[Pages 755-770]
AMERICA'S SCHIZOPHRENIC IMMIGRATION POLICY: RACE, CLASS, AND REASON
Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.*

Abstract: The historical purpose of American immigration policy was to provide a haven for those fleeing persecution and those seeking prosperity, as well as to satisfy workforce and frontier-expansion needs. However, a survey of U.S. immigration policy reveals that this historical purpose has been distorted and abandoned, if in fact it ever represented our nation’s goal. This essay evaluates and critiques the effect that race and politics have had on immigration policy and enforcement, and on the public opinion that shapes our immigration priorities. This essay specifically questions whether immigration laws are equitably applied, without regard to the race or ethnicity of the immigrant.

[Pages 771-788]
DEPORTATION AND JUSTICE: A CONSTITUTIONAL DIALOGUE
Daniel Kanstroom*

Abstract: Recent statutory changes to United States immigration law have resulted in a large increase in the number of lawful permanent resident noncitizens who are deported because of prior criminal conduct. Now, deportation is often a virtually automatic consequence of conviction for an increasingly minor array of crimes including possessory drug offenses and shoplifting. Under current statutory law, permanent resident noncitizens may be deported for crimes that were not grounds for deportation when they were committed and there may be no possibility of mercy or humanitarian relief. This Dialogue explores arguments for and against this system. Specifically, it examines the idea, rooted in history, that deportation is an unconstitutional punishment for criminal offenses.

[Pages 789-846]
PUBLIC LAWYERS, PRIVATE VALUES: CAN, SHOULD, AND WILL GOVERNMENT LAWYERS SERVE THE PUBLIC INTEREST?
Steven K. Berenson*

Abstract:  There is a widely shared perception among lawyers, judges, and various public officials that government lawyers have greater responsibilities to serve the public interest than lawyers in private practice. This perception is reflected in judicial opinions, lawyer professional responsibility standards, and numerous other legal writings. Nonetheless, a number of academic critics have attacked what is described here as the “public interest serving” role for government attorneys. This Article provides a defense of the public interest serving role against its critics. While the critiques addressed are diverse, they often make the mistake of importing values from the context of private litigation into the quintessentially public context of government litigation. The Article concludes by offering three examples of the most common forms of government litigation—criminal prosecutions, lawsuits against executive branch agencies, and civil enforcement proceedings—in an effort to demonstrate how the public interest serving role ought to be pursued.

[Pages 847-882]
ELECTRONIC BILLBOARDS ALONG THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY: LIABILITY UNDER THE LANHAM ACT FOR USING TRADEMARKS TO KEY INTERNET BANNER ADS
Christine D. Galbraith*

Abstract: With almost one billion web pages on the Internet today, a search engine is a necessity at times. But search engines are also for-profit ventures and the financial success of these sites hinges on advertising revenue. One of the ways in which these sites generate income is by selling “keywords” to advertisers. Although there has been only one judicial decision—Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Netscape Commun-ications—involving banner ads keyed to trademarks, it will undoubtedly not be the last. This Article argues that despite the invisible nature of this unauthorized trademark use, the common practice of keying a banner ad to another’s trademark is a potential violation of the Lanham Act, giving rise to claims for trademark infringement, false designation of origin and trademark dilution.

[Pages 883-912]
THE FORGOTTEN CHILDREN: SAME-SEX PARTNERS, THEIR CHILDREN AND UNEQUAL TREATMENT
Debra Carrasquillo Hedges

Abstract: Many of today’s family relationships no longer fit within the traditional one-mother, one-father model. Families created by gay and lesbian couples are on the increase and the issues relating to the legal protections of these families remain uncertain. Many state courts and legislatures have refused to legally recognize, through second-parent adoptions, the relationship of children born to a homosexual couple with their non-biological second parent. The refusal to permit second-parent adoptions denies the children of homosexual couples, as a class, many of the legal benefits and protections afforded to children of heterosexual couples. This Note argues that such classifications of children born to same-sex couples punish children for the actions of their parents and thus results in unfair treatment violative of the Equal Protection Clause.

[Pages 913-948]
THE COMMERCE CLAUSE AND CRIMINAL LAW
Brandon L. Bigelow

Abstract: The ongoing expansion of federal criminal law undermines the historical decentralization of criminal law in this country by usurping state authority in that area. While some protection of federalism is necessitated by the Supreme Court’s commerce power jurisprudence, the economic/non-economic distinction enunciated in United States v. Lopez is an unworkable return to past efforts to find internal limits to the Commerce Clause. Instead, a return to the test of National League of Cities v. Usery—viewing the Tenth Amendment as an external limit on the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause authority—is the best means of protecting the authority of the states to make and enforce criminal law.

[Pages 949-973]
THE HOBBS ACT AFTER LOPEZ
Michael McGrail

Abstract:  In 1995, in United States v. Lopez, the Supreme Court for the first time in five decades struck down a statute enacted by Congress under the Commerce Clause. In holding the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 unconstitutional, the Court established that Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause is subject to outer limits, and that the Supreme Court will strike down federal statutes that obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local. This Note reviews the Court’s holding in Lopez, and argues in favor of the adoption of a two-step approach as the proper judicial inquiry regarding jurisdictional challenges to the Hobbs Act. The adoption of this two-step approach will ensure a return to the limited application of the Hobbs Act intended by Congress and will preserve our government’s first principle—that the federal government is one of limited, enumerated powers.