The young lawyer stepped tenderly to the podium. His case was the first to be called on the 8:00 a.m. calendar.
He seemed three months out of law school.
As he spoke to the immigration judge, his voice squeaked. His motion was simple. He asked for a new hearing date.
Waiting my turn, I listened to his presentation.
He was a new associate in his office. His client’s hearing was four weeks away.
His employer believed the case presented complex issues and felt the need to personally handle the next hearing. However, his boss had a scheduling conflict and would be out of state.
The request seemed reasonable to me.
The judge blew a fuse.
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I still remember my first immigration trial.
I worked hard to cover every angle in advance. At the end of the hearing, the judge threw a curve at me. (I’ve learned, since then, this is not uncommon.)
In the judge’s view, my client could not prove good moral character. He said she was disqualified because she had admitted using false documents in her court testimony.
I disagreed with the judge’s factual portrayal of her statements, as well as with the legal reasoning he used to connect two unrelated rules.
The judge asked if I had any cases to support my opposition. I did not, but this did not mean my position was incorrect.
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Are immigrants a drag on the economy?
That’s what immigration opponents assert.
They argue, on the one hand, that immigrants steal jobs from Americans. On the other, they claim immigrants are free-loaders abusing scarce American resources, taking out more than they put into the nation’s economic system.
The two positions are contradictory. Either immigrants are stealing jobs and working, or not working and living off public benefits.
Morever, they’re wrong.
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America’s Black population is in the midst of a major demographic shift.
Over 12% have been born outside the U.S. This is a 475% increase since 1980, when Black immigrants initially began arriving in large numbers.
By 2060, it’s projected about 33% of the U.S. Black population will be foreign-born individuals.
However, the integration between Black Immigrants living in the U.S. and U.S. born Black Americans has not been the smoothest of sailings.
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The New York Times recently asked, “Why Do American Grocery Stores Have An Ethnic Aisle?”
At first glance, the question seems simplistic. One might even ask, “What’s the big deal? They’re just grocery aisles.”
But, in actuality, the question reflects issues larger than food aisles. The question reflects a changing country.
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Imagine living in the United States for 48 years thinking you’re a U.S. citizen . . . and then the carpet is pulled from you.
Imagine serving in the U.S. Navy for seven years believing you’re a U.S. citizen . . . only to find out two decades later, after receiving an honorable discharge, you were not born in the United States.
Imagine being a Customs and Border Patrol officer for 18 years, preventing undocumented immigrants from entering the United States . . . who suddenly learns that he is like them, an immigrant without legal documents.
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Is history repeating itself?
As a college student who protested for the end of the Vietnam War, I recall the social chaos and political confusion that emerged when Vietnam refugees began to enter the U.S., many in the Southern California area.
I remember the hostility of many Americans, while kids and adults from abroad tried to make sense of their new surroundings and a culture most had never been exposed to.
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, I believed we had a moral obligation to help those Southeast Asians from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, whose lives we had irrevocably disrupted.
Watching the consequences of another military engagement in a 20-year war that failed our allies, endangering their safety and stability, I feel we have a similar duty to refugees from Afghanistan.
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Necessity, it’s often said, is the mother of invention.
Stated more broadly, if something really needs to get done, human beings will find a way of doing it.
That was the situation facing both Black slaves and Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s.
Both groups were subject to extreme racism.
With their very survival under constant threat, their alliance was born.
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What are the prevailing conditions in Central America that drive people out?
It’s a fundamental question that has to be asked – and answered – before the details of comprehensive immigration reform and sound asylum policy can be agreed upon and implemented.
As Miriam Valverde, writing for the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact publication, questions, “Why would moms, dads, teens and kids take the risks they do, leaving behind their families and traditions, embarking on a journey that typically requires walking nights and days through the desert without water, swimming against strong river currents without a life vest, or hiding in the back of a tightly packed tractor-trailer for hours without enough air to breathe.”
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In a recent Washington Post editorial, former Republican President George W. Bush called for bipartisan immigration reform. His stance is a strong contrast to the position embraced by Donald Trump and many current Republic Party officials.
Rather than engage in the propaganda war to demonize immigrants, Bush emphasized the need to restore “the people’s confidence in an immigration system that serves both our values and our interests.”
The op-ed comes at a time when the U.S. is seeing a new surge of migrants coming to its southern border, which has increased the political divide between those who support and those who oppose reform has widened.
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