lizdgal:

False.

The three examples in the article all involved people who overstayed their visas. None of them said they were unaware of the law, none of them said they were unaware that they had overstayed their visas.

They all had "reasons" to overstay their visas, obviously.

If their lawyers had told them not to worry about it, they got bad legal advice.

The NY Times conveniently left out the dates that each person's visa had expired and just how long each had overstayed. Undoubtedly because they had each overstayed a significant amount of time, and actually providing "facts" about the length of the overstays would lessen sympathy for them.

So, important facts were left out to manipulate public opinion.

It seems to work on some people. But not on everyone.