Posted by
DD on Friday, August 10, 2007 10:16:56 AM
Recently, three immigration law professors from UC Davis law school were appointed to Sen. Obama's Presidential Campaign's immigration policy group. (story) Two of the professors, Professor Kevin Johnson and Professor Bill Hing, have recently written books on immigration. Professor Johnson's newest, "Opening the Floodgates," proposes that we have open borders and suggests that his proposal would be consistent with protecting America from terrorism according to its pre-release summary on Amazon. The foreword to Professor Hing's book was written by Senator Edward Kennedy. Together, they have a blog about immigration issues. On this blog they cite stories and articles. One post, for example, is an open letter by the founder of the Guerrero Azteca Project where he refers to the DREAM Act as a "covert draft" (The DREAM Act being a bill that even Sen. Boxer calls "non-controversial.") Some posts are simply Service Employees International Union (SEIU) press releases reproduced verbatim preceded by a lead-in sentence.
The fact that these guys apparently support unusual views is fine, even if misguided. But if you're to the left of Sen. Boxer on issues, your "immigration blog" is basically a glorified wire service for the SEIU, and you don't just support immigration, you oppose borders; I imagine most Americans would call you out of the mainstream. Yet, not far enough out of the mainstream, apparently, to teach a majority of the immigration law classes at UC Davis law school. Professors should obviously be allowed to have whatever views they want on controversial issues. Certainly, this includes views that many would consider extreme. But if you already have a couple of these professors on a single side of an issue, you would think UC Davis would get a professor or two with equally radical ideas on the other side of the spectrum; like say, not getting rid of our international borders.