“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” ~ Satchel Paige

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One of the benefits of having played in the immigration sandbox for a long time is to see old friends return. A fondly remembered playmate — who left in 1995 and returned in 2010 — is a good ol’ cuss

cuffs.jpgAn essay in today’s New York Times, “Unexceptionalism:  A Primer,” by the novelist, E. L. Doctorow, describes in four “phases” how America can take steps to become unexceptional, that is, “indistinguishable from the impoverished, traditionally undemocratic, brutal or catatonic countries in the world.” 

Phase one begins with Bush v. Gore

pensive youth.pngI worry a lot about the future facing America’s young adults.  Saddled with Dickensian levels of college and grad-school debt, largely unable to find opportunities in their preferred careers, our young fear that they’ll be relegated to work in low-paid, dead-end jobs. They and their parents are rightly concerned that the middle class is disappearing,

At President Obama’s signing ceremony for the JOBS Act last week, White House guests slapped high fives with bipartisan glee. They came to the Rose Garden to help “Jumpstart Our Business Startups,” as the new law’s title optimistically promises to do. With pen in hand, the President joined in the merriment, observing that it’s not

[Blogger’s note: This article is reprinted with permission from the February 22, 2012 edition of The New York Law Journal.  ©2010 ALM Properties Inc. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. The authors thank the Journal for permission to reprint this article.]  

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No More Waiting on Legal Immigration

By Angelo

Thumbnail image for young soldiers.jpg[Blogger’s note:  This week’s guest blog is by Steve Yale-Loehr, a good friend who teaches immigration law at Cornell Law School and co-authors the leading U.S. immigration treatise. Steve has just finished co-editing Green Card Stories, a book that features dramatic narratives of 50 recent U.S. immigrants—each with permanent residence or citizenship—in

“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer” ~ Alexander Pope, poet, satirist, and translator, “Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot

clock face time 3.jpgI hesitate to criticize the Obama Administration’s immigration reform measures, having urged long ago that half a loaf, at least for now, will perforce suffice

President Obama had a macho moment this week when he suggested, rhetorically, a poll of ghosts. “Ask Osama Bin Laden” and the “22 out of 30 top al-Qaeda leaders who’ve been taken off the field,” he proposed, “whether I engage in appeasement.”  The storied bugaboo of foreign-policy appeasement, best typified by the flaccidity of British Prime

Who really wields power in Washington?  The December 3rd opening sketch of Saturday Night Live, featuring Fred Armisen as a chastened President Obama, offered an answer to the question. 

SNL‘s Obama shared his insight, gained over the last three years, that the presidency is not truly a powerful post, but merely a “ceremonial position . . .