Musings on Immigration

Today, New York Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, turning his attention rather momentarily away from Wall Street, issued more than 50 subpoenas to individuals and businesses in New York City, as part of a widening investigation into immigration fraud by unauthorized practitioners and businesses, including “non-profit” businesses. The New York Times reported today some details of the investigation and provides some short glimpses into the hardships caused by these predators. To Attorney General Cuomo I say thank for doing what Attorney Generals around the United States (and, heck, the Attorney General OF the United States), should have been doing for years. Its about time that the law enforcement authorities took seriously the damage these predators cause on one of the most vulnerable sectors of our society–new immigrants. Even that bastion of the letter of the law following government agency–the USCIS, does not actively investigate and prosecute the very people violating its own regula...

Is it possible? Is there really link between President Obama’s bold nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, with possible movement or non-movement on Immigration Reform this fall? The folks over at http://www.electoral-vote.com/ note that there may be a link: “A side effect of the Sotomayor nomination is that it may allow Obama to delay dealing with immigration reform for a while since Latino voters will be feeling good about him for a while just due to this nomination. On the other hand, if Obama (or more realistically, Rahm Emanuel) wants to enjoy the spectacle of the GOP tearing itself to bits, reintroducing the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill would be a good first start. The Tancredo wing the the Republican party will go all out to block it because it provides a path to citizenship for over 10 million illegals currently in the U.S. But an all out fight against these people–many of whom have friends and relatives who are citizens (and voters) will further alienate Latinos from the Rep...

Many of you may have seen a 60 Minutes report on what is being called the Widow Penalty. The following gives some background into the immigration process and how the widow penalty comes into play. When a U.S. citizen marries a non-citizen, the citizen is able to file a petition for that non-citizen to receive “immediate relative” status and be processed for permanent resident (green card) status. The immigration process always takes many months to complete. First, the couple files the necessary paperwork, and then waits patiently for the government to process the application. Generally during the processing the non-citizen spouse will receive work authorization and travel permission. Then, if an applicant is given resident status prior to the second wedding anniversary, the permanent resident status is called “conditional” and referred to as “Conditional Permanent Resident” (CPR) status. This status is generally the same as permanent resident status, with the condition that the couple ...

According to recent reports, the Obama administration is expanding a program that was initiated by President Bush designed to check the immigration status of virtually any person booked into local jails. This crackdown on illegal immigrants who commit criminal offenses illustrates Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano’s commitment to focus enforcement measures on immigrants who commit criminal offenses, as opposed to those who are merely here in the United States illegally, but are otherwise abiding by the laws of this country. My three cents…First, the program will unfortunately lead to immigration detention of foreign nationals who commit such grave offenses (said in a sarcastic tone) as speeding or driving without a license. Once arrested on these minor offenses, the local jail will necessarily perform a background check and determine that the person may not have status and then pass along the information to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and place the person in removal...

It seems unrelenting these days. Attacks by anti-immigrationists on the two of the most useful non-immigrant visa categories, the H-1B and L-1 visas. The most recent attacks are based either on junk science or no science at all. Recently we received at the AILA National Office a letter from Professor Ray Marshall. AILA had issued a statement critical of the AFL endorsed Ray Marshall “plan” regarding immigration reform. This “plan” was highly supportive of the destructive Grassley-Durbin Anti-H-1B legislation . We were critical of this “plan” (and the Grassley-Durbin legislative proposal) because both the plan and the legislation are without merit and based on a lack of understanding of how our current employment based non-immigrant and immigration system currently works, what motivates employers to use the H-1B and L-1programs, and the tremendous historic and future benefits of these program. A key part of Mr. Marshall’s letter reads as follows: “Although we have grossly inadequate da...

After I got my undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I moved to San Diego, learned how to surf and worked with the San Diego Counsel on Literacy. While I was in San Diego I heard the executive director of the Tahirih Justice Center, Layli Miller-Muro, talk about applying for asylum based on female genital mutilation at the San Diego Baha’i Center. Now, prior to this talk I had no idea what asylum or female genital mutilation was all about. But after Layli was done talking about it I could not believe what I was hearing was actually true and that it went on in certain parts of the world. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the removal of part, or all, of the female genitalia. FGM may refer to clitoridectomy (removal of the clitoris), excision (removal of the labia minora), or infibulation (removal of the clitoris, labia minora and majora, and stitching together). The procedure is usually performed in u...

Admit it. Every now and then you veg out in front of the computer cruising the Internet. At least I do. Tonight was just such a night. But I ran into this immigration quiz . The purpose of this quiz is to point out how far we have come, or perhaps how far we have not come in our understanding of immigration. Go ahead, take the quiz!