Wayne State Comprehensive Immigration Reform

I am spending the day at the Wayne Law Review’s symposium on comprehensive immigration reform.  Profesor Jonathan Weinberg and the Wayne Law Review put together a great event.  I had the honor of delivering the opening keynote and offered ten principles to guide immigration reform  (I posted a link to the paper on the ImmigrationProf blog earlier this week).  The first panel on “Localization of Immigration Reform:  Balancing the Federal-State Relationship” included Michael Wishnie (Yale), Deep Gulasekaram (Santa Clara), Cristina Rodriguez (NYU), and Rose Cuison Villazor (Hofstra).  Michael A. Olivas (Houston) gave a bang up keynote over lunch entitlled “Immigrant Children:  Hiding in Plain Sight in the Shadows,” with a focus on the future of Plyler v. Doe (1982).  After lunch, a panel on “Factors to Reform:  Migration, Asylum, Social Cohesion and Political Economy” with Michael Olivas, Ragini Shah (Suffolk), David Abraham (Miami), and Rachel Settlage (Wayne State).  The next panel focused on “Reforming the Immigration System for Families and Vulnerable Populations” and included David Thronson (UNLV), Sarah Rogerson (Baltimore), Bridgette Carr (Michigan), and Marisa Silenzi Cianciarulo (Chapman).  The final panel focused on “Crimmigration” law and included Huyen Pham (Texas Wesleyan), Angela Banks (William & Mary), Andrew Moore (Detroit Mercy), and Lori Nessel (Seton Hall).

The symposium has had a full house throughout the day.  The presentations were excellent and the audience included faculty, students, and community members.  It really has been a rich discussion of an important — and topical — topic.  Wayne State University Law School should be proud.

KJ