César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández will present the Hiram H. Lesar Distinguished Lecture. (Photo provided)
January 05, 2026
Immigration law, policy scholar to present SIU Simmons Law School Lesar Lecture
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Immigration law and policy scholar César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández will discuss federal courts and President Donald Trump’s immigration policies when he presents the Hiram H. Lesar Distinguished Lecture on Wednesday, Jan. 14, at Southern Illinois University’s Simmons Law School.
Garcia Hernández’s free, public presentation, “Immigration Law in Turbulent Times,” is at 6 p.m. in the Lesar Law Building Room 102. This is the 28th lecture in the series established to honor founding Dean Hiram H. Lesar. A reception starts the festivities at 5 p.m. in the law school’s formal lounge.
Hannah Brenner Johnson, SIU Simmons Law School dean and the Hiram H. Lesar professor of law, said Garcia Hernández “embodies many of the concerns and values regarding civil rights held by Dean Lesar. His lecture is exceedingly timely, and we could not be more pleased to welcome him to the law school to give a public lecture and meet with our students.”
Media availability
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández will be available for interviews before the lecture, starting at 5 p.m. in the law school’s administrative suite conference room, Room 0131. To arrange for interviews, contact Payton Van Hoy, marketing associate, SIU Simmons Law School, at payton.vanhoy@siu.edu or 618-453-8263.
Garcia Hernández said he will cover the role of federal courts “in mediating many of the highly contentious immigration policies that the Trump administration has launched since January 2025.” He will devote special attention to the U.S. Supreme Court and expects to address cases involving the Fourth Amendment and birthright citizenship.
“As political parties have become more entrenched and ever more elections are reliably won by the same party, the role of the courts in settling pressing policy differences has heightened,” Garcia Hernández said.
Gracia Hernández is the Greogry Williams chair in civil rights and civil liberties at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law and director of the school’s Latinx studies program. He is the author of three books on immigration, including “Crimmination Law,” the nation’s first academic book on criminal law’s impact on immigration law in the United States. His scholarly articles earned him a position among the 10 most-cited immigration law scholars in the nation.
Garcia Hernández has published opinion articles in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Time and many others, and he has appeared on national TV programs including “Morning Joe” on MS NOW and “Democracy Now!” He also publishes the Immigration Law Unhinged newsletter and writes the Immigration Matters column for SCOTUSblog.
Cindy Buys, Simmons Law School professor and immigration law expert, said Garcia Hernández is widely known for his work on the increasing criminalization of immigration law.
“Historically, most immigration law violations were civil law violations, not criminal,” Buys said. “Immigration proceedings are still civil in nature, meaning that noncitizens do not receive the benefits of constitutional criminal rights such as a right to counsel if they cannot afford one, the right against self-incrimination and the right to a speedy trial. Yet the consequences of these immigration proceedings are quite severe and life changing.”
Buys hopes that the audience will have a “better understanding of how the current administration’s immigration policies and enforcement actions actually work in practice and whether they are lawful.”
(Editor’s note: César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández is pronounced SES-ar kwow-TEH-muck gar-SEE-uh er-NAHN-dez.)