Musings on Immigration

The headline in a report on KGUN9 (a Tucson, Arizona TV station) reads: Group of illegal immigrants shot at, 1 wounded near Rio Rico (AZ) Apparently a group of undocumented immigrants were shot at while walking in the desert away from the border on Friday. The reports indicate that two men wearing camouflage used high-powered rifles to shoot at them. One of the five immigrants was wounded in the attack and was treated by local authorities in the hospital. This same group also told authorities that they had passed two bodies nearby during their trek. Another Headline in the Arizona Republic Reads: Phoenix murder of Latino man called hate crime The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has alleged that the May 6 fatal shooting of a Mexican-American man in south Phoenix by a neighbor shouting racial epithets was a hate crime. The allegation was filed June 9 as one of six aggravating factors that the office raised in the case of Gary Thomas Kelley. Aggravating factors allow judges to e...

One of my favorite movie lines is from “ The Princess Bride .” Vizzini, the mastermind behind the kidnapping of Princess Buttercup, upon seeing the Man in Black pursuing them keeps repeating the word “inconceivable.” Finally, Inigo Montoya, one of of Vizzini’s then assistants says: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” That simple statement applies to so much in the immigration law world that it is hard to even define situations where it does not apply. Much of what we deal with is really about our perception of what the law is, not about what the law actually says. This is true for legislation and for court decisions. Today, this statement seemed more true than ever. I received an email from the Center for Immigration Studies, the anti-immigration “think tank,” promoting a new web program it is hosting on “Local Law Enforcement Authority to Check Immigration Status.” This email comes with this teaser: This program . . . “discusses a recent court ...