Articles Posted in Comprehensive Immigration Reform

A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of Alabama’s new law cracking down on illegal immigration, ruling Monday that she needed more time to decide whether the law opposed by the Obama administration, church leaders and immigrant-rights groups is constitutional.

The brief order by U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Blackburn means the law — which opponents and supporters alike have called the toughest in the nation — won’t take effect as scheduled on Thursday. The ruling was cheered both by Republican leaders who were pleased the judge didn’t gut the law and by opponents who compare it to old Jim Crow-era statutes against racial integration.

Blackburn didn’t address whether the law is constitutional, and she could still let all or parts of the law take effect later. Instead, she said she needed more time to consider lawsuits filed by the Justice Department, private groups and individuals that claim the state is overstepping its bounds.

The Obama Administration’s Immigration announcement is not an Amnesty program. The consumer advisory from AILA put out a warning stating that:

Do not believe anyone who tells you they can sign you up for a work permit (Employment Authorization Document or “EAD”) or get you legal status based on the Secretary Nepolitano’s August 18, 2011 announcement. Anyone who says that is not to be trusted. There is no “safe” way to turn yourself in to immigration and there is no guarantee that your case will be considered “low priority.” any person who comes into contact with immigration authorities may be arrested, detained or even removed. Only a qualified immigration lawyer can evaluate your case and tell your about your rights. Do not seek legal advice from a notario or immigration consultant.

The Obama Administration announcement is not an amnesty, it is not about granting legal status, and it is not something that you can sign-up for. The Obama Administration made very clear that the announcements do not provide any way to “apply” for a work permit or “EAD” nor is there a new way to apply to remain in the United States. The change announced is not about giving people work permits or legal status. The announcement applies ONLY to cases already in the system, ensuring that low priority cases do not continue to clog up an already overburdened immigration court system.

In the wake of protests on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) prosecutorial discretion for removal cases, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced a new process for implementation of the June 17, 2011, prosecutorial discretion memorandum. The letter included a background two-pager.

From the background two- pager – “the new interagency process is designed to ensure that resources are focused on the Administration’s highest enforcement priorities. As part of this process, an interagency team of DHS and Department of Justice (DOJ) officers and attorneys, including representatives from throughout DHS and from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) and the Office of Immigration Litigation at DOJ, will identify low-priority removal cases that should be considered for an exercise of discretion. This review will be conducted on a case-by-case basis and will consider cases that are at the various stages of enforcement proceedings, including charging, hearing, and after a final order of removal. The interagency working group will also issue guidance to prevent low priority cases from entering the system on a case-by-case basis. Resources that are saved as a result of this process will be used to accelerate the removal of high priority cases.”
The guidance from DHS is a good indication that the protests and the voice of the people is being heard. At a time when immigration enforcement has been highlighted by a wave of states enacting their own laws, DHS is showing that it is using its prosecutorial discretion to handle cases that warrant removal, including high profile cases involving convicted felons who are a threat to public safety. Although the letter stresses that it cannot make any categorical distinction for removal cases, such as those who might fall under the DREAM Act if it were passed, the director of DHS strongly believes in the Act and will continue to make efforts involving Congress to get it passed, including testifying before Congress. So even though DHS leadership stresses a need to enforce immigration laws, there is a feeling that reform is necessary so that our resources are being put in the right direction.

A program that is central to President Obama’s immigration enforcement strategy has drawn protests by Latino and immigrant organizations in six cities in the last two days, as those groups stepped up their confrontation with the administration over the fast pace of deportations.

In Los Angeles, about 200 immigrants and their supporters walked out of a stormy hearing Monday evening that was called by a task force advising the enforcement program, known as Secure Communities. Bearing signs that said “Stop Ripping Families Apart,” the protesters called for an end to the program, which they said had led to the deportation of victims who reported domestic violence to the police, and to parents of American citizen children.

On Tuesday in Chicago, several dozen protesters delivered thousands of petitions calling for an end to the program to the headquarters of Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. Petitions were also delivered by small groups of protesters to Democratic Party offices in Miami, Atlanta, Houston and Charlotte, N.C.

About two dozen prominent immigrant advocacy organizations issued a report denouncing the program and calling on the administration to halt it.

Organizers said the protests were a response to an announcement on Aug. 5 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that runs Secure Communities, that the program would continue to expand to meet its declared goal of covering the whole country by 2013. Clarifying doubts about whether states and cities could choose whether to participate, John Morton, the agency’s director, said that agreements with state and local officials were not required for the agency to proceed.

President Obama has made no headway in a divided Congress toward an immigration overhaul that would give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. At the same time, in each of the last two years immigration authorities have deported nearly 400,000 people.

Under Secure Communities, fingerprints of anyone booked into jail by the state and local police are sent to the F.B.I. for criminal checks — long a routine practice — and also to the Department of Homeland Security, which records immigration violations. Immigration agents decide whether to detain noncitizens signaled by fingerprint matches.

The ferment on Tuesday exposed vastly differing views of the program between immigrant advocates and Obama administration officials. In an interview, Mr. Morton said the program was working effectively to carry out his agency’s focus on deporting immigrants convicted of serious crimes.

“It’s the law, and we think it is very good policy, to focus our resources on people who are here unlawfully and also committing crimes,” Mr. Morton said.

He said agency figures showed that about 90 percent of those deported under Secure Communities since it was started in 2008 were either convicted criminals or foreigners who had failed to obey a court order to leave the country or who had returned to the United States illegally after deportation.

Immigration officials pointed to the arrest in January in Los Angeles of a Mexican man on charges of driving with a suspended license. After a Secure Communities match, the police learned that he had been convicted of drug trafficking and burglary and deported six times. Another Mexican arrested in Los Angeles was found to have been convicted in the killing of a child in 1997.

Mr. Morton said he had created the advisory task force, which went to work in June, to recommend fixes that would lower the numbers of deportations of illegal immigrants who did not have criminal convictions.

Also on Tuesday, the American Immigration Lawyers Association published a report that cast light on how Secure Communities and other enforcement programs have stirred tensions in immigrant communities. The association, which includes 11,000 immigration lawyers, polled its members to see how many were handling cases of immigrants facing deportation after being stopped by local police officers for minor offenses, like traffic violations.

Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the lawyers’ association, said his office was deluged with responses.

“Department of Homeland Security practices have ushered in a sea change in who is being deported, and our attorneys have literally been flooded with people coming in to their offices who have been picked up by local police for small time stuff,” Mr. Chen said. The report, which presents a sample of 127 cases from 24 states, was the “the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

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There is bipartisan interest in Congress in reforming high-skill immigration. New legislation is on its way, and here’s what to watch for. What bills have been introduced or are coming?
In the House, the most important Democratic initiative is from Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), whose district includes Silicon Valley. Her bill would make green cards available to students who earn advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — the so-called STEM fields. However, it isn’t expected to go anywhere.

The person to watch instead is Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who heads the House Judiciary Committee. Smith appears interested in some limited immigration changes expected in a bill from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). Chaffetz’s bill, which is due “soon,” is expected to call for elimination of the per-country limits on employment-based visas — as green cards are officially called.

The U.S. has a cap of 140,000 employment-based visas a year. Spouses and children of the workers are counted against that cap. The U.S. limits the number of green cards per country to no more than 7% of the total available visas. In India, where there is a big demand for green cards, the wait for one can be as long as 10 years. This is significant in terms of the availability of green cards to immigrants across the board.

If the per-country cap were eliminated, green card applicants who have been waiting the longest might see their expected waiting times reduced. But applicants from countries with relatively short wait times might find themselves waiting longer. Tech companies might support elimination of the per-country cap, since that would likely increase the availability of workers from China and India. Employers will take what they can get, but they might be hoping for something better out of the Senate.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who heads the Senate subcommittee on immigration, said this week that he intends to introduce legislation that, similar to Lofgren’s bill, will “staple” green cards to the diplomas of people who earn degrees in STEM fields. He is also promising reform of the H-1B visa process in his bill.

Overall outlook: If Schumer follows through and the House Judiciary Committee also produces legislation, a limited, targeted immigration reform bill could emerge. Both parties have strong reasons to please the tech industry.

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Citing the Defense of Marriage Act, the Obama administration denied immigration benefits to a married gay couple from San Francisco and ordered the expulsion of a man who is the primary caregiver to his AIDS-afflicted spouse.

Bradford Wells, a U.S. citizen, and Anthony John Makk, a citizen of Australia, were married seven years ago in Massachusetts. They have lived together 19 years, mostly in an apartment in the Castro district. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied Makk’s application to be considered for permanent residency as a spouse of an American citizen, citing the 1996 law that denies all federal benefits to same-sex couples.

The decision was issued July 26. Immigration Equality, a gay-rights group that is working with the couple, received the notice Friday and made it public Monday. Makk was ordered to depart the United States by Aug. 25. Makk is the sole caregiver for Wells, who has severe health problems.

“I’m married just like any other married person in this country,” Wells said. “At this point, the government can come in and take my husband and deport him. It’s infuriating. It’s upsetting. I have no power, no right to keep my husband in this country. I love this country, I live here, I pay taxes and I have no right to share my home with the person I married.”
Husband’s pleas
Wells pleaded with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and President Obama to intervene.

“Anyone can identify with the horror of having the government come in and destroy your family when you’ve done nothing wrong, and you’ve done everything right, followed every law,” Wells said.

The agency’s decision cited the Defense of Marriage Act as the reason for the denial of an I-130 visa, or spousal petition that could allow Makk to apply for permanent U.S. residency. “The claimed relationship between the petitioner and the beneficiary is not a petitionable relationship,” the decision said. “For a relationship to qualify as a marriage for purposes of federal law, one partner must be a man and the other a woman.”

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Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed two immigration bills before members left for their summer recess.

The first bill, H.R. 398, was sponsored by House Immigration Subcommittee Ranking Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and would amend the law that stipulates a 90-day period during which time an alien and petitioning spouse must file a petition and complete an interview to remove the alien’s conditional legal permanent resident status. Under the new legislation, the period of time would be placed on hold while either partner is a member of the U.S. military serving abroad, in order to extend the deadline.

The second bill, H.R. 1933, was sponsored by House Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) and would reinstate an expired program that admits nonimmigrant nurses in shortage areas for health professions. The new proposal would allow the government to issue 300 visas per year to eligible foreign nurses. The visas would be valid for three years and would be renewable for an additional three-year period. Now let us see what the Senate will do with respect to the above referenced bills.

State lawmakers considered a record number of immigration-related bills this year, highlighting their continued frustration with federal government inaction on immigration laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

A total of 1,592 bills were introduced in all 50 states and Puerto Rico in the 2011 legislative session that ended June 30, a report by the bipartisan research organization found.

Legislators in 40 states enacted 151 of the bills, which mainly addressed law enforcement, identification and employment issues, said Ann Morse, program director of the conference’s immigrant policy project. An additional five laws were vetoed by governors.

The California DREAM Act is now law after Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 130 on Monday afternoon, but undocumented immigrant students’ say their fight for financial aid access is far from over in the state. The most important portion of the California DREAM Act has yet to pass, activists say.

Starting January 1 of 2012, undocumented immigrant college students will be eligible for privately funded non-state scholarships that they previously did not have access to at California community colleges, state colleges and public universities. The bill breezed through the Senate two weeks ago. AB 130 will cost taxpayers nothing, and so was widely seen as an easier political sell. Still, its passage is being hailed as a victory for immigrant communities. The California DREAM Act had been continually approved by the state legislature but was vetoed three times by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You can access more information on the bill here.

Discussions about immigration reform has often focused on the issue of “undocumented” or “illegal” aliens and national security. But fixing our broken immigration system is about more than the determining the fate of approximately ten million people currently living and working and studying in the United States without papers. In the words of President Clinton, “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” Immigration reform would allow us to create a legal framework for who we want to have remain in our country, who we want to exclude, and to do so in a way that reflects our values and our interests. Most important to Americans right now is that reform would benefit the bottom line. Reform would raise wages, decrease unemployment, and increase tax revenues. Who wouldn’t want that?

Currently, our immigration system hurts our nation’s economy. We want to invite and encourage investment in our economy, attract the best, the brightest and most talented people in our businesses, and to create a fair and level playing field for our workers. Our immigration system falls short of each of these goals.

Our current policies directly hurt American businesses. Congress limits the number of highly-skilled and college-educated workers allowed into the United States from other countries. When the economy was booming in 2007 and 2008, the visas for the entire year were gone in less than one day. Even in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, our country still ran out of visas with eight months left before a new foreign worker could start.