Missouri Lawyers' Weekly

Just discovered that I was quoted in an article in Missouri Lawyers' Weekly on Missouri's efforts at immigration "reform." http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100038095&docId=l:697002361&start=20
Congratulations to the reporter, Kelly Wiese on getting the gist of my comments correct. So often in this area, the media doesn't quite understand what immigration attorneys are saying. The concepts are strange and the terminology is often confusing. Who understands what the difference is between "unlawful presence" and "out of status"? or that someone can actually be out of status in the U.S., but not accruing time in unlawful presence?

That's one of the difficulties we have in this debate. It is much easier to say, "what part of illegal don't you understand?" than it is to ask the questions like: is a violation of an immigration law really criminal behavior? has our country historically considered immigration violators to be criminals? is the punishment inflicted on immigration violators proportionate to the violation committed? are we acting humanely and morally toward immigrants? are there relationships that some immigration violators may have with this country (e.g. family and employment relationships) that outweigh the need to enforce a harsh punishment by deportation and long term or even permanent family separation? is part of the problem the fact that there are not enough visas to satisfy the demand for workers and family unification? is there a racist or nativist motivation behind much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric?

Those are the hard questions that people don't want to wrestle with. So the "illegality" of an immigration violator becomes the end of the story and the excuse to demonize them.