Professor Chin Speaks on Immigration Reform in Public Radio Forum
Professor Gabriel "Jack" Chin participated in a panel discussion entitled "A Path Forward: the shifting landscape of immigration reform" hosted by Southern California Public Radio station KPCC. The panel took place in Pasadena on May 22 and included Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, Dowell Myers, a professor of policy, planning, and demography at the University of Southern California, and Mickey Kaus, who writes the Kausfiles, a blog at the Daily Caller.
Responding to criticism of the immigration reform proposal being debated in Washington, Professor Chin said the bill ought not to fail simply because it does not permanently resolve the nation's immigration issues.
"There is a subtext here that folks would like to solve this problem once and for all, and maybe after this bill passes we will never have an illegal immigration problem going forward, and I don't think that is going to happen," said Chin. "I think the critics of the bill are right that this is not going to be a solution for the ages, but looking at immigration in the United States historically, I don't think that's necessarily a fatal criticism of the bill. Historically, we've always had a two-track system: we've had legal immigration, and illegal immigration, and if those people who come here work out we let them stay."
Gabriel "Jack" Chin, who joined the King Hall faculty in 2011, is a prolific and much-cited criminal and immigration law scholar whose work has addressed many of the most pressing social issues of our time.