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<\/a>The U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s deadlock Thursday on President Obama\u2019s immigration policy was an unpleasant reminder of just how hideous the federal government can be.<\/p>\n<\/a>The U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s deadlock Thursday on President Obama\u2019s immigration policy was an unpleasant reminder of just how hideous the federal government can be.<\/p>\n
The court\u2019s breakdown left intact a federal appeals court injunction blocking enforcement of Obama\u2019s policy. And it left in limbo the lives of millions of people who may have been brought here illegally but have never known any other home than America.<\/p>\n
The ruling brought back nasty memories of a series of columns I wrote at the Billings Outpost about people in Montana who faced deportation because they weren\u2019t here legally. I don\u2019t remember all of the details, and the columns are not available on line, but one of the cases involved Laurent Zirotti<\/a>, the first chef at Enzo\u2019s restaurant on Billings\u2019 West End.<\/p>\n He was from France and had been specifically recruited from the French Riviera to get the upscale restaurant off the ground. The restaurant\u2019s founders tried hard to jump through all the hoops, including getting free legal assistance and a letter of support from then-U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. Yet the chef still had to fight immigration authorities for years.<\/p>\n The most personally compelling case I examined was that of Wolfgang von Eitzen, a native German who had a business in Billings and had an American wife and child. The case took far too many twists and turns to recount here, even if I could remember them, but von Eitzen\u2019s wife retyped one of my stories<\/a>. The upshot was that he was deported back to Hamburg and was unable to return to Montana, even when his American wife was dying.<\/p>\n Von Eitzen got on a lot of people\u2019s nerves. He unblushingly pushed his right-wing views. Sometimes, I thought, he was his own worst enemy in his fight with authorities.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/div><\/div>But as I covered his troubles over the years, we sort of became friends. I spent hours reading his legal documents. My wife and I had dinner with him and his wife. One Christmas, he gave us a video of German carols.<\/p>\n