Juan Argerich

Juan Antonio Argerich (1862-1924) was an Argentine statesman and internationally renowned writer who was elected 6 times as a member of the Argentine National Congress. Among the many policies he furthered during his tenure in congress are the elimination of electoral colleges for presidential elections (in favor of popular suffrage), the inclusion of minority party candidates into popular ballots, the establishment of a national immigration policy that eliminated arbitrary decisions and provided a legal path to both naturalization and deportation within the framework of due process, improving the governmental structure within the federal capital city of Buenos Aires, broadening federal courts' jurisdictions in certain legal cases, and defining the establishment of trial by jury in criminal cases in a manner that would guarantee due process of law as well as the prorogatives of the legislative branch of government.

His best-known literary work is entitled "¿Inocentes o culpables?" (1884), a novel in which he makes his case for hard-line immigration reforms during the influx of European immigrants that took place in the latter decades of the nineteenth and early decades of the 20th century.