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Monday, September 26, 2005
U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act (8USC) Online Edition Updated
The online, hyperlinked, and searchable edition of the United States Immigration and Nationality Act (Title 8 of the U.S. Code) has been updated to correspond to the January 19th, 2004 Supplement III to the 2000 edition of the printed U.S. Code. I prepared the original online edition in 1994 when, in the midst of a research project, I found it very useful to be able to click on cross-references to display the citation. The Immigration and Nationality Act didn't change much in the 1990s, but due to the massive anti-terrorism legislation of recent years, it has now ballooned to 150% of its 1994 size and become so complicated that some sections almost defy human comprehension. Section 1154 contains a provision which is cited as (a)(1)(B)(ii)(II)(aa)(CC)(bbb)--that's right, eight levels of hierarchy! Other sections bring to mind the curious events at Roswell. The absurdity of all this legalistic fine-tuning in a country where on the order of ten million illegal immigrants reside is quite remarkable. The updated edition is now XHTML 1.0 compliant and uses a style sheet to improve the appearance of the multitudinous cross-links. The full text search facility works as before, and is now also XHTML 1.0 compatible.Posted at
17:55
