107 Iowa L. Rev. Online 94 (2022)

Download PDF

Abstract

This Response uses Stella Elias’s Law as a Tool of Terror as a jumping-off point to elaborate on the relationship between the rule of law and the notion of terror. It describes a conception of terror as a kind of relational fear rooted in arbitrary power and which amplifies that power and expands its scope. Understood in this way, terror can be seen as a particular danger of inadequately constrained executive law enforcement authority. Elias’s elucidation of the terrorizing function of immigration enforcement can serve as a key case study of the need, when evaluating the scope and dangers of executive power in a constitutional democracy, to look not just at the explicit scope of that power but also at the penumbra created by the capacity of that power to intimidate people away from making use of their formal legal entitlements.