NOTES
LIMINAL LEGALITY ACROSS BORDERS:
EXAMINING THE MIGRANT’S RIGHT TO
“HUMAN TIME” ON THE SHIFTING U.S.-MEXICO
AND TU
¨RKIYE-SYRIA BORDERS
SONIA GEBA*
ABSTRACT
Throughout the modern world, refugee-receiving countries are increas-
ingly externalizing their border procedures and restricting access to asylum
to deter long-term migration. Although many of these same countries have
obligations under international refugee law to recognize asylum seekers’
claims and uphold human rights for those within their jurisdictions—even
along their borders—many instead rely on third countries to care for vulner-
able populations on the move. This has led to a proliferation of temporary ref-
ugee camps and tenuous, informal settlements along borders that create
precarious and unsafe conditions for people fleeing violence, persecution,
and insecurity. At the same time, as the border has shifted outward, it has
also shifted inward as governments have introduced restrictions on asylum
and a widening category of statuses that grant humanitarian protection in the
short term. Such statuses like temporary protection offer critical safe haven
for groups fleeing wars, natural disasters, and other generalized harms.
However, as conflict and climate emergencies become ever more protracted
and migrants are displaced for decades and longer, such legal regimes are
* Sonia Geba is an incoming Legal Fellow at Equal Rights Beyond Borders. She holds a J.D. from
Georgetown University Law Center (2024). The author would like to sincerely thank her advisors and
professors who provided supremely helpful comments and direction as this Note was shaped and reshaped
over several semesters. In particular, she would like to thank Professors Elizabeth Ferris and Andrew
Schoenholtz for their guidance and feedback on drafts. She would also like to thank Eliza Lafferty and
Center for Applied Legal Studies’ Clinical Teaching Fellow, Lauren Hughes, for their additional review
and feedback. Lastly, she would like to thank all GILJ staff who helped improve this Note at every stage
of the editing process. All mistakes remain the author’s. © 2024, Sonia Geba.
327
insufficient to offer the protection they originally intended and instead effec-
tively place migrants in legal limbo, contributing to their further victimiza-
tion. Recipients of temporary protection in many countries are left in a state
of suspension, endlessly waiting for their statuses to be renewed or revoked
and unable to properly invest in their lives in the long term. Whether experi-
enced on the border in a camp or inside a country where one’s options are
curtailed by legal status, this suspended state of waiting often invites eco-
nomic insecurity, social immobility, and even outright unsafety.
Although many international human rights treaties recognize rights that
give value to the temporal dimension of human life (e.g., the right to leisure
time, the right to a speedy trial, the right to not be held in arbitrary detention
or prolonged incarceration while awaiting the death penalty), none have ex-
plicitly articulated the right to “human time.” This Note examines this gap in
international human rights treaties and specifically engages with an emerg-
ing right to human time as it relates to the experiences of migrants on physi-
cal borders and temporary protection recipients in refugee-receiving
countries. It investigates the temporal dimensions of legal status using a
“liminal legality” theoretical framework to explore the limits of international
law’s protections for migrants. Comparing two populations who have been
on the move for over a decade—Haitians on the U.S.-Mexico border and
Syrians on the Tu
¨rkiye-Syria border—it concludes that legal limbo and tem-
porary protection regimes that keep certain groups in suspense for long peri-
ods of time with few pathways to long-term residence violate an emerging
canon of international legal norms. For temporary protection to fulfill the
aims of international human rights law, this Note argues that governments
must reinvigorate their asylum systems and embrace more pathways to long-
term migration.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
II. LIMINAL LEGALITY & LEGAL TIME IN THE MIGRATION CONTEXT . . . . 335
III. LIMINAL LEGALITY ON THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER ............. 341
A. Haitian Refugees at the Border: A History of
Externalization and Occultation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
B. Indefinite Temporariness for Haitians in Mexico ........ 346
C. Persistently Temporary Legal Protection for Haitian
Refugees .................................... 348
328 GEORGETOWN IMMIGRATION LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 38:327
IV. LIMINAL LEGALITY ON THE TU
¨RKIYE-SYRIA BORDER . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
A. Persistently Temporary Legal Protection for Syrian
Refugees .................................... 353
B. Indefinite Temporariness for Syrians in Turkish-Controlled
“Safe Zones”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
V. COMPARING LIMINAL LEGALITY IN ASYLUM ACCESS AND TEMPORARY
PROTECTION ON THE U.S.-MEXICO & TU
¨RKIYE-SYRIA BORDERS
UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
VI. CONCLUSION: TOWARD MORE LASTING REFUGE & GREATER GLOBAL
RESILIENCE ....................................... 358
I. INTRODUCTION
Since the drafting of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 United
Nations (UN) Protocol, people forced to flee their countries and seek pro-
tection from persecution have been regarded with special international
legal status and given rights that shield them from unlawful return to a
country in which they fear such threats.
1
Refugees are those who have fled
their country of origin due to a well-founded fear of persecution based on
individualized grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or
membership in a particular social group.
2
If an individual is determined to
be a refugee, their receiving state has a number of obligations to them and
the Refugee Convention confers on them a suite of “acquired rights” under
Articles 3–34 of the Convention, including rights to non-discrimination,
non-penalization, and non-refoulement.
3
MARIA O’SULLIVAN, REFUGEE LAW AND DURABILITY OF PROTECTION: TEMPORARY RESIDENCE
AND CESSATION OF STATUS, 31 (2019); Office of the U.N. High Comm’r for Refugees, Introductory Note
to the Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (Dec. 2010), https://perma.cc/B6S6-
JWFR.
The principle of non-refoulement
is considered fundamental to the Refugee Convention, so much so that no
reservations or derogations may be made to it.
4
It has reached the level of
customary international law.
5
Brief for Global Strategic Litigation Council for Refugee Rights as Amicus Curiae Supporting
Complainants, Seventh District Judge in Administrative Matters in Mexico City (Amparo 1279/2021)
(Mex.), 15-16 (May 5, 2023), https://perma.cc/VHF8-HA4W [hereinafter Zolberg Amicus Brief].
As such, contracting states parties shall not
expel refugees from their territories, with few exceptions.
6
1. More specifically, the Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person outside their country of
origin owing to a well-founded fear of persecution “for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership
in a particular social group or political opinion” whose country of origin is unwilling or unable to provide
protection. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, art. 1, July 28, 1951, 19 U.S.T. 6260, 189
U.N.T.S. 137 [hereinafter Refugee Convention].
2. Id.
3.
4. Refugee Convention, supra note 1, art. 32.
5.
6. Refugee Convention, supra note 1, art. 32. Exceptions include “on grounds of national security
and public order.”
2024] LIMINAL LEGALITY ACROSS BORDERS 329
