On Feb. 5, 2026, former University of Denver law professor César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández returned to campus to deliver a lecture and Q&A on immigration law.
Hernández, currently a professor of law at The Ohio State University, is a prominent figure in the research and discussion of immigration law. Having authored three books and numerous articles on the subject, his vigorous body of work has resulted in him being one of the most cited immigration law scholars in the United States.
“Immigration law’s most fundamental feature is that it helps to define the political community,” said Hernández near the beginning of his talk. Defining the political community determines who gets a voice in deciding what happens in government, such as who has the right to vote.
In the United States, the political community has not always been defined the way it is today.
Hernández detailed several examples of when immigration law excluded people from the political community.
In the 1884 case of Elk v. Wilkins, the Supreme Court ruled that Native Americans were not considered United States citizens. This ruling excluded Native Americans from birthright citizenship promised in the Fourteenth Amendment until the Indian Citizenship Act was passed in 1924.
The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese immigrants from entering the United States. Further, Chinese immigrants already residing in the United States were prevented from becoming citizens.
In 1895, this act would cause a man born in the United States to Chinese parents to be denied reentry into the country after a trip abroad. Three years later, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of this man in the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
This landmark decision helped define the birthright citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirming that children born in the United States to non-citizen parents are granted citizenship.
Hernández stressed the importance of the Fourteenth Amendment. Rulings such as the Wong Kim Ark case have dismantled many barriers that once excluded people from the political community based on race.
Despite victories like these, the purpose of Hernández’s lecture was not a celebration, rather a warning against the threat of immigration law once again turning toward exclusion.
In September 2025, the Supreme Court issued a decision regarding the case of Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo. Their decision permitted federal immigration officers to rely on factors such as perceived racial identity and speaking Spanish as a part of the reasonable suspicion required to stop and question individuals suspected of violating immigration policy.
The United States has a large population of Spanish speakers and people of Latino descent, and the Supreme Court’s decision could have far-reaching effects on those communities.
Hernández recounted a recent time when he spoke Spanish with a colleague at a coffee shop.
“Would [an immigration enforcement agent] have heard my conversation, not in English, and decide that it must be because I cannot speak English?” he asked.
Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor issued a dissenting opinion on this decision, writing, “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”
This year, the Supreme Court will hear arguments for the Trump v. Barbara case that could redefine the way birthright citizenship has been interpreted since the case of Wong Kim Ark.
The case arose as a challenge to Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025 executive order (No. 14,160), “which declared that individuals born in the United States are not U.S. citizens at birth if their parents lack sufficient legal status.”
Hernández said changing the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment now would call into question the citizenship of families who have been Americans for generations.
Among these implications is the status of dual citizens, who could see their United States citizenship illegitimized.
“Dual citizens, keep your passports at the ready,” Hernández warned, “they are coming after you.”
These recent cases bring light to the “Turbulent Times” mentioned in the lecture’s title.
Right now, the decisions being made around immigration law may shape the future of the political community as we know it.
“I do not have a hopeful ending,” Hernández concluded, “except to say that the only option I see for escaping further chaos is through conversations like this one.”
