Dan Kanstroom on Two Misconceptions About Immigration

Dan Kanstroom (Boston College), author of the book Deportation Nation (2007), has an interesting article on the History News Network about two popular misconceptions in the current immigration debate.  One often gets the impression that virtually no enforcement is taking place. Quite the opposite is true: we are in the midst of a massive, decade-long deportation experiment that is exceptionally harsh by virtually any historical or comparative measure. Indeed, many millions of non-citizens, their families, and their communities have already felt the dreadful power of this system. A second misconception is more subtle: it is the idea that the “rule of law” embodies only punishment for mis-deeds, rather than proportionality, procedural fairness, and the rejection of Draconian “one size fits all” solutions to complex social problem

KJ