As we count out the final hours of 2012, let's recall the highs and lows of the past year in America's dysfunctional immigration ecosphere.

Nation of Immigrators is pleased to confer its third annual IMMI Awards. (Full disclosure: As in past years, these are my personal choices. If you disagree or believe I've missed an obvious awardee, feel free to comment below or post it on Twitter with the hashtag "#2012IMMIS," and be sure to check out our previous awardees here: 2010 IMMIs & 2011 IMMIs).

The 2012 IMMI Awardees

Immigration Word of the Year. This year's word could well have been "omnishambles" -- "a thoroughly mismanaged situation notable for a chain of errors" -- chosen by Oxford University Press, yet aptly suited to our perversely American form of immigration regulation. British novelist, Ian McEwan, in his new book, Sweet Tooth, while explaining the problems of England's intelligence agencies in the 1970s, could well have been describing the federal and state authorities that administer and enforce America's omnishambled immigration laws when he observed:

Too many agencies, too many bureaucracies defending their corners, too many points of demarcation, insufficient centralized control.  

Instead, the IMMI goes to "self-deportation" (Mitt Romney's proposed solution to illegal immigration), a hyphenated word that (even someone as intemperate as Donald Trump recognized) contributed mightily to his self-immolation as GOP candidate for President:

[Romney] had a crazy policy of self deportation which was maniacal. . . . It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote . . . He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.

Belated Gumption.  For modest courage expressed ever so slowly, the award goes to President Obama for his authorization through the Homeland Security Department of relief for a slice of the DREAMer population with the implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. With exit-polls showing that 57% of Americans approve of DACA, imagine how many more DACA applications could have been approved and lives restored had the President used his long established executive authority to exercise prosecutorial discretion when the concept of deferred action was proposed early in his first term. Consider also how DACA might have benefited even more minors brought or required to remain here illegally, such as DREAMer extraordinaire Jose Antonio Vargas (who, at 31.5 years old when the program rules were set up, was six months too old to receive DACA relief), had the program applied to all minors and not set stingy bright-line rules that kowtowed unduly to past DREAM Act proposals in Congress.  

Hit the Road Jack/Home-Wrecker. President Obama reprises his role as "Deporter in Chief" and, as in past years, wins another IMMI.  With over 400,000 deportations in 2012 -- an all-time high -- the President also receives the Home-Wrecker IMMI. According to recently released federal data, between July 1, 2010 and September 31, 2012, almost 205,000 deportation orders were issued for parents with U.S. citizen children, thereby destroying the lives of even more American kids.  With the recent announcement that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will stop asking local police to turn over to ICE immigrants arrested as petty offenders, perhaps fewer deportations will result next year -- especially if Congress legislates a path to legal status and citizenship for the undocumented.  Recent statistics from the Immigration Courts, showing case closures resulting in deportation orders or grants of voluntary departure down to 56.3% from 70.2% two years ago, also support a prediction (fingers crossed) that the President will not receive another IMMI in this category.

Ignorable, Ignoble Person. The IMMI goes to nativist Tom Tancredo, former Colorado representative and gubernatorial candidate, who urged Republicans after November's election not to let strict immigration laws become the scapegoat for their loss at the polls ("while scapegoating the immigration issue was to be expected from the Republican establishment following the Romney defeat, it is sad and disappointing to see a few conservatives stampeded into endorsing suicidal proposals").  Tancredo nudged out Kris Kobach for this year's IMMI because he also mocked Sen. Michael Bennet for his leading role in developing the Colorado Compact, a balanced approach to comprehensive immigration reform.

Not Especially Nimble. While the primary immigration benefits agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), has continued its laudable efforts in 2012 to improve transparency, public engagement and responsiveness (especially on humanitarian concerns, such as relief for foreign citizens adversely affected by Hurricane Sandy), the IMMI for lack of speed and agility on business immigration concerns nonetheless must go to this beleaguered agency. USCIS still has not released its promised rule on employment authorization for spouses of certain H-1B workers, or met its year-end deadline on stateside provisional waivers for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, and has not issued clarifying guidance on L-1B specialized-knowledge requirements promised last January.  Other longstanding problems remain, including the lack of meaningful impact from its Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program (beyond a nifty website with comforting assurances), the persistence of an anti-entrepreneur animus at the Regional Service Centers, the need to put out for re-bid the agency's contract on its Transformation program for the online submission of immigration forms, and the issuance of a "guidance memorandum" offering seemingly helpful but still befuddling instructions on the EB-5 investor issue of "tenant occupancy" that USCIS first raised officially last February.

Constitutional Illiteracy.  The IMMI for misinterpreting the Bill of Rights goes to the 97,062+ yokels who in a petition to the White House have lambasted CNN host Piers Morgan and urged this Brit's deportation for his post-Newtown critique of America's woeful failure to regulate firearms. No one explained their illiteracy better than Pilar Marrero, author of Killing The American Dream: How anti immigration extremists are destroying the nation, who posted this on Facebook:

So people want to deport Piers Morgan because he aired anti gun views and he´s an "alien", supposedly from out of space. 2 things to remember: before the Second, there is a First amendment. And this country was built by foreigners with weird accents who were always looked at with suspicion by the previous foreigners with weird accents who came first. The only welcoming ones [were] the natives. Unfortunately for them.

Hopeful Baby Steps.  The IMMI goes to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for two recent actions.  CBP reported that it would no longer allow its agents to serve as interpreters for non-English speakers in interrogations by other law enforcement agencies.  It also announced that it would undertake a review of current agency practices in the use of force by its border agents.

No Stale Wine before its Time. This IMMI goes to the government agency which best proves the maxim "justice delayed is justice denied":  The Labor Department's Office of Foreign Labor Certification dramatically lagged from prior periods in the pace of labor certifications. Overall permanent labor certifications decreased by 15.67% between FY10 and FY11. Although the Information sector and Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector experienced increases, most other sectors witnessed large decreases in certifications in FY11: Educational Services (46.67%), Health Care and Social Assistance (34.23%), Retail Trade (33.19%), Wholesale Trade (21.77%), Accommodations and Food Services (60.31%), Construction (65.43%), Transportation and Warehousing (39.90%), and Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation (43.01%).

Worst Immigration Law. Although a colleague, Nolan Rappaport, has nominated the Registry provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act for the IMMI, the award goes to another nominee. Registry allows an individual who has been physically present in the U.S. for a prescribed number of years to be granted a green card despite unlawful status.  Nolan notes:

The eligibility date hasn't been updated since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 advanced it to January 1, 1972. That was more than a quarter of a century ago. It's shameful that such a useful humanitarian provision has not been updated in so many years. With the present date, the residence period has to be more than 40 years. When it was enacted in 1929, it required entry prior to June 3, 1921, which was a residence period of only 8 years.

However shameful the failure to update the waiting period for registry is, even worse is the 1996 law that created mandatory detention of immigrants without benefit of appointed counsel, as Prof. Mark Noferi of Brooklyn Law School persuasively demonstrates.

Lost in the Wilderness. The Republican party, still stinging from its election defeat and overwhelming rejection by the fast-growing Latino and Asian cohorts of the American electorate, wins the "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" IMMI. Persisting in their special brand of akrasia (weakness of will; acting in a way contrary to one's sincerely held moral values).  Despite proclamations that they will cooperate in enacting comprehensive immigration reforms, Republicans have yet to formulate a welcoming agenda on immigration and apparently can't yet fathom that immigration reform would be both good economics and good politics.  Their new leader of the House Immigration Subcommittee, Rep. Trey Gowdy, is an unabashed opponent of immigration.  Even the anti-immigration hawk, Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, knows that Gowdy's appointment bodes ill for comprehensive immigration reform, because it "suggests . . . that the House Republicans aren't going to allow themselves to be stampeded by this amnesty panic because Gowdy is pretty hawkish on immigration . . ."

Taxing Non-Solutions.  The IMMI for non-starter immigration-reform proposal goes jointly to Prof. Giovanni Peri, Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute, and Microsoft. While each of these awardees is a respected and thoughtful contributor to the immigration-reform debate, each offers a variation of a proposal to impose a tax as the visa-entry fee to America. As I've noted elsewhere, taxing the right to enter the country smacks too much of "18th Century slave auctions."  There are many better ways to regulate immigration than to tax it and thereby prod our trading partners and global competitors to tax American entrepreneurs in foreign lands.

A Supreme Demonstration of Supremacy. The IMMI goes to the U.S. Supreme Court majority that vanquished virtually all of Arizona's nativist law, SB 1070.  Holding that the states must kneel to federal supremacy over immigration, the Court struck down all but one of the Arizona law's provisions, and left it to the lower courts to determine whether in practice the surviving section can pass constitutional muster.

Head in the Derriere.  This year's IMMI goes to those feckless employers throughout America who fail to recognize that -- no matter what happens on comprehensive immigration reform -- the Feds are coming to check your business's immigration papers.  Immigration audits were at their highest in history this past year.  That trend will only continue to rise.  Be forewarned and take some crumb-y advice.

* * *

Well, thats a wrap for our 2012 IMMI awardees.  The next 12 months will no doubt produce another bumper crop of candidates for the IMMI.

Meantime, as we close out the year, this blogger reverently contemplates a prayer penned by Rev. Robert L. DeMoss II of Christchurch in Montgomery, Alabama.  Although he offers it on behalf of consular officers, I would broaden the reach of his divinely-directed plea to extend blessings to all of our nation's immigration officials:

Almighty God, May Your love fill our souls, that we might be vessels of peace and grace to bring to this hurting and anxious world. Bless especially our Foreign Service officers, who endeavor to safeguard our freedom and welcome the stranger, as the voice ...and face of America. Guide them with Your wisdom and discernment, give them grace under pressure, and fill them with the radiance of compassion and understanding, all for Your love's sake. Protect, bless, and be with them now and throughout the New Year ahead, as they continue to serve our country with a valiant heart, a keen mind, and a noble spirit. Amen.

[Blogger's note: 

Dear Readers: I promise that this post is indeed about immigration and the quadrennial election on Tuesday.   Please read to the end, beyond the meandering yet relevant introduction, to see the connection.]

Just over four years ago, David Foster Wallace, a gifted, troubled writer of wide acclaim, took his life. Fans of his writing, myself included, have marveled at his intelligence, wit and humanity.  Reading Foster Wallace is an exercise in mental gymnastics and focused attention that pays bountiful dividends. 

Thirty-seven years ago, another writer and deep thinker, Rod Serling, who gave us the Twilight Zone television series, lost his life to heart failure while likewise still in his prime.  Gene Roddenberry, futurist and creator of Star Trek, could have been describing Foster Wallace when he lauded Serling thusly: "No one could know Serling, or view or read his work, without recognizing his deep affection for humanity . . . and his determination to enlarge our horizons by giving us a better understanding of ourselves."

Serling's introduction to his show -- epitomizing the man himself -- is forever a part of American culture:  

You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!

I thought about the parallels between the two writers this week when I stumbled on a Twitter post that led me to Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College. Here are excerpts from his talk about the real value of a college education, the ability to distinguish, depending on the degree of our committment to "attention" (Foster Wallace's take) or "imagination" (Serling's formulation), the autonomic from the conscious thoughts that come to mind while experiencing life's prosaic events. 

Foster Wallace illustrates his point as he describes a mundane, seemingly "boring" wait at a grocery checkout line, disrupted by the outburst of a frazzled mother yelling at her boisterous child:

[If] you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. . . .

[The] so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about . . . in the great outside world of wanting and achieving. . . . The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing. . . .

[If] you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Just as serendipity triggered by social media led me to think of Foster Wallace, and then to Serling, it led me to my friend and immigration-law colleague, Paul Parsons, who this week offered an inspiring Facebook post to show "why being a U.S. immigration lawyer can be the greatest job in the world":

Last Friday we received our first two Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) approvals, and one of those clients sent this uplifting message today:

I just wanted to take another opportunity to thank you all for your help. I do not think I will ever be able to explain with words or emotions how immensely happy and grateful I am. For the first time in my life, I have a sense of belonging in the country that has raised me. My life has not been easy. I have had my fair shares of bumps and bruises along the way, but [life] is not supposed to be easy.

I know you all take pride in the work you do, because there are not many people that can say their job involves giving people the opportunity for a better future. You give hope to those who might have felt hopeless. You all can go home with the satisfaction of knowing you helped somebody, in many cases an entire family.

There are memories of things, events, and people that I will never forget, some good and some bad. Now I have one more good memory to add and you all will be part of it. Keep up the good work because there are many others like me waiting for the same opportunity.

. . . You are in the business of changing [lives] for the better, thank you again for making my life one of those. There is a saying that goes “Before you have a story you need to have a storm”. Well the storm has just past and the story is now only beginning.

As Americans vote for our leaders this week, I hope that we use both our attention and our imagination; that we remember our origin as a nation of immigrants; that we recall the wonders of immigrant innovation and the resulting benefits we enjoy; and that we call to mind our "power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down."  

I hope as we enter the "other . . . dimension" of the voting booth, "a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind," that we are not entranced into reflexive thinking about "the so-called real world of men and money and power [which] hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self." Although our "present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom," I hope we remember that elections trigger consequences, and that precious lives and futures depend on our choices.

I also hope we acknowledge that America needs people, and more people, like Paul Parson's client, as well as the remarkable contributors whose lives are poignantly revealed in Green Card Stories, just as much as we need dedicated public servants who help "resolve horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem[s] through some small act of bureaucratic kindness." 

In short, I hope we choose leaders who are likely to welcome rather than reject our nation's courageous and deserving immigrants.

Andrew Jackson had his "Kitchen Cabinet," Franklin Roosevelt his "Brain Trust."   Seth Godin has his "Tribes," web-based "silos of interest." 

I've been a member of many tribes (as I write this I'm recalling my tattered T-shirt from my own and my adult daughter's Indian Princess days, many moons ago [click here to see the shirt]).

In the Googlean sense, immigration lawyers likewise have their "circles" (if a noun can become a verb, I guess it can be an adjective as well). We lawyers of the immigration arts congregate privately in many places including local bar associations, on IMMLOG (a practitioners' list serve run by Kevin Dixler) and IMMPROF (a list serve for professors of immigration law, hosted by Hiroshi Motomura), through the American Immigration lawyers Association (the national immigration bar), which has a New Members Division, a group for Senior Lawyers (known as the Silver Foxes, led by Ken Stern), and numerous AILA Interest Groups. There's even "Cool Immigration Lawyers," a private meeting place on Facebook "for cool immigration attorneys who think it is awesome to help people and to insist on justice for everyone."

My prime immigration tribe is the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers (ABIL).  It's expanded wonderfully over the last 10+ years since I founded it; but it still performs its original mission very well.  ABIL was established on the principle of "competitive empathy," the notion that although we operate in separate law firms, "none of us is as smart as all of us." I liken it to a 12-Step Group for battle-weary immigration practitioners who acknowledge we're "powerless" over the ever-crashing waves of change washing over our chosen field of law.

The most recent tsunami -- the Obama Administration's program of immigration enforcement abatement, known as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) -- has flooded the immigration tribal counsel with challenges and questions since August 15 when U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released DACA forms, instructions and FAQs.  These include Form I-821D, Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, with nine pages of instructions, Form I-765WS, a work-need worksheet, and a DACA web page with FAQ.

The challenges include concerns among DREAMers and immigration community-based organizations that lawyers may price-gouge to handle DACA cases, reflected recently by perhaps the most-famous DREAMer, Jose Antonio Vargas, who tweeted from @Joseiswriting on August 16: "I try to be positive, but there is a special place in hell for lawyers who take advantage of #DACA by overcharging, etc." (I tweeted back to Jose, who is my client: "[Jose]: Please don't jump to conclusions. You need to know the facts of the case to know if the fee is fair or foul."  He responded by kindly urging his Twitter followers to follow: "@angelopaparelli: a great lawyer who's been advising me and, in turn, keeping me sane. [T]hank you for the help and support!")

The flip side of this concern is the difficulty individual immigration lawyers have had setting an ethically proper and reasonable fee in a practice area where fixed, project-based fees are the norm. Outside observers without an institutional history of how immigration-benefits programs have been (mis)managed might naïvely assume that the task must not be too complex, just three forms, the I-821D, the work permit application and the corresponding worksheet to show economic need, supported by written proof of a few "simple" facts (entry to the U.S. before age 15, five-years of continuous presence as of June 15, 2012, presence in the country on that day, no older than 30, and no serious criminal history.)  They would be mistaken.

USCIS knows that Congress, the Media, the Presidential campaigns, and the pro- and anti-immigration interest groups will be watching closely to see whether the agency can handle the estimated 1.7 million youth potentially eligible for DACA, whether fraud will infect the program or be minimized, whether the agency will act with humanitarian compassion under law or ICE-like negativity in exercising prosecutorial discretion, and whether employers who help a DREAMer acknowledge physical presence and past or current employment in the U.S. will face investigation and enforcement actions by USCIS's Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) or by ICE.

The immigration bar, electronically-transmitting the 21st Century equivalent of tribal smoke signals over these last frenetic days, knows that immigration confusion and complexity will flourish like a Chia pet on growth hormones as USCIS's implementation of DACA unfolds. Witness the many unanswered issues and concerns that DACA has generated as reflected in the notes of the USCIS's DACA Public Engagement on August 14, provided courtesy of Sally Kinoshita, an immigration lawyer and Deputy Director at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), the ILRC's DACA Criminal Bars Chart, and postings of the American Immigration Council by its Legal Action Center (DACA Practice Advisory) and Immigration Policy Center (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: A Q&A Guide [Updated]). 

Even the most mundane issues involve significant costs that clients or lawyers must bear unless answered soon.  Attorney Marty Rosenbluth, Executive Director at the North Carolina Immigrant Rights Project asks of Facebook's "Cool Immigration Lawyers":

I know that some questions USCIS/DHS/ICE will answer with "it depends on the totality of the circumstances", but I think we can get a clear answer to a few questions before we start filing hundreds of these things. If we go through all the trouble of tabbing the appendices, are they going to be stripped off so the documents can be scanned before the person who will be deciding actually reads it? We thought it would make the [applications] easy to follow, but if they are just going to be stripped off beforehand we won't bother.

Also, we were thinking of using color coding, but if the scans are [black & white] there is no point there either.

* * *

Thank goodness for immigration-lawyer tribes. Besides "help[ing] people and . . . insist[ing] on justice for everyone," while trying to keep our staffs paid and doors open, we also dedicate our time and talent to advise and represent DREAMers as they wade through DACA's treacherous waters. Were it not for these collegial tribes, many of us (probably myself included) would have thrown in the towel years ago, mirroring the fate of Murray Burns, the protagonist in Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns.

Played by Jason Robards in the classic 1965 film, Murray explains why he finally had had enough and quit his job as TV personality, Chuckles the Clown. While ordering a martini one evening after work, he was asked by the bartender if he wanted an onion or olive with it. Murray responds: "Gosh and golly, you betcha!"  We are not clownish robots with pens and swords. Our immigration tribes help remind us of who we are and why we do what we do.

[Blogger's postscript] 

Although I'd seen the film and loved it, I couldn't find the Chuckles the Clown quote on the internet except in stray chats and a web-published book, The Robot's Pen and Sword, by an unnamed author whose site is the source of the photo above.

[Blogger's post- postscript]

My last blog post, Immigration D-Day for DACA: Get Protection!, generated a thoughtful, heartfelt critique by a good friend, and fellow immigration tribesman, Gary Endelman.  Gary took me to task for my "use of the Holocaust as a standard of comparison" to the plight of the DREAMers. On reflection, I was wrong, and apologized to Gary, and now do likewise to anyone else offended by my inapt metaphor. Gary, who is not only an immigration scholar of well-deserved repute, but also a Doctor of History, gave me permission to follow up on my blog to communicate a larger point, which he eloquently laid out, and with which I fully agree: 

I would simply urge that we all respect the historical integrity of each experience and not use any incident or event as a catch phrase to describe something that, while horrible, may be fundamentally different.  The historian in me.

I think you might want to follow up this blog with another one that perhaps can capture the larger point, which is that whenever any nation denies those who live there the human right to become all that they are capable of being, whenever we violate  the essential human decency of our friends and neighbors, whenever we ignore what unites us to focus on what divides us, that is the seed corn for intolerance and hate.

I also apologize to any Native Americans and others who may have been offended by my fondly recalled participation in the Indian Princesses, a Girls-Dads group sponsored by the YMCA's Indian Guides. No offense is intended; only admiration for the Indian nations' wholesome, natural and eco-friendly way of living on the earth. 

The portents were plentiful, reaching back 30 years. Yet none but a clairvoyant could have predicted the aftermath on June 15, 1982 when the Supreme Court in Plyler v. Doe provided undocumented children with a guarantee of education through high school. Three decades to the day, a mixed-race president (whose Kenyan father was hounded out of the U.S. as a student by the immigration authorities for dating a white woman) would provide paperless kids with a tenuous legal status and the right to work.

It took a long time coming but the crystal ball became as vivid as a 3D film on an IMAX screen:

• Undaunted by ten years of Congressional failure to enact legislation, DREAMers became activists, forming United We Dream and countless other grass roots initiatives. 
• Over 90 law professors, scholarly colleagues in the immigration bar, and this blogger (here, here, here, here, here, here and there), provided the legal justification. 
• A Pulitzer winning journalist and my client, 31-year-old Jose Antonio Vargas, revealed his undocumented status in a New York Times Magazine article, formed Define American and toured the country speaking out on the pressing need for a solution to the immigration problems of his youthful compatriots who, like him, are citizens except on paper. 
• Vargas and fellow DREAMers -- just hours before the fateful change was announced -- appeared on the cover of Time Magazine and in this moving video:

Dismissing interruptions from an impudent, pull-up-the-gangplank journalist who immigrated from Ireland, and outcries from foes on the right (perhaps the most ironic from the author of the Bush torture memo assailing Obama's executive overreach), President Obama finally projected a modicum of courage. In a Rose Garden address, he announced that giving deferred action and work permits to DREAMers in the exercise of executive discretion is the "right thing to do."  

The task now falls to the Homeland Security Department's immigration components, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to review the anticipated flood of cases for deferred-action eligibility and issue work permits to a population of DREAMers estimated by the Pew Hispanic Center at 1.4 million.

Are they up to the job?  

The challenge will be daunting.  No new money has been appropriated. Existing agency personnel cannot possibly receive training and handle the workload without a funding mechanism.

Will the applicant tide overwhelm available resources? Can the foreseeable backlogs be avoided? How do those who want deferred action get it, given that DHS has consistently maintained that this act of prosecutorial discretion cannot be requested but must be conferred?

Here's what should be done:

• ICE and USCIS should publish regulations and OMB should approve them on an expedited basis.  Many informal pronouncements have been issued since Friday. The White House released a transcription of the President's Rose Garden announcement. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano published a memorandum to the heads of her component agencies, a press release and an FAQ. ICE issued an implementing memo. While helpful, these are no substitute for the publication of regulations that comply with the Administrative Procedure Act and a host of other federal laws requiring regulatory analyses and opportunities for public comment.  As Leland Beck urges in the Federal Regulations Advisor blog, "[w]ithout a regulation, the fragility of DHS’ policy position is clear – as a regulation may only be changed by another regulation, so a policy pronouncement may be changed by the whim of another policy pronouncement."  Given that presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney has declined to say whether a President Romney would reverse the DHS actions on DREAMers, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) should insist that ICE and USCIS engage in formal rulemaking but insure that the process is completed within the 60 days mandated by President Obama and Secretary Napalitano.  
• USCIS should use the EAD application process as the platform for deferred action requests.  USCIS already issues Employment Application Documents (EADs) to persons granted deferred action under the authority of 8 CFR § 274.12(c)(14). This regulation states that a foreign citizen "who has been granted deferred action, . . . [can receive an EAD] if the alien establishes an economic necessity for employment." The application is made on Form I-765 and requires a filing fee of $380 (although fee waivers are possible). Since Secretary Napolitano has announced the deferred-action criteria "to be considered" for persons in the defined DREAMer class, USCIS should treat the Secretary's directions as a presumptive grant of deferred action as to those who submit evidence to show economic hardship and satisfy the deferred-action standards (entry to the U.S. before age 16, no older than 30, presence here for five years, presence on 6-15-2012, background checks, and absence of disqualifying criminal history).  By using the EAD application form to adjudicate deferred-action requests of persons never in removal proceedings, USCIS would streamline the process and receive $380 per application to pay for the cost of adjudication. In addition, ICE and USCIS should agree that USCIS -- as the adjudication agency -- should make a preliminary decision on deferred action, subject to an internal ICE veto, before approving or denying an EAD.
• USCIS should deploy officers trained in adjustment of status to adjudicate the deferred action EAD applications.  USCIS has trained adjudicators on hand to determine the key eligibility criteria to qualify for DREAMer classification.  Comparable criteria, involving essentially the same analysis, apply under the green card application process known as adjustment of status for persons seeking forgiveness from ineligibility under Immigration and Nationality Act § 245(i). Given the unavailability or retrogression of most employment-based immigrant visa quotas that begins next month, these officers will likely have time on their hands quite soon.  Additional adjudicators from the USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) -- once trained on DREAMer eligibility adjudications -- can be assigned to augment the adjustment adjudicators.  If needed, USCIS can also hire and train more adjudicators  -- assuming that $380 per EAD application is sufficient.  If the current EAD filing fee is insufficient to cover the cost of deferred action EAD adjudications -- a proposition I doubt given my insider sources with knowledge of filing-fee economics -- USCIS can make its case by publishing a proposed rule seeking to justify a higher fee.
• USCIS and ICE should apply the spirit of the new policy to deserving persons who fall outside its terms. There is no reason why the policy announced on Friday capped DREAMer eligibility below age 30 (other than that the age was reduced from less than 35 in the last failed Congressional effort).  Authority for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion and the grant of deferred action still exists and can appropriately apply to many others because -- as Secretary Napolitano stated in her memo to agency leaders: "Our Nation's immigration laws must be enforced in a strong and sensible manner. They are not designed to be blindly enforced without consideration given to the individual circumstances of each case. Nor are they designed to remove productive young people to countries where they may not have lived or even speak the language. Indeed, many of these young people have already contributed to our country in significant ways. Prosecutorial discretion, which is used in so many other areas, is especially justified here." 
• Newly legal DREAMers, their supporters and the American people must push President Obama and Congress to enact Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR). As Fareed Zakaria has demonstrated in his compelling CNN special report, America's success in the global economy hinges on CIR.  Like a balloon held under water, CIR must eventually emerge.  Possibly ephemeral deferred action status and evanescent work permits are insufficient.  They are revocable, and offer no path to citizenship and no route to full integration into American society.  The undocumented parents of citizens and DREAMers alike also need to be allowed out of the shadows.  We must reform a system that New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls "national suicide." 

As Martin Luther King, Jr., the quintessential Dreamer, reminds us, "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."  Let's make sure our leaders are forced to shorten the arc and bend it quickly to reach its destination, equal justice under law.

Last week marked the end of the second annual National Coming out of the Shadows Week, a rite of passage for undocumented youth -- Americans in all but the eyes of the law -- who support enactment of the DREAM Act. 

Publicly proclaiming one's unauthorized immigration status is clearly a courageous act. As the National Immigrant Youth Alliance explains in its "Guide to ‘Coming Out’ for Undocumented Youth," revealing to others that you live in this country without legal status can range from "easy to very hard" depending on the way it's done. An act in defiance of governmental authority, "coming out" can trigger serious repercussions under the immigration laws, including arrest, detention and deportation.

On the other hand, this form of self-revelation can be cathartic and possibly beneficial.  Counterintuitively, the first step from darkness could also set the stage for actions under current law that may well lead the federal government to grant legal benefits and protections unavailable to other DREAMers who remain in the shadows.  Some of these avenues are described in a useful 73-page online resource, "The Life after College Guide for Undocumented Students," published by the nonprofit, Educators for Fair Consideration (E4FC). 

Funded in part by benefactors from Silicon Valley, E4FC suggests, for example, the possibility of seeking employer sponsorship for an H-1B visa (for Specialty Occupation Workers), traveling abroad and applying for a "D3" waiver under Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) § 212(d)(3).  This is a risky proposition.  It requires throwing oneself on the mercy of both a U.S. consular officer (who must recommend the D3 waiver) and the Department of Homeland Security's Admissibility Review Office -- a unit of U.S. Customs and Border Protection -- which must approve it.  If the waiver is not granted, a DREAMer who'd entered illegally or been in the U.S. in unlawful presence after age 18 would be subject in most cases to a ten-year bar on reentry to the United States.

The E4FC guide also discusses various legal ways of earning a living in the U.S. notwithstanding undocumented status, such as qualifying as an independent contractor, either as a sole proprietor or an incorporated entity. Although E4FC does not cite legal authority, it exists in some situations under Bhakta v. INS, 667 F.2d 771 (1981); Lauvik v. INS, 910 F.2d 658 (1990); and Konishi v. INS, 661 F.2d 818 (1981), cases holding that management of a business which will likely create jobs for American workers does not constitute unauthorized employment under the immigration laws.  

The guide, quite correctly however, cautions DREAMers: 

It is your responsibility to determine whether you may legally pursue these options based on your immigration status. Be sure to consult with an experienced immigration lawyer first.

The E4FC, also laudably, provides links to a free, online service for DREAMers to obtain a preliminary assessment of whether legal remedies may exist in a particular individual's unique situation, while offering the admonition:

This service should only be used for a preliminary analysis of your possible immigration remedies. We urge you to consult with a reliable immigration attorney for a comprehensive analysis.  

I echo the same cautionary note as E4FC with a disclaimer here, and a reminder that what I am about to suggest is made available for educational purposes only, not to provide specific legal advice.  For legal advice in each individual's case, DREAMers should consult a competent immigration lawyer, as urged by U.S.Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) here and as explained by the American Immigration Lawyers Association in this FAQ.

With the foregoing very large caveat, here are some additional tips, possible options and information for further research with and through your immigration lawyer that may be helpful and suitable in a given case (yet may fail miserably in other cases).

1. Build Your Tribe.  No DREAMer should face the federal government alone.  Besides a competent immigration lawyer, your tribe of supporters and resource providers should include, whenever possible, family, friends, fellow students, community activists, faith-based groups working for social justice, wealthy benefactors, an employer willing to sponsor you for a work visa, social media mavens and sympathetic journalists to tell your story to the public and follow you through the immigration process. Though government officials may deny that publicity has any effect on their actions, publicity helps.  Paraphrasing Hillary Clinton (even if she didn't say it first or quite this way), "it takes a village to raise a [DREAM] child."
2. Qualify for family-based, employer-based or self-sponsored immigrant visa classification, and apply for permanent residence (a green card) through adjustment of status by invoking the law's forgiveness provisions. The immigration laws allow foreign citizens to obtain "immigrant visa classification" in many different ways.  It can be obtained through certain forms of family or marital sponsorship, or through the employment-based visa categories, including a current or prospective employer's labor certification, as well as through self-sponsorship options under the "Extraordinary Ability" and "National Interest Waiver" avenues.  It can even be obtained by way of the EB-5 employment-creation investor category (say, if a wealthy benefactor provides a lawful gift, or a venture capitalist provides funds for investment by purchasing a DREAMer's intellectual property, valued at least at a half million dollars). Immigrant visa classification can be converted into a green card through the adjustment of status (AOS) process without ever departing the United States.  As an initial prerequisite, AOS requires that the applicant have been inspected and "admitted or paroled."  Thus, a DREAMer who entered on a visa but overstayed satisfies this preliminary threshold.  If the DREAMer is an EWI (someone who entered without inspection), s/he would need to ask USCIS to grant Parole In Place to satisfy this first step for AOS eligibility. Ordinarily, however, AOS is not available to someone who violated status or worked without permission.  Fortunately, there are two exceptions (forgiveness clauses) under which USCIS can still grant AOS: (1) If the violation of status was for "technical reasons;" or (2) if it was other than through the fault of the applicant.  See my co-authored article, "Imagining the Improbable: Extraordinary Immigration Solutions for the Hapless and Hopeless." ("Imagining the Improbable"). With the help of an experienced immigration lawyer, more than a few talented and accomplished DREAMers can conceivably present a well-proven case showing that their violation of immigration status was proximately caused by the person(s) who brought them here, or through "technical reasons," e.g., their inability as minors under law to have the legal capacity or capability to take steps to seek some form of lawful status or discretionary relief under law.
3. Seek Lawful Nonimmigrant Status without leaving the United States.  Just as the green card AOS procedure contains forgiveness clauses, so too do the nonimmigrant visa categories.  As explained in Imagining the Improbable, someone who entered on a visa but overstayed or fell out of status, but who did not work without permission and who is not in removal proceedings, may be restored to the same or a different nonimmigrant visa status if "extraordinary circumstances" can be established.  Extraordinary circumstances are decided on a case-by-case basis.  As Imagining the Improbable also explains, it may be possible, in addition, to rely on a principle of law known as "equitable tolling" to extend the deadline for filing an extension or change of status. Even a person who came into the U.S. as an EWI may qualify if USCIS can first be persuaded to grant Parole In Place.  INS (and USCIS still today) have exercised authority to convert parole status into H-1B status on the strength of a March 25, 2000 Headquarters policy memorandum.  Thus, conceptually there is no apparent reason why parole-conversion-to-nonimmigrant-status could not also apply to other nonimmigrant categories once Parole In Place is granted.   
4. Apply to USCIS for employment authorization, while presenting evidence of eligibility for "deferred action" status. Grants of prosecutorial discretion (PD) by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been abysmally low.  According to a March 9, 2012 email sent to Congress, ICE has found only 1% of detained foreign citizens and 8% of immigrants in Immigration Court proceedings "provisionally amenable" to a grant of PD.  If a DREAMer is not before the Immigration Court (i.e., has never been served with a Notice to Appear), s/he may nonetheless be eligible for a grant of "deferred action," also sometimes known as "deferred departure," according to Leon Wildes, the lawyer who, in successfully representing ex-Beatle John Lennon, discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request, the existence of a secret procedure then known as the "Non-Priority Program."   Although the Operations Instructions (OIs) of USCIS's predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, have been superseded, "deferred action" status still exists at 8 CFR § 274a.12(c)(14), which provides that a foreign national may apply for employment authorization if s/he "has been granted deferred action, an act of administrative convenience to the government which gives some cases lower priority, if the alien establishes an economic necessity for employment."  Here, from the old superseded OIs, is the INS rationale for granting deferred action status and the factors to be considered for this form of relief:

The district director may, in his or her discretion, recommend consideration of deferred action, an act of administrative choice to give some cases lower priority and in no way an entitlement, in appropriate cases. The deferred action category recognizes that the Service has limited enforcement resources and that every attempt should be made administratively to utilize these resources in a manner which will achieve the greatest impact under the immigration laws. In making deferred action determinations, the following factors, among others, should be considered:

(A) the likelihood of ultimately removing the alien, including:

(1) the likelihood that the alien will depart without formal proceedings (e.g., minor child who will accompany deportable parents);

(2) the age or physical condition affecting ability to travel;

(3) the likelihood that another country will accept the alien;

(4) the likelihood that the aliens will be able to qualify for some form of relief which would prevent or indefinitely delay deportation;

(B) the presence of sympathetic factors which, while not legally precluding deportation, could lead to unduly protracted deportation proceedings, and which, because of a desire on the part of the administrative authorities or the courts to reach a favorable result, could result in a distortion of the law with unfavorable implications for future cases;

(C)] the likelihood that because of the sympathetic factors in the case, a large amount of adverse publicity will be generated which will result in a disproportionate amount of Service time being spent in responding to such publicity or justifying actions (emphasis added);

(D) whether or not the individual is a member of a class of deportable aliens whose removal has been given a high enforcement priority (e.g., dangerous criminals, large-scale alien smugglers, narcotic drug traffickers, terrorists, war criminals, habitual immigration violators).

* * *

To be sure, some seasoned immigration lawyers might react to my suggestions with skepticism.  So be it.  My purpose is not to suggest that the immigration benefits available under current law through these strategies are easily won. 

Rather, this is where your tribe and the tribes of all the DREAMers must spring into action.  Mount a campaign to persuade USCIS to embrace these approaches in individual cases.  Present the most worthy and compelling cases first.  Refrain from filing cases with little hope for success.  Publicize the outcomes of the successes and failures.  Put USCIS (and the Obama Administration as it courts Hispanic-Americans and other hyphenated citizens for votes in November) to the task of explaining why such existing remedies under law are not embraced with gusto and granted with compassionate neutrality. 

The DREAMers, after all, are the innocents.  They landed here without asking for a life full of challenge and hardship. They deserve a chance to be brought into the law's good graces under remedial provisions that past administrations have created.

If large numbers of self-outed DREAMers were to ask for immigration benefits under current law, the bureaucrats managing and administering the immigration laws would be forced to take the flood of well-publicized filings into account and resolve them.  Just like the plea-bargaining that takes place in every court of the land, where it would crash the system if every defendant exercised the right to a trial, it would shake the unresponsive immigration system into action were the DREAMers -- in large numbers -- to ask for what the law clearly allows.  

So DREAMers (after consulting with your immigration lawyers and acting only on advice of counsel), stop playing hide and seek.  Instead, come out, come out, wherever you are.   

The recent CNN GOP debate on foreign policy surprised many for what it included and excluded.  Amazingly, nothing was said of the European debt crisis that threatens to create severe financial blowback in America.  The surprise by inclusion came from Republican flavor of the month, Newt Gingrich, who responded to a domestic policy question on immigration, specifically, what America should do with the large population of unauthorized immigrants among us:

"If you've come here recently, you have no ties to this country, you ought to go home, period. If you've been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you've been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don't think we're going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out."

This prompted an attractive or repellant response (depending on one's views) concerning magnets. Candidates Bachmann and Romney chided Gingrich on the magnet of amnesty and the magnet of taxpayer-subsidized college tuition for DREAMers -- although post-debate reporting and opposition research revealed that both Willard Mitt and Michele Marie have espoused positions on legalization similar to Newton Leroy McPherson (Newt's name at birth).

However much they differ or align on legalization, there is one consensus magnet on which all 2012 candidates (including President Obama) agree -- the magnet of jobs.  It's not so much our freedoms of press, religion and assembly, our right to bear arms, our purple mountain majesties, or people like Steve Jobs, but rather, jobs -- the candidates opine -- are what impels foreigners to America.  Take away the attraction of unscrupulous employers looking the other way, identity thieves vending new impersonations, and accommodating document forgers doing a bustling trade.  Demagnetize them in the slammer, and then otherwise desperate non-natives willing to cross burning deserts and fortified borders will instead pursue opportunities elsewhere or stay put abroad.  Or so the theory goes.

In reality, however, the problem of dysfunctional immigration policies is not one of a jobs magnet, or an amnesty magnet, but rather the very program inaugurated in 1986 with President Reagan's signing of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) to punish employers who violate the law. Our immigration system remains broken today because it was fundamentally flawed in concept from the outset.  Congress has consistently declined since 1986 to mandate that everyone -- American citizens and foreigners alike -- carry a national identity document and present this ID when applying for work. 

Instead, lawmakers copped out, or rather, outsourced the function of immigration cop to the private sector. By privatizing immigration enforcement as a date-of-hire requirement foisted on employers, but not making identity verification essentially foolproof through the creation and distribution of a national ID card, Congress doomed IRCA to fail. In effect, federal lawmakers forced the nation's employers and their human resource representatives to choose one of three options: Lawbreaker, Naïf or Stooge.  None of these choices attract, magnetically or otherwise.  An extended stay at Club Fed is not desirable.  Neither is naive ill-preparedness or the prospect of serving as Congressional whack-a-mole at the IRCA carnival.

As the Obama Administration mounts its ever-increasing silent raids on American businesses, demanding to see Forms I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verifications), payroll records and other required documentation, employers have had little choice but to prepare for the enforcement juggernaut. Increasingly, as explained here and in the video below, employers must ready themselves for the likely, if not quite inevitable, visit by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or another federal immigration law enforcer:     

Some may think that the problem of job magnets will be solved once E-Verify, the federal employment verification database, becomes mandatory, as House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Lamar Smith (R. TX) has proposed.  It will not -- because E-Verify suffers from the law of GIGO.  The database is debased because it depends on the doubtful accuracy of Social Security Administration and Homeland Security Department records.  Moreover, although E-Verify has recently (and rather quietly) gained access to Department of State records on American citizens who've received a U.S. passport or passport card (I for one don't remember giving permission), and Mississippi DMV records, the e-system remains incomplete.  It still cannot catch identity theft and citizen impersonators.  It will not be foolproof until every American, not just every foreigner, is in the database.

That's not likely to happen anytime soon.  Witness the strange bedfellows of immigration who have opposed the REAL ID Act and encouraged states to drag their feet or demand waivers of the requirement that states satisfy federal standards for issuing new drivers licenses.  Opposition is also growing over a similar identification requirement, the Voter ID laws cropping up across the country. 

Politicians skirmishing for debating points will not solve our immigration dysfunctions.  The solution can only begin when the citizenry participates in a dialogue about the loss of privacy and creeping totalitarianism that a national work ID card might spawn.  We take our shoes off and allow ourselves to be irradiated or groped just to catch a plane.  Are we ready to be biometrically identified in a digital dossier to get a job?

A recent televised debate revealed an immigration fault line within the GOP. Texas Governor Rick Perry's many challengers for the Republican presidential nomination railed against his decision to extend in-state tuition rates to undocumented college students, brought to the U.S. as children, who graduate from the Lone Star State's high schools. His initial reply:

“If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they've been brought there by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart.”

The line stung many conservative "activists [who] hear ‘you have no heart’ as a dog whistle for ‘you people are racist,’ which obviously enrages them," according to Steven Duffield, a former staffer to Sen. John Kyl who oversaw the writing of the 2008 Republican platform.  Within days Perry, while still defending the Texas tuition law, apologized:  “I was probably a bit over-passionate by using that word and it was inappropriate.”

The relevant questions are not really whether conservatives lack the same missing anatomical feature as the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz or whether racism drives opposition to college tuition support for children brought to America illegally by their parents.  Rather, the fundamental issue is whether a legitimate principle animates the opposition. 

One voice reliably opposed to immigration, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which claims to espouse "low-immigration, pro-immigrant policies," suggests that we need to get beyond "weepy sentimentality" and instead focus on hard-headed realism:  

The case of in-state tuition for illegal aliens who arrived here as children is a case in point. These are clearly the most sympathetic illegal immigrants, which is why advocates have been exploiting their stories in the quest for a general amnesty.

Our hearts tell us to make accommodation for children who were brought here illegally at a very young age and who know no other country (in-state tuition specifically is just a stalking horse for amnesty for these young people in the form of the so-called DREAM Act). That is a noble and proper sentiment.

But our heads tell us that all amnesties reward lawbreaking and serve to attract more illegal immigration. It is for this reason that amnesties must be avoided and why the push for "comprehensive immigration reform" has failed repeatedly, and will continue to fail.

Curiously, however, Krikorian and others of like mind did not repeat that "all amnesties reward lawbreaking," when the Internal Revenue Service decided this month to waive interest, penalties and audit exposure, and accept only one-tenth of the employment taxes otherwise owed by employers who participate in its "Voluntary Settlement Classification Program." Known as the VSCP, the program is an amnesty for businesses that may have wilfully treated employees as independent contractors, thereby avoiding Social Security contributions and taxes.  Nor did Krikorkian and his ilk object when the IRS twice granted wealthy tax cheats amnesty in the form of immunity from civil and criminal prosecution who voluntarily revealed the existence of untaxed off-shore bank accounts and paid back taxes.

When scofflaws flout their tax obligations yet are thrice forgiven by the IRS, Krikorian ought to be complaining to high heaven that federal coffers are unjustly deprived of needed revenue and that these tax amnesties "serve to attract more illegal" behavior.  His CIS colleague, Steven Camarota, has certainly shown no reluctance to allege (no matter how inaccurately) that undocumented immigrants hurt law-abiding taxpayers, but is likewise reticent when IRS announces serial amnesties that benefit businesses and the wealthy and make fools of law-abiding Americans who comply with the tax laws.

On a scale of culpability, tax cheats line up nearer to mobster Al Capone, convicted of federal tax evasion, whereas DREAMers, who want no more than to gain a college education, are truly innocent and should be shown "hospitality" because we may well thereby be entertaining "angels unawares."  Instead, the federal government repeatedly forgives tax violators with nary a peep heard from the anti-amnesty crowd.

Even more alarming, this week a federal judge, appointed by Republican President George H. W. Bush, upheld portions of a vile Alabama law that requires schools to investigate the immigration status of kindergarten through 12th grade students, notwithstanding the 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision which struck down a Texas statute barring undocumented immigrant children from primary and secondary school.  In recalling Plyler, a Washington Post editorial, "Targeting Schoolchildren," zeroed in on the damage that legislatively inscribed hatred of the other (and their children) will cause:  

In turning the schools into immigration registrars, Alabama’s new law flies in the face of good sense and settled law. The Supreme Court has specifically prohibited such registration schemes by the states aimed at immigrants, legal or illegal. And, in a ruling almost 20 years ago, it conferred on undocumented students an unfettered right to a public education through high school.

The court did so for sensible reasons. It noted that there is no legal precedent in America for punishing children for the actions of their parents. Writing for the court in a 1982 decision squashing Texas’s attempt to exclude illegal immigrants from public schools, Justice William Brennan said, “It is difficult to understand precisely what the State hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare, and crime.”

Apparently, Alabama didn’t get the message. By forcing schools to collect and report data on the immigration status of students and their parents, the state will frighten kids away from attending school.

True to form, CIS heralded the Alabama ruling: 

This decision further helps the legal landscape, generally speaking, for states and localities beating open-borders and leftist warfare by litigation. It improves the prospects of other laws recently enacted in other states withstanding vicious legal attacks.

CIS is quick to bandy the "open borders" epithet (I've been falsely dubbed an "open borders type" in a CIS blog post last summer).  But this self-styled "non-partisan" screed-poster that accuses opponents of the anti-kids Alabama law as "leftist," and Republican presidential contenders who oppose DREAMers, ought to wake up and realize that the biblical remonstration to "suffer the children" did not mean to torment them.