Musings on Immigration

For many years now it has become routine to register to vote while applying for a driver’s license. However, to a non-U.S. citizen, this routine act can derail any future immigration benefits. Simply registering to vote can be considered a claim of U.S. citizenship. Current immigration law severely penalizes anyone who claims to be a U.S. citizen by making them permanently inadmissible without possibility of a waiver, meaning there is no way to have that claim forgiven. Because voting participation continues to drop in some parts of the country, states are getting creative in encouraging its residents to vote. As a result, in the last few days, California passed a law that seeks to encourage more participation in elections by automatically registering everyone who obtains or renews a driver’s license. At this point we do not fully understand what the California law will mean for non-U.S. citizens who apply for a California driver license. Supposedly there will be protectio...

Like the proverbial Whack-A-Mole game of our youthful carnival weekends, the anti-immigration crowd once again trumpets this unicorn as a solution to America’s undocumented immigration problem. Most recently Louisiana Senator David Vitter (he of prostitute fame ) seeks to eliminate what some call “birthright” citizenship.  I have blogged on this before, because this issue pops up each year, usually with a politician facing a primary, as a way to gin up support from the margins of the GOP. "Birthright citizenship" is a derogatory way of saying the following: If you are born in the United States, you are a citizen by right of birth in the United States. This was not always the case in America, at least as it applied to African Americans or Native Americans. It took the Civil War, and the 14th Amendment, to ensure that anyone born in the United States “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is a United States Citizen. Since at least 1994, when Congressman Bob Stump...

President Obama, in his recent Executive Action on Immigration, made the naturalization of the more than 8 million legal permanent residents in the United States a priority. The President is currently promoting naturalization, possibly letting applicants pay with a credit card, and may consider a fee waiver. The time to naturalize is now. Legal permanent residents, also known as residents or green card holders, may apply to naturalize, or become a citizen after 5 years of being a permanent resident (or 3 years if received got your green card through a U.S. citizen spouse). You can file your application 90 days before your 5 (or 3) years are complete. You should begin this process as soon as you are eligible, and here's why: 1. Immigration authorities can almost never deport you once you are a citizen. Once you become a citizen of the United States, immigration authorities cannot deport you under any circumstances unless they denaturalize you. Immigration can only denatur...