Musings on Immigration

Recently, the USCIS conducted a survey of more than 5,000 “stakeholders” (folks who care about and participate in the U.S. immigration system in some way). These stakeholders were asked to identify the key areas of concern for them. The USCIS has now released its initial report from this survey, identifying the areas of concern most frequently raised by stakeholders. The report is enlightening. This initial report lists the following areas of concern, in order, that USCIS will address: National Customer Service Center Nonimmigrant H-1B (specialty occupations) Naturalization Employment-Based Adjustment of Status Family-Based Adjustment of Status Employment-Based Immigrants Preference Categories 1, 2 (priority workers, professionals and holders of advanced degrees) and 3 (skilled workers and professionals) Refugee and Asylum Adjustment of Status Form I-601 (Application for Waiver of Ground of Inadmissibility) General Humanitarian Programs Employment Authorization and Travel Document...

Last Week Congress passed its first major piece of immigration legislation in several years. The Border Security Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010 ( H.R. 5875 ) Besides the fact that the bill itself is a joke–passed without debate, study or analysis as to its effectiveness, there are two major problems–Funding of the $600 Million Dollars Bill, and the “Real” purpose of the bill. First the “real” purpose of the bill–Schumer and other Democrats have barked loudly that the bill is intended to shut the mouths of border crazies who refuse to discuss any change to our nightmarish national immigration policies until America is safely tucked inside a sealed bubble, invulnerable from entry by anyway but the purest foreign national. Senator Sessions from the border state of Alabama, who can only be described as absolutely crazed on the issue of immigration, responded to this strategy : Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York was hopeful that the bill would bring Republicans b...

The Charlotte immigration court plans to implement an orientation program, run by volunteer immigration attorneys, for everyone who is in immigration court for the first time and who does not already have an attorney. This program will mirror the volunteer attorney programs in the San Francisco and San Antonio immigration courts. Each person will have an opportunity to speak with a volunteer immigration attorney for about ten minutes. The attorney will do a quick analysis of each case and provide each person with a list of documents to bring to an immigration attorney. They will also be provided with a list of immigration attorneys who have meet certain competency requirements. The program is scheduled to start sometime in October of 2010.

According to an examiner.com report, Florida’s Attorney General Bill McCollum, and a GOP gubernatorial candidate, yesterday announced a bill to be introduced in the Florida Legislature that will rival Arizona’s embattled immigration law. This requirement of “reasonable suspicion” – legal buzz words that mean something less than “probable cause”, sets this bill apart from the Arizona law, according to McCollum. The bill also allows judges to consider a defendant’s immigration status when setting bond amounts and in allowing prosecutors to bring higher-level charges against illegal immigrants and stiffer sentences at conviction. Also different than the Arizona law, the AG’s bill would not allow citizens to sue police agencies for failing to enforce the law – this would instead be left to the Attorney General’s office. Employing illegal immigrants would also become a violation of state criminal law, and the bill would require businesses to use the federal E-Verify program before hiring an...