Debating immigration

Immigration is obviously an incredibly complex issue, but we should not be too surprised at the amount of disinformation and lack of understanding. In fact, even our judges sometimes have no idea what they're talking about. From the NYT, reporting about a judge in Connecticut:

Judge John R. Downey of State Superior Court, Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s nominee for the State Appellate Court, withdrew his name from consideration on Wednesday after court transcripts showed that he had mistakenly claimed that only legal residents could use the court system.
...

In 2002, he told a lawyer during a divorce matter involving an immigrant couple that “only people legally allowed in the United States can make use of our court system.”

Yep, even judges may believe that if you are not in the country legally, then you have no legal rights.

His nomination was withdrawn, also in part because a few years ago he talked about what a great guy Strom Thurmond was.