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Understanding the Roots of a Broken System

I have been involved now in immigration law for almost 16 years, first as an immigration paralegal in San Francisco before law school, next, defending foreign nationals against charges of illegal entry after deportation as a federal public defender and now as a lawyer focused 100% on immigration law. Despite this lengthy history with immigration law, I still cannot quickly explain why our immigration system has so many problems. This is due to the fact that the roots of our broken system run very deep.

Given the complexity of the problem, it is always great to come across good articles that concisely explain to us some of the roots of the problem. The first article, “Migration as Reparations“, reminds us that U.S. foreign policy has a direct relationship to the current Central American crisis. The article discusses the U.S. backing, and really direct involvement, in El Salvador’s civil war, choosing to back a brutal regime merely because they appeared to be on the right side of the Cold War. Still reeling from this war, El Salvador has been overrun by criminal gangs that effectively function like government entities. This article is worth a read, and is a good reminder that what we do abroad has direct effects on our immigration policy.

The next article breaks down the most impactful immigration law in the last 20 years, and how this law has had a dramatic negative effect on our immigration system. This article, “The disastrous, forgotten 1996 law that created today’s immigration problem“, is a great synopsis of the technical components of the law, and how it has resulted in dramatic increase in our undocumented population and deportations.