California grants right for illegal immigrant to be a lawyer

This story somehow slipped through the cracks a couple days back, but it’s definitely worth a look. Out in California, a court has ruled that an illegal immigrant can practice law there as an attorney.

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Sergio Garcia’s parents brought him to the United States from Mexico nearly two decades ago. He’s been waiting for a green card ever since.

But there’s one thing the undocumented immigrant no longer has to wait for, according to a California Supreme Court ruling on Thursday: his law license.

Garcia can be admitted to California’s state bar and legally practice as a lawyer there, the court ruled.

The New York Times jumped on the bandwagon, and after describing the various hardships that Mr. Garcia has endured, they focus on the big picture.

That changed Thursday when the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a law passed last fall by the Legislature allowed Mr. Garcia, 36, to be admitted to the state bar and practice law. What it did not do is address the fact that under federal law, no law firm, business or public agency can legally hire him.

The strange turn of events demonstrates the complicated patchwork of immigration laws that is emerging as Congress remains stalled on an overhaul of the immigration laws and states and courts are stepping in and deciding what rights should be granted to the estimated more than 11 million immigrants living illegally in the country.

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This story clearly demonstrates the complicated web which faces immigrants as Congress talks about comprehensive immigration reform, and should remind us that….

HOLD THE DARN PHONE FOR A MINUTE HERE. I need a little help from this soccer guy.

RefYellowCard

Look… I get that there are plenty of people with opposing views on so called “comprehensive immigration reform” and the idea of loosening up the borders. I also understand that there are people who rightly claim that we can’t simply find, round up, detain and deport more than 20 million people in a rapid, reasonable manner with the resources we have available. But give me a break here, media… surely we can catch THIS GUY.

Are there no police officers left on the job? Are the ICE offices completely empty? (Some of you will probably blame sequestration.) But cut us a break. Garcia is showing up at major, televised court appearances and doing interviews on CNN. I think we know where he is. And he’s here illegally by his own admission. Who has the responsibility to show up and inform him that he needs to go for a quick ride and get out of the country?

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As Wesley Smith points out at The Corner, even if you did allow this guy to argue a case in court, he wouldn’t even be eligible to sit on the jury he was trying to convince. And yet we have courts arguing that somehow, on the principle of the thing, his rights are being violated if he isn’t given a license to practice law. If you want to know what some Obamacare sized Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill will result in, just read the details of this story.

Of course, since this sounds completely insane to me, I’m clearly a racist.

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