Hiroshi Motomura, the Susan Westerberg Prager Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, has published a new book, “Immigration Outside the Law” (Oxford University Press, 2014). A companion volume to Motomura's award-winning “Americans In Waiting,” the book addresses the issue of unauthorized or undocumented immigration to the United States and offers a framework for understanding why debates on immigration are so contentious.
Motomura's new book analyzes three questions that have emerged as central to the national conversation about unauthorized migration: What does it mean to be in the country unlawfully? What is the role of state and local governments in dealing with unauthorized migration? And are unauthorized migrants “Americans in waiting"? Addressing these questions and explaining how they are interwoven, his book examines the history of unauthorized migration, analyzes the sources of current disagreements, and offers durable and politically viable solutions.
Motomura is an influential scholar and teacher of immigration and citizenship law. In addition to “Americans in Waiting” and “Immigration Outside the Law,” he has published many significant articles and essays on immigration and citizenship and has co-authored two immigration-related casebooks. Prior to joining the UCLA Law faculty in 2007, he was the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and, before that, the Nicholas Doman Professor of International Law at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where in 1997 he was named President’s Teaching Scholar, the highest teaching distinction at that institution.
He has won several other teaching awards, including the Chris K. Iijima Teacher and Mentor Award by the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty and the Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He was one of 26 law professors in the United States profiled in the book, “What the Best Law Teachers Do” (Harvard University Press, 2013), and he received UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award this year.