondi for whatever movie comes out of all this.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

One day you're young and then the next the social platform you're getting most engagement on is LinkedIn.

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Reposted by Pedro Gerson

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Average immigration detention deaths per month from FY 2010 to FY 2024: 0.69 Average immigration detention deaths per month in FY 2025: 1.75 Average immigration detention deaths per month so far in FY 2026: 4.6 www.npr.org/2026/03/10/g...

npr.org

Immigration detention on track for deadliest fiscal year since 2004

Twenty-three people have died since October in ICE custody, as advocates warn about overcrowding and health care access.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Third: there's a legal test — Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez — and third-country removals check every box. Here's the abstract.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

The paper makes 3 arguments. First: in immigration, where the executive has been given near carte blanche, courts should look at what the executive intends, not Congress. Second: I catalogue how the admin has shown it's trying to punish people. "We will hunt you down" language, etc.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Courts have spent decades refusing to call anything immigration enforcement does "punishment." Detention? Not punishment. Deportation? Not punishment. But is this different? I think so and I argued it here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... (full text will be up shortly)

papers.ssrn.com

PUNITIVE EXILE

The Trump administration is deporting people to foreign prisons, war zones, and countries where they face indefinite detention and torture. Administration offic

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

As most people know, the Trump admin is deporting people to foreign prisons, war zones, and countries they've never set foot in. A Jamaican man sent to a prison in Eswatini.A Guatemalan man deported to Mexico, then sent back to Guatemala — the one place a judge said he couldn't go. 1/4

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

I thought I'd never write a constitutional law paper but here we are. New paper coming out in 2027 in the Denver Law Review arguing that at least some third country removals are unconstitutional.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Deeply honored (and mildly bewildered) to receive the Cabrini Mercy Prize for my paper on decriminalizing migrant smuggling. Grateful that there are people out there who're still open to engaging with these ideas. You can find the paper and the other winners here: cabriniprize.org/winners/

cabriniprize.org

WINNERS - The Mother Cabrini Mercy Prize

WINNERS 2025 WINNERS The Mother Cabrini Mercy Prize Foundation, in affiliation with Georgetown Law School and the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, was honored to announce the following winners of t...

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

writing a complicated exam problem grading a complicated exam problem

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Reposted by Pedro Gerson

Max Read @maxread.info · 04/11/2025

realizing that cameron winter's mom is the woman who wrote the brooklyn open-marriage memoir from a couple years ago, and mentally adjusting to the fact that basically any way you slice it i am a member of her cohort and not his

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Maybe it's happening more now, but people have been accepting this for over a decade.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Don't know if this is too 3D chess for them but really feels like everything (Harvard news re int'l students, tariff threats, complaints re: Apple) is to distract from the "Big Beautiful Bill" that will enact historic cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

how dare you not know all the bands?

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Trump presidency is crazy bc it’s like “oh great the baby is asleep now I can finally get around to reading that 45 page opinion from the DC circuit.”

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

In light of todays announcements I think this debate is relatively settled @adamtooze.bsky.social @gilliantett.bsky.social

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Deporting people to torture camps where they have no recourse to get out even with due process is wrong.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

That would make sense with what Columbia is reporting about their own policies. But also if they were arrested in the public space (ie building entrance) security would be useless.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Very happy that my new article "Decriminalizing Migrant Smuggling" will be coming out in the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal Will be on SSRN soon, if you want to see it before now lmk.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

It just so happens that everyone on left & right who has looked at this has concluded that the constitution means what it says. They're asking you to believe something else b/c they want to disenfranchise millions and create an entire population of stateless people. Whether they realize that or not.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Now of course one could say that about all originalist claims or arguments that go against the grain but I don't think that's the case. The issue here is a matter of degree and direction of agreement...7/n

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

But they don't want to defend that policy, they just want to hide behind originalism. "I'm not saying that it should be that way, it's the constitution." But that's BS. We all know it and it would be honest if they just laid out their cards on the table...6/n

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

In other words, they want to find evidence for the position that the children of undocumented noncitizens are not American but they pretend that they don't actually care about it. Of course they do, the fact that they are reaching for legal straws just proves it...5/n

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Now you could just be interested in stone turning, but as academics we're generally more interested in looking for places where there appear to be stones to turn. So if you're going back to the rock garden that has been thoroughly ransacked you are looking for something...4/n

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

However, one has to wonder when everyone from across the aisle has conclusively determined that under any interpretation birthright citizenship includes the children of all noncitizens, you have to wonder what the motivation is behind turning more stones...3/n

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Their position is one of feigned neutrality where they pretend not to have a particular view about whether jus soli is right or not but only about what the history says about br citizenship. This allows them to pretend they are neutral wrt to the outcome and therefore trustworthy... 2/n

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

I know I'm late to the party but I finally read Ilan Wurman and Randy Barnett birthright citizenship article which by now has been I think pretty conclusively debunked but I'd like to add one thing which is not substantive but about the way in which they advance their political project... 1/n

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Illegal/Unconstitutional: ending birthright citizenship for children both of undocumented and temporary (tourists, students, temporary workers, etc.). Instructing Attorney General to seek the death penalty of any undocumented immigrant accused of a capital offense.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Legal camp: end all refugee admissions for at least 90 days, increase resources for detaining and deporting immigrants, send the military to the border, build more infrastructure along southern border, stopping many parele programs, declare an invasion (which is crucial for his 14th Am. argument).

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Within 90 days Secretary of Homeland Security will submit report saying if admissions should be resumed (shockingly I assume Noem will say they shouldn't be).

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

yeah it's like regardless of what you think about the book, I enjoyed but also totally get why others don't, that review is just...what?

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

IDK but writing a book review that misreads the book and where you basically admit you hate the writer because he get's more attention than you and so you just attack him without barely any substance is...not a good look.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

There will be at least 40 people at that trial who will try to win his heart by airdropping information about jury nullification to everyone's phones in the courtroom.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

“I am huge fan of Hawk Tuah but you took my life savings” should enter the “all my apes gone” canon

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

A friend just sent me his wrapped and he’s listened to 96000+ minutes which works out to on average like 5 hrs a day and idk how to tell him that sometimes you just gotta sit with your thoughts

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Someone referred to latinamerican constitutions as wikiconstitutions b/c Congresses edit constitutions as if they were wikipedia entries, but Mexico prohibiting vapes in the constitution shows that actually it's easier to edit the Mexican constitution than a wikipedia article.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Im sure ppl online are going to be super normal about this.

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Reposted by Pedro Gerson

José Díaz Briseño @diazbriseno.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

The 🇲🇽Sheinbaum Govt hates to boast about it (& the 🇺🇸Trump camp likes to glance away) but Mexico is already arresting RECORD numbers of US-bound migrants since last December when Biden closed 2 railway crossing bridges after a peak in 🇺🇸🇲🇽 border encounters Graph by @adamisacson.com

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Mexico has no other immigration policy but this one. It too has embraced Prevention Through Deterrence, Consequence Delivery System, and other CBP speak for criminalizing and detaining migrants as the way to deal with the problem of mass displacement.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

The Mexican president, through the letter she wrote Trump and what she revealed of her conversation with him today has admitted what the Mexican government has not wanted to admit for years: that Mexico has indeed become the wall that Trump asked for (and Biden did too).

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Very much in favor of ppl doing whatever they want but I think rebranding self published books as indie books is a bit much tbh.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Thanks man, means a lot as I’ve really enjoyed (is that the right word?) those

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Thanks to all the new followers, fair warning come May I’ll be posting mainly about hoops but I’ll try to stay on topic (Mexico, migration, crime) the rest of the time.

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Pedro Gerson @elpgerson.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Thanks for engaging and recommending the piece. I agree that folks are drawing the wrong lessons for the US context from AMLO’s presidency, not that there aren’t any.

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