Lily Iserson
Chief Copy Editor
The 20th Bell Distinguished Lectureship in Law will take place Monday, April 17 and will feature a talk by Doctor Hiroshi Motomura.
Motomura, a law professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, will present a lecture titled “Migrants, Refugees and Citizens: Some Hard Questions for Immigration Policy.” Among other things, Motomura has spent his career studying immigration law and citizenship law, and these topics will be the focus of his talk.
Motomura’s extensive scholarship on immigration has earned him a widespread and prestigious reputation in the field. He teaches at UCLA law and is a nationally recognized authority on the legal issues surrounding immigration and citizenship.
Immigration and Citizenship: Process and Policy, a book he co-authored, is frequently used for teaching purposes today. Additionally, Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States, published in 2006, won the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award (PROSE). His 2006 book was also added to the U.S. Department of State’s suggested reading list for foreign service officers.
Immigration Outside the Law, his most recent publication, also won the PROSE award from the Association of American Publishers, and it was also chosen as an outstanding academic title by the Association of College and Research Libraries.
Both Immigration Outside the Law and Americans in Waiting investigate questions of what it means to be in a country unlawfully, and whether those that are in a country unlawfully are in a sense citizens in waiting.
Immigration Outside the Law focuses on the Supreme Court case Plyler v. Doe (1982), in which the Supreme Court overturned a Texas court’s decision to deny public schooling to children who were in the country unlawfully.
According to Motomura, this decision raised questions that are still essential to our national conversation about immigration, including what the role of state and local governments is and should be in dealing with unlawful immigration and what it means to be in a country unlawfully.
Motomura’s experience with law extends beyond the classroom. According to Motomura’s biography on UCLA’s website, he “has testified in the U.S. Congress, has served as co-counsel or a volunteer consultant in many litigated cases and policy matters, and has been a member of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration.” Motomura co-founded and directs an immigration institute, and is currently the vice chair of the Board of Directors for the National Immigration Law Center. He also served as an adviser in the Obama administration’s working group on immigration policy.
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Bell Distinguished Lectureship in Law fund and The College of Wooster Pre-Law Advising Program. Endowed in 1999 by Jennie M. Bell and Samuel H. Bell, the Bell lectureship seeks to engage people in a legal issue that has far-reaching consequences for society.
The talk will be held on April 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the Gault Recital Hall of Scheide Music Center, and will be preceded by a dessert reception. For additional information, contact Patrice Reeder, the administrative coordinator for the event, at PReeder@wooster.edu.