Imagine a series of instant replays of a rough-and-tumble ground game involving evenly matched teams at the Superbowl. Hulks and behemoths line up on each side of the scrimmage line. The players wait for the snap of the football. The waiting seems interminable. Rage and pent-up energy build without release.

This slow-motion scene resembles the…

As the New York Times reports, recessions have a way of changing attitudes about incarceration, even among the ardent yet newly frugal law-and-order types. The states are finding that imprisoning convicts can bust already strapped state budgets. Alternatives to incarceration, such as diversion for treatment or early release, are therefore increasingly the norm. And…

Transparency in government is the new mantra. The President commands it. The Attorney General (AG) implements it, through a new policy requiring government agencies to provide easy access to information and documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). At U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), however, the practice is more diaphanous than transparent. Diaphanous…

In times of economic stress, people turn to rituals. Some finger rosaries or worry beads. Other folks, as the Wall St. Journal’s Sue Shellenbarger reminds us (“Life Stories: Children Find Meaning in Old Family Tales” [3/12/09, p. D1]), revert to an age-old tradition, the passing on to the next generation of family stories about earlier…

The Obama Administration faces a serious problem with a critical constituency — voters who supported the President last November, in large part, because of his promise of enlightened and compassionate immigration law reform. The administration is also under close scrutiny by the peoples and nations of the world to see whether his solutions to the…

The talk in Washington, on Wall Street and across America is all about the problem of zombie banks. These are financial institutions that appear to be alive and operating normally (if you can believe their advertising), but are all virtually dead from infections caused by toxic assets and undeclared losses on overvalued real estate and…

E-Verify –- the Web 2.0 system created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for PC-based verification of employment eligibility (“PC” in this case means “personal computer” and perhaps not “political correctness”) –- is a creature of contract. The contract in question, an agreement known as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), is a take-it-or-leave-it…

The bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth is a fitting moment to ponder the state of our fractious and fractured nation of immigrants. Ending his First Inaugural Address, President Lincoln spoke prophetically in words that could well describe the path America must pursue if the deep divide over immigration policy is ever to be bridged:…