cis.org
ACLU-UNC Wrong on 287(g)
By Jon Feere, April 16, 2009

The University of North Carolina School of Law recently joined forces with the ACLU and published a report aimed at stopping ICE cooperation with state and local law enforcement. The paper also advocates mass, illegal-alien amnesty.

Despite the fact that the report has been celebrated by a number of media outlets, the paper is quite an embarrassment for the law school as it provides no new data, no statistics, and very little analysis—even though the paper is a whopping 152-pages long. Instead, the paper is full of accusations, inaccuracies, and anecdotal evidence. It is heavy on conclusions, all of which seem to be cut-and-pasted from earlier ACLU publications aimed at perpetuating illegal immigration.

In all, the paper reads more like an ACLU press release than serious academic research.

Inaccurate Legal Analysis. When it comes to legal writing, lawyers are taught to cite every claim, especially those that are not easily recognized as absolute fact by the general public. But here’s one example of many where the UNC-ACLU authors make dramatic claims with no citation to any statistical research:

[S]ince the implementation of § 287(g), Hispanic-appearing residents in particular have reported discriminatory abuses related to the program’s implementation. These abuses include harassment of legal residents and citizens and subsequent alienation of ethnic communities from police authority and protection.
Unfortunately, the authors are attempting to change policy based on unsubstantiated anecdotes. This is becoming common practice for the open-border crowd.

One of the authors’ key claims is not only without citation, it’s also false. The authors want state and local enforcement to apply only to aliens who are convicted of felonies. They seek a “stay here illegally until you seriously injure someoneâ€