Stories in Mexico and the United States About the Border
STORIES IN MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES ABOUT THE BORDER: THE RHETORIC AND THE REALITIES GLORIA VALENCIA-WEBER & ANTOINETTE SEDILLO LOPEZ* I. Introduction Immigration was a hot topic before the failure of the June 2007 United States (U.S.) President's Immigration Reform Bill1 and remains so today. 2 President Obama has promised to work on comprehensive immigration reform.3 This initiative will, of course, involve popular discourse and press coverage. During the time in which the 2007 Immigration Reform Bill was being considered, the media on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border published numerous * Gloria Valencia-Weber, J.D. Harvard, founding Director of the Indian Law Certificate Program and Professor of Law, University of New Mexico; Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, J.D. UCLA, Professor of Law, University of New Mexico. The authors presented an early draft of this paper at the conference, Once Upon a Legal Time: Developing the Skills of Story Telling in Law, The City Law School, Inns of Court, London, July 19, 2007. The authors also appreciate the feedback from their colleagues at the University of New Mexico at a faculty colloquium. Special thanks to Norman Bay, Sherri Thomas, Ernesto Longa, Joey Montano, J.D. UNM 2008 and Honor Keeler, J.D. UNM J.D. expected 2010. 1 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, 5. 1348, 110th Cong. (2007); see, e.g., Stephen Dinan, Immigration Bill Quashed, Senators Swayed by Pressure From Public, WASH. TIMES, June 29, 2007, availableat WL 12315089. 2 See, e.g., Julia Preston, White House Plan on Immigration Includes Legal Status, N.Y.
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