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Immigration, buried in complexities

By Mark Obbie

Ernesto Londono's front-pager in today's Post breaks new and important ground on the immigration-law beat. He documents the government's beefed-up efforts to track down and deport immigrants for their criminal convictions. Londono does a good job of looking at the issue from several angles -- the effects on criminal and immigration courts and lawyers, for example -- but in one key respect his story comes up short. Over and over, he refers to "complicated cases," "the complexities of immigration law," and "the complex and fluid intersection of criminal and immigration law, which varies from state to state." And yet he doesn't explain nearly enough about what sorts of complexities he's referring to or why they matter. I'm guessing that what constitutes a deportable conviction, and who's eligible for deportation, aren't easily answered. But without relevant examples or another layer of detail, the story takes an almost patronizing tone: This is too complicated to trouble you with the facts. That's a shame, because Londono otherwise has brought an important -- and complicated! -- issue to light.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on February 27, 2008 (boomark / email).