By: Claire Kenneally

Billions for Borders 

On July 1st, 2025, the U.S. Senate passed a budget reconciliation bill (“H.R.1” or “One Big Beautiful Bill”), allegedly aimed at fixing a broken immigration system. Over $170 billion was allocated for immigration and border-enforcement projects, with $46.5 billion for border wall construction, $45 billion for private prison corporations to expand detention centers, and $29.9 billion for hiring additional ICE agents and funding deportations. 

Critics of the bill denounce its punitive emphasis on incarceration and deportation instead of pathways to legal citizenship. American Immigration Council policy director Nayna Gupta observed that “[the bill] does nothing to address the real problems in our immigration system including court backlogs, a lack of legal pathways to citizenship, and a broken U.S. asylum system.”

The Paper Wall We Aren’t Talking About

Despite more money than ever pouring into the immigration system, pathways to legal citizenship, asylum, and work permits have only gotten more convoluted and backlogged in the last 20 years. 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is the federal agency that processes visa and green card applications. USCIS is distinct from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CPB). Money allocated to ICE and border enforcement does not trickle down to,  nor support USCIS. USCIS is primarily funded through user fees paid by those applying for immigration and naturalization benefits. 

Figure 1: The Complex Green Card Application System

In 2023, USCIS processed over 10 million applications. However, they are still taking longer than ever to review applications, and are currently grappling with an unprecedented 11.3 million pending applications. As backlogs grow, applicants are left waiting for months, years, and sometimes decades longer than they should. 

Part of this gridlock is the outdated use of paper applications and limited e-filing options. “Notorious for its reliance on antiquated paper files,” USCIS requires immigrants (and their lawyers) to embark upon a lengthy process of preparing and mailing printed application materials to one of only five national processing centers.

This summer, I had the privilege of working as a legal intern at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. There, I observed staff attorneys spend hours compiling application materials for clients—writing extensive cover letters listing every document in the application, triple-checking that even blank or non-applicable boxes were marked, photocopying birth certificates multiple times to ensure clarity, and assembling a FedEx or USPS package for delivery. Then they’d carefully attach the package’s tracking number to the client’s file, so that in the (not unlikely) chance USCIS claimed they never received it or it was delayed, they could verify the application had been delivered. Then they waited, sometimes for weeks, to receive a confirmation letter from USCIS. Weeks and months after that, they might receive another letter asking for a clarification, different information, or a copy of a different form. 

Technical issues also persist beyond the application stage, slowing progress and creating confusion throughout the process. Checking a case’s status on USCIS’s website is also often futile due to system outages, server issues, or glitches. In early 2025, a USCIS website glitch falsely showed that hundreds of cases had been advanced to final review, leading to widespread confusion and disappointment when the error was rectified. 

How can this be? How can we have systems in place for online tax filing, online banking, and countless other e-filing systems, yet USCIS can’t manage to move beyond manually reviewing millions of paper forms? And how can billions of taxpayer dollars be allocated to immigration reform, yet so focused on inhumane incarceration practices instead of obvious improvements that create legal pathways to citizenship? 

A History of Inefficiency

Interestingly, the inefficiency of USCIS technology has long been a thorn in the side of effective immigration processes. In a 2005 report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General, auditors noted that “USCIS’ IT environment for processing immigration benefits continues to be inefficient, hindering its ability to carry out its mission. USCIS’ processes are primarily manual, paper-based, and duplicative, resulting in an ineffective use of human and financial resources to ship, store, and track immigration files.” 

Similar sentiments repeated in 2014 and 2016, with auditors writing that “USCIS struggled to modernize its stove- piped, paper-based immigration benefits processing to a more centralized and automated environment”. In 2020, yet another audit found that despite “strategic planning activities to help prioritize legacy IT systems or infrastructure for modernization… [the Department of Homeland Security and USCIS] continues to rely on deficient and outdated IT systems to perform mission-critical operations.” 

The Human Cost 

There are multiple implications when a system designed to support some of our most vulnerable community members struggles to be efficient. It is costly. It creates backlogs, currently in the millions. It is frustrating for USCIS staff and immigration attorneys who must carefully wade through inch-thick application materials. But most importantly, it is cruel to the millions of immigrants a year attempting to enter the United States. Some will wait decades just to be denied. Others will wait for months with no updates, only to receive a cryptic notice warning that their case may be denied unless they locate and resend documents they thought were already submitted. 

Low-income applicants in particular face heightened barriers due to paper-only fee-waiver applications, while H.R.1 has simultaneously hiked filing fees by hundreds of percent. With billions of dollars allocated for immigration reform through H.R.1 and millions of dollars in profits lining the pockets of privatized prison corporations as a result, this process is a slap in the face to those attempting to immigrate through legally recognized channels. 

Now what? 

Ironically, the very inefficiency of immigration technology has proven to be an effective tool for limiting access to the United States. As of October 2025, just seventeen of the 103 forms on USCIS’s website were available to be completed online. Discussing USCIS’s all-time high backlog of applications, immigration attorney Greg Siskind told Newsweek: “USCIS is still moving along with e-filing…and [their] long-term goal is to totally move away from paper filings…[even] more worrisome is the expectation by many in the immigration bar that USCIS will increasingly use AI—often poorly designed AI—that will speed up decision-making but in a way that lacks transparency and with serious quality control concerns.”

USCIS’ paper-heavy infrastructure continues to frustrate applicants and attorneys alike, with digital access limited to a fraction of its forms. Whispers of utilizing AI introduces a worrisome paradox: how can we trust advanced technology to improve outcomes when the fundamentals of digital access and e-filing are still missing? 

I believe immigration reform is possible—but only if we stop funneling billions of dollars into cages, and start prioritizing accessibility.

#WJLTA #ImmigrationTechCrisis 

By: Jacqueline Purmort-Labue

Following its reputation-damaging data breach in 2023 and subsequent reduced demand for testing kits, 23andMe filed for bankruptcy in late March of this year. The genetic testing company has consumers submit a saliva sample of their DNA to be analyzed for ancestry purposes, family traits, or potential health risks. The company initiated the voluntary Chapter 11 proceeding to maximize the business’s value for stakeholders through a court-supervised sale process. 

Is Your Genetic Data Being Auctioned to the Highest Bidder? 

23andMe Board Chair, Mark Jensen, stated that “data privacy will be an important consideration in any potential transaction.” In response to customer concern following the Chapter 22 filing, 23andMe released an open letter to customers, assuring users that “[a]ny buyer of 23andMe will be required to comply with our privacy policies and applicable law concerning the treatment of customer data.” Despite this, many consumers are understandably upset about their genetic information being sold to the highest bidder. In the best case scenario, users could be targeted with ads based on results from their genetic tests. However, in the worst case scenario, an employer or insurance company might find a user has a predisposition to develop early-onset Alzheimer’s, cancer, mental illness, or substance use disorder, and discriminate against the user based on that information. 

Legal Remedies For the Sale of Sensitive Data 

Those worried about their sensitive DNA information may not realize how few federal protections exist. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) seems like it would apply, but HIPAA’s definition of covered entities and business associates only includes healthcare providers, health insurance, and any business associate working with those companies, meaning data that’s held by direct-to-consumer companies like 23andMe is not protected. Under the law, users are treated as consumers, not patients. 

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) prevents health insurers, but also employers, from using genetic information in a discriminatory way. This federal law, passed in 2008, does not apply to life insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and other non-health entities. Additionally, GINA does not explicitly protect epigenetic information, which is information about the way a person’s genes are affected by external factors such as smoking, disease, or stress. 

Some states have passed a genetic information privacy law, including Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming. Some states, like California and Texas, have taken consumer protection a step further. California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a consumer alert to customers of 23andMe. He urged  Californians to consider invoking their rights under the Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and directing 23andMe to delete their data and destroy any remaining samples of genetic material. Similarly, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a statement, encouraging any Texan concerned about their data to exercise the right to have their data securely deleted. 

Bankruptcy law may provide some protections. Bankruptcy proceedings are an inherently public process and often draw scrutiny from the public. In some cases, regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission or state attorneys general may intervene and seek to participate in the proceedings. Bankruptcy cases are adjudicated in federal court and may require the appointment of a consumer privacy ombudsperson to review the proposed sale of assets. This ombudsperson assesses whether the proposed sale of assets aligns with the company’s existing privacy policies and applicable laws.

Looking to the Future

In response to pressure from many state attorneys general, 23andMe agreed in late April 2025 to allow a court-appointed overseer to safeguard customers’ genetic data during the bankruptcy proceeding. The ombudsman will also review any sale of 23andMe’s business or data during the company’s bankruptcy and report to the court any implications for customer data privacy. 

Experts believe existing law is insufficient or relies too heavily on consumers to self-manage their data privacy. Consumers are expected to read and understand companies’ privacy policies. However, studies have shown that the vast majority of consumers don’t read privacy notices or understand how companies use their data. 

The 23andMe bankruptcy case underscores the urgent need for stronger, comprehensive federal privacy protections for genetic data. While state-level efforts and the appointment of a privacy ombudsman offer some reassurance, they highlight the fragmented and reactive nature of current legal safeguards. As genetic testing becomes more widespread, policymakers must confront the gaps in federal law that leave consumers vulnerable, especially in high-stakes situations like asset sales. Until then, consumers are left to navigate a complex and opaque system on their own.

#GeneticData #Privacy #ConsumerProtection #WJLTA

By: Dustin Lennon-Jones

Introduction

From the release of Pac-Man in 1980 to the trailer for the latest installment of the Grand Theft Auto series, the technology behind creating and displaying characters in video games has come a long way. With a release scheduled for May 2026, praise is already pouring in for the hyper-realistic graphics, with fans remarking that it “looks like a movie.” However, as video games get closer to mimicking reality, past copyright precedents may fall into obsolescence.

Solid Oak Sketches v. 2K Games

In February of 2016, Solid Oak Sketches filed a lawsuit against 2K Games, the creator of the NBA 2K video games series, alleging that 2K had used copyrighted tattoo designs in its recreation of the likeness of several NBA players. In its motion for summary judgment, 2K raised several defenses, including that the use was de minimis, that it fell within fair use, and that they had an implied license. Ultimately, the court agreed with 2K on all of these defenses, granting summary judgment, and ending the litigation.

The “De Minimis” Exception

The De minimis exception comes from a longer Latin phrase, which translates to “the law does not concern itself about trifles.” In the context of copyright law, it refers to infringement that is so trivial that the original and the copy are not substantially similar. In concluding that the tattoos in 2K’s game were not substantially similar, the court viewed videos of gameplay and noted that the tattoos “appear out of focus” and can be seen “only as undefined dark shading on the players’ arms.”

Fair Use

The doctrine of fair use allows for the unlicensed use of protected works in certain circumstances. In determining whether the doctrine applies, courts look to the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the work, the amount of the work used in relation to the protected work as a whole, and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the protected work. In 2K’s case, the court found that the use of the tattoo designs was not for the purpose of self-expression, but rather to accurately capture the player’s likeness, making them incidental to the commercial value of the game. Since it was for the “transformative” purpose of a realistic depiction of the players, it does not affect the value of the design itself. The use of the tattoos was therefore fair use.

Implied License

An implied license refers to a contractual agreement that creates implicit permission to use a protected work, despite no explicit language agreeing to such use. In these cases, an implied license is found when the copyright holder creates a work at the request of another, delivers the work to the other person, and intends for the other person to copy and distribute the work. In finding there was such a license, the court found that the artists had created the tattoos at the request of the players, created and “delivered” the tattoos by inking the designs on to their bodies, and since they knew the players were likely to appear in the media, intended them to copy and distribute the tattoos. The players, therefore, had an implied license, which they granted to 2K through the NBA.

GTA 6: Character Customization

In the previous iteration of Grand Theft Auto, players had the ability to customize their avatar with tattoos. However, they suffered from the same limitations that saved 2K in its lawsuit: they were impossible to see clearly. If the game’s graphics are anywhere close to what is shown in the trailer, this limitation will be a thing of the past. While this may enhance the player experience, it has the potential to land Rockstar, the developers of the game, in hot water.

It is not difficult to imagine a court coming to the opposite result of the 2K case in a lawsuit against Rockstar. Since the tattoos will not be relegated to blurry, dark shading and instead appear as clear artwork, it is much harder to argue that a copy of an artist’s design is not “substantially similar. Additionally, as players will be using tattoos to express themselves, rather than capture the licensed likeness of a celebrity, it is unlikely to be fair use. For the same reasons, there cannot be an implied license.

This issue was addressed recently when Take-Two Interactive was found liable for infringing on a tattoo artist’s copyright by copying her tattoo designs in a WWE video game. The tattoos appeared as a part of a wrestler’s likeness, but unlike the NBA 2K lawsuit, players could use the copyrighted tattoos to customize their own wrestlers using the game’s “Create-a-Superstar” feature. Since this had nothing to do with accurately depicting a licensed likeness, it was beyond the scope of fair use.

Conclusion

The actual features of GTA 6 in terms of player customization are still to be confirmed. But as Rockstar has promised, the upcoming release will be “groundbreaking.” While customization and realism increase the user experience, it cannot come at the cost of trampling tattoo artists’ copyright protections.

#tattoos #copyright #fairuse