St. Louis Asylum Attorney Jim Hacking Spoke At Webster University Conference on Refugee & Migrant Rights

I was honored to speak today at Webster University's Annual Human Rights Conference.  The focus of this year's Conference was the rights of refugees and migrants.  Speakers included Larry Yungk, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Anna Crosslin of the International Institute of St. Louis, Bill Frelick from Human Rights Watch, Alison Mountz of Wilfrid Laurier University and Ivan Gayton from Doctors Without Borders.

I was asked to provide an overview of the state of immigration law in 2012.  I enjoyed speaking at the conference and was certainly happy to participate.  I spoke of my belief that immigration is the civil rights issue of our time.  I talked about the way that so much of what goes on at USCIS depends upon which officer is involved in the particular case and that in many ways the decisions made by USCIS adjudicators is extremely arbitrary.  I enjoyed the dialogue with the participants and I even got to chat with Mr. Yungk, which I greatly enjoyed.