Define That Term #313

The most recent term was preference relative, which is defined as:

An immigration term, preference relatives means the married children of U.S. citizens, children over 21 of U.S. citizens, the spouses or children of green card holders, and brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens where the U.S. citizen is at least 21 years old.

Preference relatives must usually wait to get a green card, because only around 480,000 green cards are available to preference relatives in total per year. Preference relatives wait in line based on their “priority date,” which is set when their U.S. citizen or permanent resident petitioner first filed a visa petition for them.

Jeffrey's guess was awfully close.

Today's term is:

jus cogens.

As always, no dictionaries please.

Comments

[NY Law Guy]

loosly defined, jus cogens means the higest law. It probably goes back to a latin interpretation of the Noachide codes. It is law that, in theory, must be followed by all people. Genocide and slavery would violate jus cogens. A prime example of a violation of jus cogens would be the Holocaust. Sadly, more recently we have Darfur. It is a term that gets bantered around the ICJ in The Hague a lot (without much to show) and was a prime mover for the Vienna Conventions.