Migrants, Refugees, and Citizens: Some Hard Questions for Immigration Policy

Immigration has been one of the most contentious issues of our time, not just in the United States, but throughout the world. Anyone who ventures into this thicket needs to think about some hard questions. First, are immigrants’ rights a type of civil rights, human rights, or some other approach to justice and fairness? Second, how have mass migrations of people fleeing war, the breakdown of civil society, or environmental degradation challenged traditional perspectives on immigration? Third, is it possible or desirable to think about immigration without a path to citizenship? And fourth, how should economic inequality inside the United States or any other destination country influence immigration policy? I will discuss why these questions are so hard, how they are tied to each other, and why they are unavoidable if there is any common ground to be found on immigration issues. This Forum is brought to you by: The Center for Law, Diversity, and Justice at Fairhaven College, The Ralph Munro Institute for Civic Education, and the Border Policy Research Institute About the Lecturer: Hiroshi Motomura is the Susan Westerberg Prager Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law. He is the author of two award-winning books: Immigration Outside the Law, and Americans in Waiting, and the co-author of two law school casebooks, one on immigration and citizenship, and the other on refugees and asylum. He is a founding director of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) and Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Immigration Law Center. He has received several teaching awards, including the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award in 2014, and was one of just 26 law professors nationwide profiled in What the Best Law Teachers Do