Suzanne Gamboa of the Associated Press has a great article on the systematic violations of basic civil and human rights that plague the immigration law system. Though not directly related to crImmigration or the plight of immigrants convicted of criminal offenses, I decided to post it in part because Gamboa quotes Daniel Kanstroom, the author of Deportation Nation, a book that shaped my thinking about immigration law.
According to the article, “One result is that U.S. citizens arrested as illegal immigrants or deportable residents cannot count on the legal system as a safety net. The odds are stacked against them. On the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, The Associated Press has documented more than 55 such cases since 2000, and immigration lawyers count hundreds more.”
“They are deporting a very large number of people in very fast ways, often under the radar of any review by courts,” said Daniel Kanstroom, director of the International Human Rights Program at the Boston College Law School. “Deportation of citizens is the tip of the iceberg. … The system is in dramatic, desperate need of reform.”
I couldn’t agree more.
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