Editor’s Note: Mark Alvarez, a well-known Salt Lake City attorney and community leader who is living in Mexico City with his wife Lorena, shares some timely comments on the current immigration issue.

“The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Last Wednesday I gave a presentation on the U.S. immigration system to law students at the University of Cuautitlan Izcalli, 20 minutes from Mexico City. After I broadly covered U.S. policy and regulation, we had a conversation about how Mexico and the U.S. might work together to resolve the challenge of undocumented migration.

Many Mexicans, especially students, are quick to point out defects in Mexican government policy that have led to many countrymen to seek opportunity in the U.S. Excessive bureaucracy stifles innovation that could spur a more robust economy. Government does too little to ensure competition in the face of politically and economically powerful monopolies and oligopolies that restrict opportunities to the rich and well connected. State agencies work inefficiently.

Students observe that the governments of the U.S. and Mexico rarely collaborate. Perhaps this derives from an excessive emphasis on national sovereignty. Regrettably, our governments soon may be communicating across a real or virtual fence. Opportunity such as greater economic coordination for the benefit of both Mexico and the U.S. goes wanting.

Mexicans worry about how Mexican immigrants are treated in the U.S. The perception here is that Americans are anti-immigrant. I am greeted as an unusual American because I know something about Mexico and the world. I reject such a categorization and explain that Americans, like Mexicans (also Americans in my mind), often deviate from stereotypes.

Mexican students seem curious about U.S. students and what life is like in the U.S. International dialogues and conversations could benefit students in the state of Mexico and the state of Utah. Language and distance might present challenges. Interest and good intentions would not. Certainly not from south of the Rio Grande, known as “Rio Bravo” in Mexico. One river, two names, both of them Spanish.

But immigration law remains a problem.

Laws are static. This presents little difficulty in some policy areas, but in others, responsible politicians should review and adjust laws at reasonable intervals. In a dynamic society, laws that do not change with changing times fail. Immigration law illustrates this. As the U.S. government followed a welcoming immigration policy, Congress neglected to adjust laws. These laws failed to the detriment of U.S. business and society.

Working with logic from bad law creates injustice. The Salt Lake City produced documentary “Easy Targets (Los Vulnerables)” illustrates this injustice through stories and an examination of resident tuition for undocumented students at Utah public universities. While undocumented students may qualify for resident tuition in Utah, federal law prohibits them from working. The life of this federal law prohibiting employment has withered. Respect for the law requires Congress to examine the experience of high-achieving youth, to match withered law with economic and social realities and to honor dynamism in our society and in the state of law.