Law Commons^™

The Pressure Is On—Criminal Defense Counsel Strategies After Padilla V. Kentucky, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

The Supreme Court’s message to criminal defense attorneys in Padilla v. Kentucky was clear: when there is a risk of deportation, defense counsel has a constitutional duty to inform an immigrant defendant of the potential for deportation or adverse immigration consequences prior to pleading guilty. In my view, this constitutional duty places tremendous pressure on defense counsel to do more than advise, because once advised, the client very naturally may want to know what options are available other than going to trial. Rather than simply focusing on how to minimize the time of incarceration for the client under a particular …

Ethics, Morality, And Disruption Of U.S. Immigration Laws, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

In this essay, I review Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement tools and what I feel is the unnecessary havoc that they wreak on immigrant communities. In the process, I describe the resistance to these policies by immigrants and their supporters who have attempted to disrupt the enforcement tools. Immigrants and their supporters are attempting to raise awareness of better strategies to resolve whatever problems are perceived to exist. I also argue that the disruptive tactics by immigrants and their supporters have actually helped to push the Obama administration into engaging in disruptive innovation of its own with respect to …

African Migration To The United States: Assigned To The Back Of The Bus, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

This book project, timed on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1965 immigration amendments, recognizes many significant effects that the amendments have had on the United States. In many ways—particularly with respect to dramatic demographic changes in Latino and Asian Pacific American communities—the amendments might be regarded as integral to the perpetuation of the United States as a land of immigrants. Yet, when it comes to residents of African descent after the end of slavery, the 1965 changes have had relatively little to do with facilitating the entry of African migrants to our shores.

In this book chapter, I discuss the …

Re-Examining The Zero-Tolerance Approach To Deporting Aggravated Felons: Restoring Discretionary Waivers And Developing New Tools, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

In this essay, I argue that immigration judges should regain discretion over deportation cases involving lawful permanent resident immigrants who have committed aggravated felonies — discretion that was eliminated in 1996. Congress’s failure to address the issue of reinstating immigration court discretion is a missed opportunity to act consistently with changing political attitudes toward law enforcement and notions of proportionality. Addressing these issues would invite a conversation about the effect of criminal deportations on the prospective deportee, who may in fact be well on the road to rehabilitation. The effect on the community also would become relevant, as we focus …

Redressing The Shame Of U.S. Immigration Laws And Enforcement Policies, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

n this chapter, I provide a focused view of certain examples of U.S. immigration laws and enforcement policies that have gone too far. I provide a fuller picture of employer sanctions enforcement and Operation Gatekeeper, along with harsh deportation policies that are enforced in the name of protecting our borders and ourselves from a so-called invasion of immigrants. I explain how the lack of sufficient visas and U.S. trade policies have exacerbated the alleged “illegal immigration” problem. And I discuss how a system based on ethical values is needed to remedy the evils of current U.S. immigration policies.

The experiment …

Superman Had Nothin On Keith Aoki, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

In this tribute to the late Keith Aoki, Professor of Law at U.C. Davis, I point out that at the heart of much of Keith Aoki’s humanity and scholarship is a call for us to be on guard against institutional, public, and private strategies operating to disadvantage people of color and other subordinated groups. Much of his life and body of work inspires us to stand up to racism and subordination of those who are disadvantaged. In that context, I discuss recent attacks on Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities, and underscore our responsibility to speak the truth about these …

Immigration Sanctuary Policies: Constitutional And Representative Of Good Policing And Good Public Policy, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

Sanctuary ordinances or policies that constrain local authorities from assisting in federal immigration enforcement do not receive the same political and media attention as anti-immigrant laws enacted by states and local governments. In the political struggle over the rights of undocumented immigrants in the United States, the greater media and political focus on anti-immigrant measures, such as Arizona’s S.B. 1070 and similar policies in cities like Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and Farmers Branch, Texas, is understandable.

With much less fanfare, the legality of sanctuary policies also has been challenged. In this article I review the case law that specifically has involved the …

Thinking Broadly About Immigration Reform By Addressing Root Causes, Bill Ong Hing

Bill Ong Hing

The United States is caught up in hysteria, media-induced fear, and misinformation over undocumented immigration. We have militarized the border through “Operation Gatekeeper” pushing border crossers into treacherous terrain, resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths since the 1990s. We have engaged in Gestapo-type raids of businesses, homes, and neighborhoods, sometimes separating children from their parents. We have arrested and deported lawful permanent resident immigrants who have resided in the United States most of their lives. We have rounded up workers in restaurant sweeps. We have prosecuted human rights volunteers in the Arizona desert who provided food, water, and emergency medical …

Reason Over Hysteria: Keynote Essay, Bill Ong Hing

Bill Ong Hing

We are a nation of immigrants, but we also are a nation that loves to debate immigration policy, and that debate reflects the battle over how we define who is an American. The anti-immigrant movement in the United States is as strong as ever. Immigrant bashing is popular among politicians, talk radio hosts, private militiamen, and xenophobic grassroots organizations. They take full advantage of the high-tech era in which we live, as they complain about the “illegal alien invasion.” Their common thread is the rhetoric of fear. This hysteria leads to tragic policies that challenge us as a moral society. …

Systemic Failure: Mental Illness, Detention, And Deportation, Bill Ong Hing

Bill Ong Hing

Our detention and deportation system failed Tatyana Mitrohina. She was born in Russia with heart defects and deformed hands. She was rejected by her parents for many years, spending her infancy in hospitals and institutions. Though she was later able to move back home, her parents abused her and then abandoned her. She immigrated to the United States as a young teen, adopted by U.S. citizens. After more than a decade, she had a child of her own, whom she abused. Tatyana was diagnosed with mental illness. Although she was convicted of child abuse, the state court recommended medication, counseling, …

Asian Americans And Immigration Reform, Bill Ong Hing

Bill Ong Hing

Asian Americans have a lot to gain from progressive immigration reform. Today, our relatives abroad make up the bulk of those who are on a waiting list that can last almost two decades in some categories. Many young men and women from our communities face deportation even though they have grown up in the United States. Some are subjected to harsh Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and detention policies. Of the estimated twelve million undocumented immigrants in the country, demographers tell us that more than 10 percent are from Asian or Pacific countries. Many undocumented Asian Americans are college …

The Rise And Fall Of Employer Sanctions, David Bacon, Bill Ong Hing

Bill Ong Hing

Workplace Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids by gun-wielding agents resulting in the mass arrests of dozens and sometimes hundreds of employees that were common under the George W. Bush administration appear to have ceased under the Obama administration. Legally questionable mass arrests in neighborhoods continue to occur in neighborhoods under the pretext of serving warrants on criminal aliens. However, disruptive, high-profile worksite raids appear to have subsided. Instead, the Obama administration has engaged in "silent raids" or audits of companies' records by federal agents that have resulted in the firing of thousands of undocumented workers. the administration defends these …

Institutional Racism, Ice Raids, And Immigration Reform, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

This Article argues that the structure of immigration laws has institutionalized a set of values that dehumanize, demonize, and criminalize immigrants of color. The result is that these victims stop being Mexicans, Latinos, or Chinese and become “illegal immigrants.” We are aware of their race or ethnicity, but we believe we are acting against them because of their status, not because of their race. This institutionalized racism made the Bush ICE raids natural and acceptable in the minds of the general public. Institutionalized racism allows the public to think ICE raids are freeing up jobs for native workers without recognizing …

Legal Services Support Centers And Rebellious Advocacy: A Case Study Of The Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Bill Ong Hing

Bill Ong Hing

Public interest lawyers and clinical law faculty are quite familiar with the strategies of rebellious or collaborative lawyering set forth forcefully by scholars such as Gerald López, Lucie White, and most recently Ascanio Piomelli. Some of the principles include educating clients and communities to support resistance; opening ourselves to being educated by clients, communities, and allies; respecting and not subordinating our clients; collaborating with clients and allies; recognizing that collaborative advocacy can lead to extremely challenging battles; and understanding that the rebellious style involves integrating and navigating many worlds. These principles have been adopted by those aspiring to practice in …

Coolies, James Yen, And Rebellious Advocacy, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

Those of us who engage in progressive legal work need to be constantly reminded that we do not know everything - that we are not knights in shining armor swooping in to save subordinated communities. We should be collaborating: working with rather than simply on behalf of clients and allies from whom we have much to learn. Though lawyering for social change is arduous work, there is much to gain in these battles against subordination, not simply from the potential outcome but from the collaborative process itself: as our clients gain strength and confidence, we too are renewed. Thus invigorated …

The Immigrant Rights Marches Of 2006 And The Prospects For A New Civil Rights Movement, Bill Ong Hing, Kevin R. Johnson

Bill Ong Hing

In the spring of 2006, hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and immigrants peacefully marched in the streets of cities across the country. Such mass demonstrations advocating for the rights of immigrants are unprecedented in American history. Energy, enthusiasm, and a deep sense of urgency filled the air. The immigrant rights movement initially spread like wildfire. A second wave followed the initial protests. By the summer of 2006, however, there were signs that the immigrant rights movement had lost steam. A series of marches on and around Labor Day attracted far fewer people than those just a few months before. …

Detention To Deportation - Rethinking The Removal Of Cambodian Refugees, Bill Ong Hing

Bill Ong Hing

This article is part of a symposium on Immigration and Civil Rights After September 11: The Impact on California.

The United States helped to pull Cambodia into the Vietnam war, initially through secret bombings in Cambodia in 1969 and CIA support for a rightist coup in Cambodia in 1970. After the Khmer Rouge genocide of two million of its own people in Cambodia, thousands of survivors fled to refugee camps. Eventually, the United States admitted 145,000 Cambodian refugees. U.S. resettlement policies provided public assistance and job training for low-income jobs. Refugee families, however, were not provided with the tools necessary …

Rebellious Lawyering, Settlement, And Reconciliation: Soko Bukai V. Ywca, Bill Ong Hing

Bill Ong Hing

This article is part of a civil rights symposium issue.

Who was the rightful owner of the 1830 Sutter Street building in San Francisco: the San Francisco Young Women's Christian Association (SF YWCA) or the Japanese American community that had raised funds for its purchase in the 1920s and approached the SF YWCA to hold the property in trust for the community because Japanese immigrants were barred from owning property? When the legal dispute over the ownership of a building in the heart of San Francisco's Japantown ended with Japanese American community groups agreeing to purchase the building for $733,000 …

Vigilante Racism: The De-Americanization Of Immigrant America, Bill Hing

Bill Ong Hing

The mistreatment of those of Arab, Muslim, and Sikh descent in the United States post September 11 amounts to vigilante racism--the enforcement of a presumed code of what constitutes a "true" American. In the process, the culprits engage in a process of "de-Americanizing" individuals of color, informing them that they do not belong to the American community. There are two Americas; one that is embracing of diversity, the other that continues to be premised on a Euro-centric vision.