It may be different for TV, particularly cable TV, but I sincerely doubt it.

Now look, I really want to see our immigration laws enforced. But 20 years? Seems a bit harsh to me. And if you look into what counts as aggravated felony, the courts have gotten a bit too creative in that regard, covering activities that most wouldn’t consider to be violent crimes (the definition requires the crime to be either violent or drug related). Like car theft.

Anyway, so I did some research and if you go back and look into the history of that law it is clear that the real purpose of the law was to get at the drug kingpins. Basically they knew a lot of kingpins were illegal immigrants too and just as al capone was grabbed for tax evasion instead of being a gangster, they hoped United States Attorneys would grab these drug kingpins using this law. They didn’t expect it to be against some poor schmuck who got in barfight and pled guilty to assault, failing to understand that it could cause him to be thrown from the country.

But guess who they usually enforce the rule against? The drug kingpin who can afford the fancy lawyers? Or the poor immigrants who can only get the public defenders?

So that makes me pretty leery of granting too much prosecutorial discretion. And when we are talking about speech, the case law says that overbreadth is specifically a problem. the chilling effect you are reporting is a problem.

Reading bills is a catchy slogan that misses the point. Understanding the dynamics of legislation goes way beyond reading. CPSIA wonderfully will reduce lead exposure to children. Senator Murray is proud of her efforts to protect children. The problem is that incidental use of lead harms nobody. The case of the child in Minnesota smells to high heavens.

I doubt if Mrs Murray can actually understand that CPSIA has no benefit at great cost. If the legislation prohibited travel on Boeing Airplanes, her opinion might have been more rational.