Birdsong's Law Blog

 Imagine.  All of you in this seminar room represent the inner cabinet for an enlightened and popular president of the prosperous, stable country of Fredonia.  It is a party to the main international human rights treaties and also to the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol.  But most other countries in the region are developing countries saddled with various economic and political problems.  Two of those nearby countries Birdsonia and Dugostan, though not immediately on the Fredonia border, present particular forced migration issues. Birdsonia, several hundred miles to the east, is ruled by a harsh dictator who has been in power for two decades, imprisoning dissidents (often on the basis of criminal charges whose foundations seem shaky) and repressing a disfavored religious minority, the “Tweets.”  Foreign visitors are limited, and information about what is occurring in Birdsonia is scarce.  A handful of dissidents have escaped to other countries, but many are in hiding internally.  The outflow of Tweets, never very high, seems on the increase in recent months, perhaps compounded by record flooding that has devastated parts of the country.

One of Birdsong’s favorite refugee law students is Terry Hanson.  Birdsong oversaw Mr. Hanson’s refugee research last semester.  Mr. Hanson believes our immigration system is terrible and that the current system needs to be abolished in order to encourage more people to come to the U.S. who wish to work and build our economy.
Based upon his research Mr. Hanson has written a paper aptly entitled “ICE and Despair. He has given Birdsong permission to post information about himself, as well as his paper.  Read and learn.