“U.S. immigration law is like stratified rock, revealing layer on layer of Congressional accretions laid down over many years, with the superstructure upended in tectonic shifts triggered by the baffling and contradictory interpretations of multiple agencies and courts.”
Nothing of substance has changed since I offered that post last August, save for a groundbreaking election that
As Republicans join Democrats in contemplating reform of the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system, the final line of the Pledge of Allegiance (“with liberty and justice for all”) is the best place to start.
Revitalizing our broken and outdated 20th Century immigration laws to respond to the needs of 21st Century America will turn in large
The Democratic Convention in Charlotte ended last week. The media has now turned to measuring and marveling at President Obama’s post-convention bounce despite weak Labor Department data revealing persistent joblessness.
The inevitable comparisons of the two parties’ convention performances give the edge to the Democrats’ oratory, production values, crowd enthusiasm and diversity. On immigration policy, the Dems
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
[Blogger’s note: Tomorrow, August 15, 2012, is perhaps as momentous to DREAMers as D-Day, June 6, 1944, was to The Greatest Generation. The invasion of Normandy marked the end of World War II in Europe and the fall of a tyrannical Nazi regime that made mincemeat of the rule of law.
Though the comparison may seem
“[A] riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” ~ Winston Churchill
The most quotable of British Prime Ministers could well have been talking about the American immigration system rather than describing Russia in 1939. U.S. immigration law is like stratified rock, revealing layer on layer of Congressional accretions laid down over many years
[Blogger’s Note: This week’s guest column is by Jennifer Oltarsh, an immigration lawyer practicing in Manhattan. She writes about how the tendency of Congress and the Obama Administration to require the incarceration of low-level immigration law violators without providing individualized determinations of whether a detainee will be released from custody has led to massive increases in the
[Blogger’s note: Whether by dint of nature or nurture, lawyers love to argue; immigration lawyers perhaps more so. Unlike our colleagues (outside of immigration practice) for whom sources of law are better defined, immigration attorneys can access a wider array of law and non-law sources with which to fashion our pro and con arguments.
From the first prehistoric evenings sitting around campfires, humans have been telling stories. Heroic myths, fairy-tale fables, oral histories — all have been seared into heart and memory through the power of narrative. Civil and criminal trials are merely stylized forms of storytelling. Journalism’s hook, theatre’s Sturm und Drang, reality television’s sour and sweet confections —
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
