Calif. AG Pushes to Award Law License to Illegal Immigrant

Calif. AG Pushes to Award Law License to Illegal Immigrant

California’s Attorney General, Democrat Kamala Harris, has weighed in on the side of an immigrant, who is asking the State Supreme Court to award him a California law license. The immigrant graduated from law school despite that he’s neither a legal resident nor a naturalized citizen of the United States of America.

In her brief, Democrat Harris pleaded with the court to award this license. “Admitting Garcia to the bar would be consistent with state and federal policy that encourages immigrants, both documented and undocumented, to contribute to society,” Harris said.

This is nonsense. Our laws do not encourage undocumented immigrants to “contribute to society.” Only when our laws are ignored, set aside, or broken by recalcitrant government officials do they somehow encourage illegals to “contribute to society.”

In truth, our laws encourage illegal immigrants to become legal or go back home.

AG Harris isn’t the only authority in California asking for the courts to award this non-citizen a license to practice law. The examiners of the State Bar Association have also come to the support of illegal immigrant and new law school graduate, Sergio Garcia.

Further, AG Harris has asked the Holder Department of Justice to weigh in on this case. Though the DOJ isn’t supposed to offer its opinion until August, it is a sure bet that this DOJ will see no problem with breaking California’s law licensing regulations to aid an illegal immigrant.

The situation is exactly one of those slipped-through-the-cracks stories that immigrants “rights” activists always point to in order to prove that our system and laws are deficient. Garcia was smuggled into the country when he was a toddler by his parents, neither of whom came to this country legally, yet he’s been an upstanding fellow, gotten good grades, and attended college. The very model citizen if only he were legal.

While his parents have since settled their own status both becoming legal residents, their son is still waiting for papers he filed 17 years ago to be approved. While waiting he attended law school and is now ready to launch a law career.

Of course, that career is on hold because undocumented residents cannot be legally awarded a license to practice law in the State of California.

It is this point that sums up the argument against awarding this man a law license. How can he uphold the laws when he is willfully breaking our immigration laws at the outset?

It is most certainly a messy situation and Mr. Garcia is quite a sympathetic figure. There is a saying in the law that goes hard cases make bad law. In other words, the odd exceptions, or unpleasant facts and situations are not sufficient reasons to break or bend laws for the odd cases in which they occur. (Another saying is “bad facts make bad law.”)

The problem is that when you start bending laws for sympathetic individuals, then you’ve left the general law without teeth and from that point anyone can then bend that law for other sympathetic clients. Eventually the law will be meaningless because so many exceptions had been made.

Instead of breaking the law and awarding a law license to an illegal immigrant, the better action would be to fast track the young man’s citizenship paperwork, get his status cleared up, and then he can go get his law license with his head held high.

But, as is so often the case, because it makes them feel good, Democrats would rather break laws instead of doing things the proper, lawful way.

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