As an immigration lawyer and law professor, part of my job is to teach law students representing clients before the immigration courts or DHS. Most of our clients are living through humanitarian nightmares.
I also teach property law in a state where roots often equal identity. This daily juxtaposition of location and migration leads to some cognitive dissonance and some interesting questions. Mostly: How did we end up with this immigration law system, which pretty much nobody likes? A few years ago, I started digging through the archives in search of answers.
I didn’t find them.
What I did find were stories. Stories of people and places. Of complexities and contingencies. Of alliances and vendettas, of aspiration and ignominy.
Stories don’t answer our questions, they challenge them. They defy simple solutions. They reveal paradox.
In doing so, they inhibit stagnation and allow for change.
On How We Got Here, I’ll share stories from the past and some observations on how they are affecting real people today. As an attorney, I’m obliged to keep our cases confidential, but the stories teach generalizable lessons about how today’s immigration laws work (or don’t) that I see playing out every day.
Meeting people face to face every morning in these stories of the past - reading their journals, seeing their handwriting - forces me to confront my own humanity. And that gives me enough empathy to feel hope, even when I’ll spend the rest of the day struggling against many of the policies they left behind.
I’ve written one book about this, The Accidental History of the U.S. Immigration Courts, and I’m at work on a second. But it can be a long time between books.
Every day I’m learning some things that I think you might want to know too. On How We Got Here, my purpose is to share my travel notes from this journey. Writing a newsletter not only allows me to share more frequently, it also opens up the possibility of sharing it beyond the students who attend our law school and the handful of insiders who read academic legal scholarship.
If you want to join in this conversation about How We Got Here, you can subscribe to post comments or to email me directly. If you enjoy these stories and can think of someone else who might enjoy them too, please consider sharing.
