Immigration Law and the Big Lebowski

For my immigration law class, we are exploring the source of federal power to regulate who comes into the country. Most of the legal wrangling over this started long before Mexico had a sufficient population to worry us with immigration. The seminal cases on the subject were in the 1848 and on, when we had just finished building the transcontinental railroad.

Comments now written in the margin of my immigration law book:

Walter, these are the guys who built the railroads.

The Chinaman is the issue here, dude.

And, after a passage where Justice Gray says "[i]f no evidence is offered by the Chinaman, the judge makes the order of deportation, as upon a default," I wrote, "and also, Chinaman is not the approved nomenclature, Justice Gray. Asian American."