The U.S. Supreme Court freed a herd of immigration “elephants [hiding] in a mousehole” on May 26. That’s when five Justices used a four-word exception to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) — an act which, among its extensive provisions, banned the employment of foreign citizens whom the employer knows lack work permission —
Our government leaders often ignore elementary rules of ecology and economics when trying to grapple with America’s immigration problems.
Ecology teaches that a system cannot thrive or long function if inputs far outnumber outputs. When rainwater enters the Mississippi in a volume that exceeds the river’s carrying capacity, levees are breached, adjacent lands are flooded
A trip abroad, as I took recently for a speaking gig, often allows intellectual curiosity to gallivant more freely. It also provides opportunities to question accepted truths or cause germinating notions to blossom into convincing arguments, especially if serendipity or divine providence creates chance meetings with strangers. These thoughts crystallized after my return as
On the first day of the second quarter of 2011, I fell for a joke. As the Urban Dictionary (definition #2) would word it, I was “punk’d“! I didn’t merely fall for just any immigration-related ersatz news item (like the passage of the CIRAF bill reported by my colleagues in ABIL), I breathlessly embraced as the
Ever since studying Constitutional Law years ago, I’ve never really resolved in my mind the tension between federal supremacy and states rights. Most days, I see the need for national uniformity of law and lean toward federal power. At other times, I appreciate the benefit of sensitivity to local conditions and the wisdom of allowing the states to