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13 Roger Williams U. L. Rev. 530 (2008)
Undocumented Immigrants and Their Personal Injury Actions: Keeping Immigration Policy Out of Lost Wage Awards and Enforcing the Compensatory and Deterrent Functions of Tort Law

handle is hein.journals/rwulr13 and id is 541 raw text is: Undocumented Immigrants and Their
Personal Injury Actions: Keeping
Immigration Policy Out of Lost Wage
Awards and Enforcing the
Compensatory and Deterrent
Functions of Tort Law
Immigration is by definition a gesture of faith in social
mobility. It is the expression in action of a positive belief in the
possibility of a better life. It has thus contributed greatly to
developing the spirit of personal betterment in American society
and to strengthening the national confidence in change and the
future. Such confidence, when widely shared, sets the national
tone. The opportunities that America offered made the dream real,
at least for a good many; but that dream itself was in large part the
product of millions of plain people beginning a new life in the
conviction that life could indeed be better, and each new wave of
immigration rekindled the dream.
John F. Kennedy1
I. INTRODUCTION
Today approximately 10.5 million undocumented immigrants2
1. JOHN F. KENNEDY, A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS 67-68 (1964).
2. For the purposes of this article, the population of immigrants who do
not have documentation to reside legally in the United States will be referred
to as undocumented immigrants. Besides the negative social implications
associated with the term, referring to a portion of the population as illegal
can be equated with assuming one is guilty until proven innocent. See
STEPHEN H. LEGOMSKY, IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE LAW AND POLICY 1192 (4th
ed. 2002). When such dangerous assumptions are made, they negate the
viability of immigration laws because just as in other areas of the law, people
who must navigate through immigration proceedings may have valid legal
claims which afford them remedies under the law. See id. Furthermore, the
term alien even when used alone, carries its own negative implications. Id.

530

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