"Despite public concern with the increasing politicization of U.S. immigration courts, few people are aware of the system's fundamental flaw: the immigration courts are not really 'courts' but an office of the Department of Justice--the nation's law enforcement agency. Alison Peck's original and surprising account shows how paranoia sparked by World War II and the War on Terror drove the structure of the immigration courts. Focusing on previously unstudied decisions in the Roosevelt and Bush administrations, this book divulges both the human tragedy of our current immigration system and the human crises that led to its creation. Peck provides an accessible legal analysis of recent events to make the case for independent immigration courts, proposing that the courts be moved into an independent, Article I court system. As long as the immigration courts remain under the authority of the attorney general, the administration of immigration justice will remain a game of political football--with people's very lives on the line." -- back cover.

United States immigration courts operate on the tension line that has existed for at least 135 years in the United States between our romantic notion of the United States as a land of immigrants and the aspirational notion of the United States as a nation of laws. This is a book about our immigration courts seasoned with observations, commentary and some anecdotal humor. The book also serves as a practical guide for attorneys and laymen who are interested in immigration matters within the jurisdiction of United States immigration courts. In addition, the book provides a historical overview of the evolution of immigration law in relation to the role of the Immigration Judge, including suggestions for improvements in the institutions that enforce and administer United States immigration law; and the law itself. One reform idea suggested within is to free immigration courts from the influence of the executive arm of government that enforces immigration law as well as policies promulgated in the same executive arm of government by taking the immigration courts out of the Department of Justice, where they now reside, and establishing them as independent legislative courts. This reform would more effectively insulate the immigration courts from powerful influence of the executive arm of government and seemingly concomitant political machinations by establishing the check and balance of the judicial branch over the adjudication of immigration controversies.

American Immigration Lawyers Association wrote: “With a cast of colorful characters and compelling tales, My Trials: What I Learned in Immigration Court is both a scathing indictment of a broken immigration system that sends vulnerable immigrants back to the perilous situations from which they fled, and a heartfelt call for a return to the values upon which our nation of immigrants was founded.” VOICE magazineGerry Spence, noted trial lawyer, wrote:"Thanks for your good work, Paul. I am not surprised at the horror and inhumanity you have witnessed."“America is famous for priding itself as a nation of immigrants, but the often shabby and sometimes downright abusive treatment that immigrants seeking asylum suffer in our nation's immigration court system is a well-kept secret. The truth is that our government fails to hire prosecuting attorneys and appoint judges with expertise in the field or even adequately train them in the law and procedure. But this failure pales in comparison to the even greater scandal that the immigrants herded into these courts are often treated with disdain, disrespect, or even outright contempt by sworn officers of the law. The often needless, lengthy and costly pre-trial detention of individuals who usually do not represent any danger to the community is an everyday and shameful fact of life in our immigration system.”

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

2020 Foreword INDIE awards winner "Day-to-day life in immigrant communities is described with refreshing clarity and heart... an unusually accessible primer on immigration law and a valuable guide to the ways it currently works to perpetuate an excluded immigrant underclass with diminished rights." —The New York Review of Books The national debate over American immigration policy has obsessed politicians and disrupted the lives of millions of people for decades. The Battle to Stay in America focuses on Las Vegas, Nevada–a city where more than one in five residents was born in a foreign country, and where the community is struggling to defend itself against the federal government’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Told through the eyes of an immigration lawyer on the front lines of that battle, this book offers an accessible, intensely personal introduction to a broken legal system. It is also a raw, honest story of exhaustion, perseverance, and solidarity. Michael Kagan describes how current immigration law affects real people’s lives and introduces us to some remarkable individuals—immigrants and activists—who grapple with its complications every day. He explains how American immigration law often gives good people no recourse. He shows how under President Trump the complex bureaucracies that administer immigration law have been re-engineered to carry out a relentless but often invisible attack against people and families who are integral to American communities. Kagan tells the stories of people desperate to escape unspeakable violence in their homeland, children separated from their families and trapped in a tangle of administrative regulations, and hardworking long-time residents suddenly ripped from their productive lives when they fall unwittingly into the clutches of the immigration enforcement system. He considers how the crackdown on immigrants negatively impacts the national economy and offers a deeply considered assessment of the future of immigration policy in the United States. Kagan also captures the psychological costs exacted by fear of deportation and by increasingly overt expressions of hatred against immigrants.

For the past three decades, many history professors have allowed their biases to distort the way America’s past is taught. These intellectuals have searched for instances of racism, sexism, and bigotry in our history while downplaying the greatness of America’s patriots and the achievements of “dead white men.” As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than on George Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on the dangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced from Josef Stalin. A Patriot’s History of the United States corrects those doctrinaire biases. In this groundbreaking book, America’s discovery, founding, and development are reexamined with an appreciation for the elements of public virtue, personal liberty, and private property that make this nation uniquely successful. This book offers a long-overdue acknowledgment of America’s true and proud history.