A traitorous American general hanged for aiding the British during the Revolutionary War — one Benedict Arnold — said rather cynically: “Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.” This quote came to mind in scanning the latest developments in dysfunctional immigration:

• With a rider passed by the House to a defense appropriations

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Immigration lawmakers try to pick winners and losers. The problem is that just like a broken analog clock with its hands frozen in place, the timing is mostly wrong.

This brings me to one of my pet peeves. It bothers me that the immigration laws and agency regulations favor some fields of study and disfavor…

Perhaps I was naive to have expected more thoughtful analysis from conservative writer David Frum on last Friday’s Real Time With Bill Maher. Maybe what lowered my guard was Frum’s refreshing candor in criticizing as a failed strategy the Republicans’ “just say no” approach to the health care act, and suggesting that bipartisan…

Ever the optimist and trying her best to think happy thoughts, Tinker Bell, the world’s most famous faerie, has been flying over Washington this week. She soared into town, lifted up by throngs of May Day marchers who believed popular revulsion to Arizona’s “Papers, please” law would finally jolt politicians into enacting comprehensive immigration reform.…

Today’s New York Times brims with immigration dysfunctions galore. The paper’s immigration reports tellingly underscore the front-burner role this white-hot policy issue plays in the nation and the world.

In the first section alone, we see:

· An open-mike faux pas by British PM Gordon Brown, referring to an immigration opponent as a “bigoted woman,”…

I’ve attended hundreds of meetings of immigration lawyers in my career. Many of them have exhibited characteristics of 12-step groups in which we formed circles of victimhood, and “admitted that we were powerless over [INS, USCIS, DOL, State, etc.]and that our lives had become unmanageable.” Many of these sessions disgusted me because of the excess…

In staccato movements, our post-health-care President seemed to have found his rhythm: 15 recess appointments, a yet-to-be ratified arms-reduction treaty with Russia, and a world-leaders’ conference on nuclear nonproliferation, the first such gathering since President Franklin Roosevelt convened the precursor meeting that would lead to the formation of the United Nations. Why then is he…

The eyes of many Americans have focused of late upon the absurdly harsh consequences that immigration law inflicts on people after they have satisfied comparatively modest penalties imposed under the criminal laws.

The New York Times’ Linda Greenhouse (who has followed the Supreme Court for many years) notes correctly in a recent blog posting that…