Immigration News and Updates at ArnoLaw

Prosecutorial review puts immigration cases in holding pattern, infuses a sense of hope

2012-01-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19589923

By Nancy Lofholm
The Denver Post

The oldest of eight sisters, Lizeth Amateco, 19, is joined by Ashley, 3, at their home in Aurora. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)

Until recently, Lizeth Amateco had never heard the term "prosecutorial discretion." Now, her future depends on it.

Amateco, 19, is one of the 7,800 illegal immigrants whose cases are being reviewed by federal prosecutors during a six-week pilot program being carried out to test the effectiveness of prosecutorial discretion in immigration court in Denver. Cases also are being reviewed in Baltimore.

This review that has been underway for two weeks means that government attorneys are sifting through files and determining which cases should go on the "low priority" pile, effectively freezing proceedings, or on the "priority" stack. In the latter cases, the government would move forward with prosecutions and deportations.

While prosecutors huddle over the daunting stacks of files and Denver immigration attorneys stay busy trying to determine which of their cases might be set aside, the many illegal immigrants like Amateco, who fit the noncriminal, longtime-resident profile, are anxiously waiting for word on their fate.

"I think it's a great way to introduce some justice into the system," said Aminta Menjivar, a 20-year-old immigrant from El Salvador who is attending college at the University of Denver, facing deportation and also waiting to see where the review will put her case.

In the simplest terms, exercising prosecutorial discretion means choosing to press cases against felons, repeat offenders, gang members, those with an egregious record of immigration violations and those who pose a risk to national security, while leaving otherwise law-abiding citizens alone.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton has issued a list of 19 factors that the attorneys poring over the Denver files are taking into account.

Some are subjective. Others are easily quantified.

The attorneys are directed to give weight to circumstances such as being brought to the country as a child, pursuing an education, being the caretaker of someone disabled or seriously ill, contributing to the community and serving in the military.

Whichever pile cases land on, life will continue to be an undocumented limbo for many. Being placed on the low-priority pile means cases are only put on hold, not dismissed.

"This (prosecutorial discretion) would be an absolute godsend for some. For others, it might not be so great," said Laura Lichter, a Denver immigration attorney and president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES ON THE FILES BEING REVIEWED

AMINTA

Aminta Menjivar, 20, is a classic "dreamer" — someone brought to the country as a child who is a high achiever and is trying to pursue the American Dream.

Her parents brought her to the United States from El Salvador when she was 10. They applied for asylum based on the violence they faced during the civil war at home. They hired a "cheap" attorney who allowed the case to drag on for years until they were flagged for removal.

Menjivar has no criminal record. She graduated from high school with honors and is a student at the University of Denver studying international business and law. She hopes to go on to law school and to work at the United Nations.

Menjivar called the prosecutorial-discretion directive "a double-edged sword.""On the one hand, it will allow me to stay in the U.S. Most likely then I can go to law school and achieve my dreams," she said. "On the other hand, it will put my case on hold. It will put me on hold."

LIZETH

Lizeth Amateco has been in the country since her parents brought her here when she was 8.

In March, she was driving to a friend's house in a Denver neighborhood she was unfamiliar with and was stopped by police because she seemed "suspicious." The officer asked her immigration status. When she started crying, he handcuffed her and took her to jail. She spent about five days in jail on an immigration hold and has been fighting removal since.

Her family is here. One parent is a resident, and the other is a citizen. She has no criminal record. She graduated from high school in 2010 and plans to go to college to study economics. She is enrolled in one class at Metro State College of Denver in the spring semester because that is all she could afford while also paying attorney fees.

"Prosecutorial discretion gave me hope. I was really excited when I first heard about it, but I'm skeptical. Now, I don't know, to be honest. I just don't know about it," she said. "I have heard of so many other people with cases like mine who have been deported. I am scared."

ELISA

Elisa, a 42-year-old woman who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used, came to Brighton in 1999 from Mexico with her parents, who are U.S. citizens. Her mother is blind, and her father has advanced Parkinson's disease. Her U.S.-citizen son, 9, has learning disabilities and is in special-education classes. She is the only one to care for them since her brother died of a heart attack last year.

Elisa has no criminal history. She is in deportation proceedings because a notario filed an application for a green card for her, using a category of application for which she was not eligible. When the court denied her application, her case was flagged for deportation.

She has been fighting removal in court since 2006 and has been through about eight hearings. Elisa said this chance at a freeze on her case makes her feel that she has some time to relax for a change while she waits to learn if the review will help her. "I trust God that it will," she said.

FERNANDO

Fernando Jara, 19, was brought to the United States by his parents when he was about 3 years old.

When he was 17 and a high school student in Denver, he wrote a slur on his school bathroom wall. The school resource officer handcuffed him and took him to jail, where he was issued a misdemeanor ticket for defacing property. He hadn't been in trouble before and said he had no understanding of the legal system. He didn't go to court for his hearing, he acknowledged, because he was worried that it would lead to deportation.

A year later, he was riding in a vehicle that was pulled over by police. He was jailed because of a failure-to-appear warrant from his missed hearing. He was turned over to immigration authorities because of his illegal status.

Jara is working at a hotel now but has dreams of being a firefighter. He has already completed CPR classes and is planning to take EMT classes after he gets an answer on his case.

He has a 3-year-old son who is an American citizen."I will be devastated if this (court review) doesn't help me," he said. "I won't be able to be with my son. I don't know anyone in Mexico. I have never been there — that I can remember."

CONFLICTING ROLES OF IMMIGRATION JUDGES: DO YOU WANT YOUR CASE HEARD BY A “GOVERNMENT ATTORNEY” OR BY A “JUDGE”?

2011-11-26T15:26:00.000-08:00

BY HON. DENISE NOONAN SLAVIN &HON. DANA LEIGH MARKS

The views expressed here are those of the authors in their individual personal capacities and as Vice President and President of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), formed after extensive consultation with the membership of the NAIJ. The NAIJ is a professional association of immigration judges and also the certified representative and recognized collective bargaining unit that represents the immigration judges of the United States. The views expressed herein do not purport to represent the views of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), or the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge.

INTRODUCTION
As these words are written, approximately 275,000 cases are pending before about 265 immigration judges (IJs) across the United States.1 These matters are not just dry statistics or theoretical “widgets.” Rather these are life-altering proceedings where people’s fates lie in the hands of IJs. Simply put, immigration judges are charged with the grave decision of deciding who should be removed and who should be granted the benefits of lawful status in the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court has called the effect of deportation (or removal) the equivalent of banishment, a sentence to life in exile, loss of property or life or all that makes life worth living, and, in essence: a Apunishment of the most drastic kind.”2 An order of deportation can effectively amount to a death sentence when an individual will be subject to persecution upon return to his or her country.3 Yet in this post-9/11 era, legitimate concerns regarding national security and terrorism are also crucial factors that can be implicated in these cases. Herein lies the inescapable challenge posed by these cases. There are, however, improvements that could be made to allow this system to function better.

Despite these exceedingly high stakes, immigration cases are further complicated by mundane administrative realities. The complexity of the law and the paucity of resources available to the Immigration Court contribute to a court system that has been widely recognized as overburdened and overwhelmed.4 Immigration law has been repeatedly recognized by the federal courts as being second only to tax law in its complexity.5 Add into the mix the staggering number of cases on the docket, the myriad of languages and cultural contexts these potential immigrants bring, and the fact that less than half of the people are represented by an attorney.6 Then you begin to appreciate the full array of challenges faced by immigration judges, whose mission is to fairly and expeditiously make decisions in each case.

One goal of this article is to identify the structural impediments that undermine the optimal functioning of this important tribunal. Issues of concern in the system range from the macro level (such as questions over which branch of our government should administer the Immigration Court) to the micro level (how to alleviate workload pressures and ensure that judges have the ability to independently and expeditiously render decisions).

What should an individual expect from the immigration judge who is to decide his or her future? In deciding cases, an immigration judge is required by law to "exercise ... independent judgment and discretion" and to take actions consistent with the law and regulations to decide a case.7 American society’s most fundamental expectation of any judge is independent judgment. Most legal scholars would agree that without an independent and neutral decisionmaker, due process cannot be achieved. The independence of the judiciary in our federal and state systems is ensured by separation of the judicial from the legislative and executive branches.8 Administrative tribunals, as executive branch agencies, also provide a valuable method for high-volume adjudications by specialized adjudicators. These tribunals, most of which are governed by the Administrative Procedure Act, safeguard decisional independence by specific provisions to protect against any commingling of investigative and prosecutorial functions, thereby assuring impartiality and independence.9

The immigration courts are unique. They are not courts with either of those structural protections. They are not in the judicial branch of the government, and they are not covered by the Administrative Procedure Act. Congress decided to exempt deportation proceedings from the protections of the Administrative Procedure Act, accepting the argument that adherence to the statute would be too costly or cumbersome.10 The Immigration Court system is part of the executive branch of government, located in an agency called the Executive Office for Immigration Review,11 which is a component of the Department of Justice. Until the last decade, the DOJ also housed the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the same office that employed the prosecutors appearing before the Immigration Court; now those prosecutors are housed in a sister agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).12 As employees of the executive branch rather than the judicial branch, immigration judges are arguably “attorneys” employed by the U.S. government, rather than true judges.

This article also will explore in depth a few of the actual and potential conflicts that this unique structure has caused. Our choice of title comes from one fundamental, overarching issue: the fact that on one hand there are circumstances where immigration judges are treated as “attorneys working for or representing the U.S. Government,” while on the other hand, their daily role and the duties they discharge mandate the traditional responsibilities that the title of “judge” implies. The following examples and discussion are intended to highlight the inherent tension between these conflicting functions. Finally, a solution to this problem is proposed.

I. Case Completion Goals: Timeliness Versus Quality
Immigration Judge X is instructed by her superior to schedule four cases for final hearings in a day. In addition, she is tasked with completing all cases within a specified number of months after they appear on her docket. As she is an attorney working for the government, her performance is subject to performance evaluations and she is subject to the rules relating to employee insubordination if she fails to follow her supervisor’s instructions. As a judge, in her first case of the day, a long-pending case, she must decide whether to grant a continuance to a party who asserts that he needs more time to obtain vital evidence from a foreign country. Then, during her third case of the day, she must decide whether an additional witness should be allowed to testify, although that would necessitate either delaying the case to another date or in rescheduling the fourth case on her docket to a later date.

Should she act as an attorney or as a judge? How would her role influence the choice she must make? How do the personal consequences to Judge X differ based on whether she is considered a government attorney or a judge?

It is axiomatic that “justice delayed is justice denied.” Litigants should be able to have their cases heard fairly and promptly. In federal, state, and local courts judges struggle to keep up with burgeoning caseloads. The same is true in Immigration Court, but because it is a court within a federal agency, there are mechanisms in place outside the control of the litigants that impose timeliness constraints on immigration judges: “case completion goals.” In the Immigration Court system, these “goals” have become an undue and sometimes unseen pressure on an immigration judge’s ability to render a thorough, well reasoned decision.

In June 2000, the Immigration Court system began formulating “case completion goals,” which were formally implemented in May 2002.13 They were the result of requirements imposed by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. Bound by its mandate, the Department of Justice had to quantify achievements and accountability. To comply, the Department chose to establish “adjudication priorities” for the Immigration Court, and elected to measure its success by evaluating whether the Court met case-completion goals.14

The stated purpose of these “goals” is to assist the immigration courts in “adjudicat[ing] cases fairly and in a timely manner.”15 To that end, a time frame was established for the completion of every case, based on the case type, and the agency set expectations of the percentage of cases to be completed within that time frame.16 Providing some flexibility, EOIR determined that, for the most part, completing 90% of cases within the established time frame is an “acceptable result.” 17 The agency monitors each local immigration court to identify any that have not met the established time frames and takes action to assist courts that are not meeting the goals.18

While EOIR has not stated publicly that actions can be taken against an individual immigration judge for failure to meet a goal in any given case and repeatedly asserts they are only aspirational goals, not inflexible mandates, narrative responses from immigration judges in a recent study revealed that judges perceive these goals to be mandatory and frequently in conflict with ideal conditions for adjudicating cases fairly and independently.19 Judges noted: “In those cases where I would like more time to consider all the facts and weigh what I have heard I rarely have much time to do so simply because of the pressure to complete cases.” and “What is required to meet the case completions is quantity over quality.”20

The agency’s monitoring of case completions has been described as:

the drip-drip-drip of Chinese water torture that I hear in my mind (i.e. in my mind I hear my boss saying: “more completions, more completions, bring that calendar in, you are set out too far, you have too many reserved decisions, why has that motion been pending so long, too many cases off calendar.”).21

Based on these reports, the way in which these "goals” are being imposed by supervisors of IJs may not comport with what is expected of an independent and fair judge, even though they may be in line with appropriate expectations for an attorney for the government. Or perhaps the IJs, being accustomed to succeeding and achieving, fear disapproval or even discipline from their supervisors if they fail to meet these expectations. Certainly each situation is different. Yet perhaps most problematic is the fact that litigants might not be aware of these goals or the pressures that they place on immigration judges, since these are internal management directives that are not "on the record” with regard to how they apply to a particular case.

The reality of this pressure and the role it can play when it becomes a factor that impacts an IJ’s decision is illustrated in a published 2008 case. In Hashmi v. Attorney General of the United States,22 an immigration judge noted that the case-completion goal for the case type had been exceeded when he denied an unopposed motion to continue the case. The circuit court found that “the sole basis for the IJ’s exercise of discretion was the IJ’s perceived ‘obligation[]’ to ‘manage [his] calendar[].’”23 The court cautioned:

Case completion goals are ordinarily implemented as guidelines to promote reasonable uniformity and to help judges schedule and effectively manage their caseloads. As guidelines, they should not be read as an end in themselves but as a means to prompt and fair dispositions, giving due regard to the unique facts and circumstances of the case.24

Finding that the immigration judge had reached the decision on whether to grant or deny the motion based Asolely” on case-completion goals, the circuit court found that the decision was Aimpermissibly arbitrary” and an abuse of discretion.25

On remand, the Board of Immigration Appeals seemed to have disagreed with the circuit court’s characterization of the immigration judge’s decision. The Board noted that it had affirmed the initial decision to deny a continuance because it agreed with the immigration judge that “a further continuance was unwarranted in light of the numerous continuances already granted,” that there was no prejudice to the respondent, and that the delay was caused, in part, by the respondent’s failures.26 Nevertheless, the Board went on to articulate factors to be considered in determining whether a continuance is warranted, and noted that, while “other procedural factors” may be considered, “[c]ompliance with an Immigration Judge’s case completion goals, however, is not a proper factor in deciding a continuance request, and immigration judges should not cite such goals in decisions relating to continuances.”27

This illustrates the conflicts facing immigration judges tangled between their classification as government attorneys and their duties as judges. While the circuit court made clear that case-completion goals should not be a factor in a decision, the comments of the immigration judge in that case and the comments of the judges in response to the survey noted above reveal that case-completion goals frequently have become a factor in the decisionmaking process. Reinforcing the mixed message that IJs receive, the Board referenced “an Immigration Judge’s case completion goals [emphasis added],” reflecting an agency view that these goals are imposed on individual immigration judges, not on the courts as a whole. The Department of Justice has made it clear that these goals are essential to its compliance with the Government Performance and Results Act. Under these circumstances, it is easy to understand how an immigration judge would have uppermost in his or her mind the concern for the agency’s success in meeting case-completion goals. How this consideration is weighed against other fundamental due process concerns is a choice that plays out daily, unfolding on a case-by-case basis. The question is, does this tension have to exist, or could structural reform eliminate this conflict once and for all?

II. Potential Conflicts for "Judges" Working in a Law Enforcement Agency
Immigration Judge X is presiding over a case where the individual is applying for asylum because he was jailed and tortured for engaging in a protest against the ruling party of his homeland. In his country, the judicial branch is corrupt and seen as a Apuppet” of the government. How does Judge X educate the respondent that immigration courts are not a Arubber stamp” for DHS, which previously denied his asylum application?

One of the conflicts facing immigration judges on a day-to-day basis deals with the court being “housed” within the Department of Justice, a law enforcement agency.28 Many of these conflicts are simply perceived, but some are

Unfortunately, the history of the Immigration Court system is rife with instances where undue law enforcement pressures were placed on immigration judges. Judges in the Immigration Court are aware of that history and mindful of it. In its early years, the Immigration Court and the prosecutor’s office (then the INS) were both housed within the Department of Justice, and the immigration judges depended on the INS District Directors (in essence the client of the prosecutors) for hearing facilities, office space, and supplies.29 Many immigration courts remain located inside detention centers operated and/or controlled by DHS, and many others are located in the same building as DHS offices and prosecutors. Immigration judges are familiar with the old rumor that a Texas immigration judge lost his parking space when the INS District Director was upset with his decision.30 While this rumor may seem laughable, the discomfort among the IJs who were at the mercy of the INS for worksite conditions was all too real and contributed to a desire not to Arock the boat.” A similar discomfort persists today while the Immigration Court remains housed in the Department of Justice, which is closely aligned with DHS and shares with it the primary mission of law enforcement rather than neutral adjudication.

In addition, there is the day-to-day problem of the perception of being housed inside the same building as the prosecutor and using some of the same resources. The public and even members of the press all too frequently refer to the immigration courts as the “INS Courts” and fail to be aware that they are part of the DOJ, a completely separate department. Many of the respondents appearing before the Immigration Court come from countries “where a courtroom is not an institution of justice, but rather an extension of a corrupt state.”31 It is not infrequent in Immigration Court for an unrepresented respondent to assume that the immigration judge works for the same entity as the DHS prosecutor. Frequently in court, a respondent will indicate that he gave a document to a judge Abefore,” yet further inquiry will reveal that the document was actually given to a DHS representative. Many respondents come to court with the perception that their deportation is a foregone conclusion, claiming that the DHS representatives told them that. It is difficult to elicit cooperation and forthrightness from a respondent who believes that the deck is already stacked against him. These perceptions are even more difficult to dispel when the judge’s courtroom door is located directly across from the prosecutor’s door. This is most difficult in the detained setting, when the guard providing security for the courtroom may be the same guard who is watching over the respondent in his "barracks.”

It is not just the co-location of immigration courts with a prosecutorial party that has caused charges that the Immigration Court is subject to undue pressure from the government. Allegations also have persisted that government prosecutors have had inappropriate ex parte contact with the Immigration Court system.32 The allegations that the Immigration Court has undue bias towards the government persist to this day. Recently, a report from the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice noted, “The Immigration Courts and the BIA [have] never enjoyed a stellar reputation for impartiality. But that reputation fell to a new low after a deliberate effort to stack the Immigration Courts . . . in favor of the government between 2004 and 2006.”33 The report also claimed that the composition of the Immigration Court bench favors the government, stating that “almost 80 percent of immigration judges have professional backgrounds that tend to cause them to find in favor of the government significantly more often than judges without those34

This public perception of the Immigration Court affects the ability of immigration judges to do their jobs. As noted above, an immigration judge is expected to use his or her independent judgment and to be impartial. As the Appleseed report noted, “John Adams urged that judges should be ‘impartial and independent as the lot of humanity will admit.’”35 Immigration judges are aware of the public perception that they are partial towards the government, and have been subjected to incredibly increased scrutiny as a result.36 Specifically, in 2006, the Attorney General created a “performance evaluation” process for judges, and in 2010, a process for filing complaints against IJs online.37 At this time, there is a real concern that these allegations of government bias could cause immigration judges to overcompensate, to “bend over backwards” or, worse, exhibit a bias against the government to avoid being the object of complaint or discipline. As noted in a letter to the Attorney General from Ranking Member Lamar Smith:38

Under its practice, OPR will usually investigate immigration judges only in cases in which they deny relief that is later granted by the federal courts. The course of least resistance is therefore for immigration judges to grant relief in many cases despite their beliefs about the merits of the cases. ... This perceived pressure ultimately frustrates the integrity of our immigration laws and the American people’s interest in the laws being enforced in a fair and orderly manner.

This perception and the complaint process certainly create pressure for immigration judges.

Responses by immigration judges to the recent survey noted above indicate that the negative perception of the public and fear of investigation is a driving and stressful force in the decisionmaking process.39 For example, one cited “Fear that every decision or proceeding may trigger a ‘personalized’ and scathing published criticism from the reviewing circuit court and/or an Office of Professional Responsibility investigation into the judge, which may destroy the judge’s professional reputation and career without the ability to rebut or defend.”

Another judge noted that he/she was “demoralized by being made the ‘whipping boy’ by the press and public, when it is the system we are forced to follow that contributes so greatly to the errors I make.”40 These comments reveal that the negative perception of the Immigration Court system, as well as the mechanisms the Department of Justice has put in place to deal with these perceptions, are a potentially coercive influence on immigration judges. At a minimum, they have indisputably found to be corrosive to morale and have increased stress and burnout in the immigration judge corps.41

Thus, being housed within the Department of Justice creates several conflicts for immigration judges on a daily basis. First, many of their workplace resources are inextricably tied to those of the Department of Homeland Security, a sister agency. At the very least, this harms the perception of the Immigration Court system, impedes the IJs’ ability to do their jobs, and may have a chilling effect on them. In addition, the inescapable impression of government bias created by being housed in a law enforcement agency may actually cause a backlash.

III. Concerns About the Lack of Even-Handed Sanctions Authority

Immigration Judge X has constant problems with two attorneys who appear before her regularly. They are both routinely late, unprepared, rude, and belligerent, and have even made misrepresentations in court. One is a government attorney, and one is a private attorney. Judge X can refer the private attorney for possible sanctions, but cannot take such action against the government attorney. What should Judge X do in order to maintain control of her court in a fair manner?

“With the mountain of cases facing Immigration Judges every day, judges need to run their courtrooms as efficiently as possible; this necessarily requires the power to discipline all attorneys who come to court unprepared.”42 While immigration judges have had authority to sanction attorneys by civil monetary penalties since 1996,43 the Department of Justice has failed to promulgate the regulations needed to implement this authority. This lack of an appropriate sanctions mechanism for attorneys appearing before the Court has lead to pressures that may contribute to stress and intemperate behavior by immigration judges.44

The current procedures for sanctioning lawyers appearing before the Immigration Court are one-sided. The procedures for sanctioning practitioners before the Immigration Court for “criminal, unethical, or unprofessional conduct” or “frivolous behavior” apply only to an attorney or representative “who does not represent the federal government.”45 Since this process can be used only against a private attorney, some immigration judges are reticent to use it, believing that it may create the appearance of a lack of impartiality. Yet, without the ability to impose sanctions, an immigration judge lacks a vital tool to address attorney misconduct. This situation leaves immigration judges without a mechanism to punish recalcitrant lawyers, short of resort to punitive rulings that may harm the respondent far more gravely than his private attorney, or benefit a respondent who may not deserve it, rather than really affect the government attorney. These procedures also could be viewed as another example where immigration judges are providing preferential treatment to government attorneys who escape discipline.

In the survey noted above, one IJ commented that “We have been intentionally deprived by the Department [of Justice] and DHS of the tools and rules necessary to make DHS function in court in a reasonably professional and competent manner.”46

This belief the DHS has obstructed the implementation of contempt authority rules is not unfounded. It appears that the situation remained unresolved at least in part because of historical opposition of DHS. “The INS has generally opposed the application of the [contempt] authority to its attorneys. In more than three years since the enactment of IIRIRA, the [EOIR] and the DOJ have failed to resolve this issue, apparently still paralyzed by the legacy of their relationship with INS.”47 Thus, the placement of the Immigration Court within the Department of Justice created an internal, and later interagency, barrier to enactment of regulations to implement contempt power.

While immigration judges have protested the lengthy delay (fifteen years) in enacting regulations to enforce the contempt power, they remain stalled. From this inaction, the immigration judges lack a vital tool to do their jobs. While attorneys routinely function in their jobs without contempt authority or sanctions powers, judges are rarely so constrained, thus providing another example of how the lack of a structure that treats immigration judges as judges has contributed to dysfunction in an already overburdened system.

CONCLUSION

This article has attempted to explore some of the real and potential conflicts created for immigration judges in their dual roles as “attorneys” for or representing the U.S. government and as “judges.” Immigration judges face several pressures that are inherent to the unusual placement of the Immigration Court within a federal law enforcement agency: (1) case completion “goals” that are perceived to be mandatory and frequently in conflict with adjudicating cases fairly; (2) the public perception of a government bias of the Immigration Court and the effect that this perception has on an immigration judge’s ability to do his or her job; and (3) the lack of even-handed tools to deal with misconduct by government attorneys appearing before them.

The NAIJ believes that the best solution to these and other problems caused by this structural flaw is the creation of an Article I Immigration Court, or the establishment of an Immigration Court in an independent agency outside the Department of Justice.48 This idea has been seriously considered for more than twenty-five years.49 The same conclusion has been reached recently by the comprehensive study commissioned by the American Bar Association and the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice.50 The National Association of Women Judges has endorsed the concept as well.51 History has shown that incremental modifications to the Immigration Court have not resolved these pernicious problems. After years of thorough study, the bipartisan Select Commission came to this conclusion in 1981. Almost thirty years later, after exhaustive study of all stakeholders, the nation’s largest bar association, the American Bar Association, has again come to the same conclusion. We applaud many of the efforts that the Department of Justice has made over the years and continues to make to provide for fair and full adjudications in the Immigration Court system. Nevertheless, it is only through an Article I court or separate agency that complete independence and impartiality can be achieved, both in reality and in public perception.

____
Denise Noonan Slavin is Vice President of the National Association of Immigration Judges. She has served as either Vice President or President of NAIJ since July 2001. Judge Slavin also has been an IJ since April 1995, sitting first in the U.S. Immigration Court in Miami and for the last few years at the U.S. Immigration Court in the Krome Detention Center. Previous to her appointment to the bench, she was an attorney for the Department of Justice, and also served as an attorney for the Maryland Commission on Human Relations. She has written numerous articles related to Immigration Court proceedings.

Dana Leigh Marks is President of the NAIJ. She has served as either President or Vice President of NAIJ since July 1999. Judge Marks has been an IJ in San Francisco since January 1987. Prior to her appointment as an IJ she was an attorney in private practice for ten years, specializing in immigration law. She served as lead counsel in the landmark case of INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987), which established that persons applying for asylum need prove only a reasonable possibility of future persecution. She has testified before Congress, lectured, and published numerous articles on the urgent need to restructure our nation’s immigration courts.

This article is excerpted from a paper that was prepared for a conference sponsored by the Boston College Center for Human Rights and International Justice. It has then been edited by the staff of Bender’s Immigration Bulletin.

NOTES
1. Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, New Judge Hiring Fails to Stem Rising Immigration Backlogs, http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/250/; see also Executive Office for Immigration Review, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, FY 2010 Statistical Year Book, at Y1 (Jan. 2011), www.justice.gov/eoir/statspub/fy10syb.pdf; News Release, EOIR, The Executive Office for Immigration Review Swears in Nine Judges, Judge Corps Reaches 270 Serving in 59 Courts (Dec. 20, 2010), available at www.justice.gov /eoir/press/2010/IJInvestiture12172010.pdf.
2. See, e.g., Lehman v. United States, 353 U.S. 685, 691 (1957); Jordan v. DeGeorge, 341 U.S. 223 (1951); Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U.S. 6 (1948); Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U.S. 276 (1922).
3. See INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 449 (1987); Padilla-Augustin v. INS, 21 F.2d 970, 978 (8th Cir. 1994).
4. Todd Etshman, Immigration courts face backlog, N.Y. Daily Record, March 7, 2011.
5. Castro-O’Ryan v. U.S. Dep’t of Immigr. & Naturalization, 847 F.2d 1307, 1312 (9th Cir. 1988) (“With only a small degree of hyperbole, the immigration laws have been termed ‘second only to the Internal Revenue Code in complexity.’” (quoting Elizabeth Hull, Without Justice for All 107 (1985))).
6. For an inside perspective from an IJ on the topic of attorney representation, including the laudable efforts by New York pro bono programs, see Noel Brennan, A View From the Immigration Bench, 78 Fordham L. Rev. 623 (2009).
7. 8 C.F.R. §1103.10(b).
8. 16A Am. Jur. 2d Constitutional Law '239:
The primary purpose of [separation of powers] doctrine is to prevent the commingling of different powers of government in the same hands. The doctrine is premised on the belief that too much power in the hands of one governmental branch invites corruption and tyranny, and thus, the doctrine prevents one branch of government from aggrandizing itself or encroaching upon the fundamental functions of another. The separation of powers prevents any one governmental branch from aggregating unchecked power which might lead to oppression and despotism.
9. The Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §553(a)(1), requires that administrative policies affecting individual rights and obligations be promulgated pursuant to certain stated procedures so as to avoid the inherently arbitrary nature of unpublished ad hoc determinations. Morton v. Ruiz, 415 U.S. 199 (1974).
10. For a thorough history of these times, see Sidney B. Rawitz, From Wong Yang Sung to Black Robes, 65 Interpreter Releases 453 (1988).
11. INA §101(b)(4), 8 U.S.C. §1101(b)(4).
12. Homeland Security Act, Pub. L. No. 107-296, §1517, 116 Stat. 2135, 2311 (Nov. 25, 2002) (codified at 6 U.S.C. §557).
13. U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO-06-771, Executive Office for Immigration Review Caseload Performance Reporting Needs Improvement 20-21 (Aug. 2006) (Report to the Chairman, S. Comm. on Finance).
14. Id.
15. Id.
16. Id.
17. EOIR, Fiscal Years 2008-2013 Strategic Plan 8 (Jan. 2008), www.justice.gov/eoir/statspub/EOIR%202008-2013% Final.pdf.
18. Id.
19. Stuart L. Lustig et al., Inside the Judges’ Chambers: Narrative Responses from the National Association of Immigration Judges Stress and Burnout Survey, 23 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 57, 64-65 (2008) [hereinafter Stress Survey].
20. Id.
21. Id.
22. 531 F.3d 256 (3d Cir. 2008).
23. Id. at 261.
24. Id.
25. Id.
26. Matter of Hashmi, 24 I. & N. Dec. 785, 787 (BIA 2009).
27. Id. at 793-94.
28. The mission of the Department of Justice is to enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. www.justice.gov/jmd/mps/strategic2007-2012/introduction. pdf.
29. Immigration Reform and the Reorganization of Homeland Defense: Hearing before the Subcomm. on Immigration of the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 107th Cong. 72-73, 85 (2002) (S. Hrg. 107-931, Serial No. J-107-90) (testimony and written statement (An Independent Immigration Court: An Idea Whose Time Has Come) of Dana Marks Keener, National Association of Immigration Judges).
30. Id. at 85.
31. Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, Assembly Line Injustice 7 (May 2009) [hereinafter Appleseed Report].
32. See Immigration Reform and the Reorganization of Homeland Defense 87.
33. Appleseed Report 7. This was based on a 2008 report by the DOJ Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility that found a systematic campaign by members of the previous administration to pack the court with “good Republicans” who were "on the team.”
34. Id. at 7-8.
35. Id. at 7.
36. See, e.g., Press Release, Department of Justice, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Outlines Reforms for Immigration Courts and Board of Immigration Appeals (Aug 9, 2006).
37. Press Release, EOIR, The Executive Office for Immigration Review Announces New Process for Filing Immigration Judge Complaints (May 9, 2010), available at www.justice.gov/eoir/press/2010/IJConductProfComplaints05192010.pdf.
38. Letter from Lamar Smith, Ranking Member of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, to Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General (May 26, 2010) (on file with the authors).
39. Stress Survey at 71-72.
40. Id.
41. Id.
42. Appleseed Report at 11.
43. Pub. L. No. 104-208, div. C., §304, 110 Stat. 3009, 3009-589, codified as amended at §240(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. §1229a(b)(1).
44. See, e.g., Press Release, Department of Justice, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Outlines Reforms for Immigration Courts and Board of Immigration Appeals (Aug. 9, 2006) (“By better enabling judges to address frivolous submissions and to maintain an appropriate atmosphere in their courtrooms, we will reduce the pressures that may have contributed to intemperate conduct in the past.”).
45. 8 C.F.R. §1292.3(a)(1) and (2). Under §1292.3(i), OPR handles discipline of government attorneys.
46. Stress Survey at 70.
47. Michael J. Creppy et al., Court Executive Dev. Project, Inst. for Court Mgmt., The United States Immigration Court in the 21st Century 109 n.313 (1999).
48. Hon. Dana Leigh Marks, An Urgent Priority, Why Congress Should Establish an Article 1 Immigration Court, 13 Bender’s Immigr. Bull. 3, 15-17 (Jan. 1, 2008).
49. See, e.g., Select Comm’n on Immigration and Refugee Policy, U.S. Immigration Policy and the National Interest: Final Report and Recommendations of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy with Supplemental Views by the Commissioners (1981).
50. Commission on Immigration, American Bar Association, Reforming the Immigration System ES-9 (Feb. 2010); Appleseed Report 35-36.
51. See its Resolution passed on April 16, 2002.

DHS Issues Awaited Guidance on Prioritizing Deportations, Law Enforcement Letter Praises Approach

2011-11-19T17:21:00.000-08:00

November 17, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Principal Legal Advisor directed all ICE attorneys to begin a systematic review of immigration cases to determine whether pursuing deportation in each case is consistent with the Administration’s enforcement priorities. This directive follows last summer’s announcement that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to review 300,000 immigration cases to assess whether they fall within the enforcement priorities and suspend those cases which do not. ICE also provided more detailed guidance to ICE attorneys regarding criteria for determining when it is appropriate to exercise prosecutorial discretion to close or dismiss a case.

These directives are important steps toward reforming the culture of immigration enforcement within the agency and aligning its resources with its enforcement priorities. They empower ICE attorneys to take into account the individual circumstances of each case when deciding whether it is appropriate to pursue removal. Although DHS needs to refine its overly-broad definitions of criminality, this new guidance, if fully implemented, should mean that the government can focus its resources on deportations of those who pose a real threat to public safety. It should result in fewer deportations of low priority immigrants, such as DREAM Act students or individuals with strong family and community ties and more. Importantly, prosecutorial discretion does not mean that a person is granted legal status in the United States; rather, a person whose case is dismissed or closed will remain in the status they were in prior to the initiation of deportation proceedings.

The new ICE guidance also brings DHS more in line with traditional law enforcement practices, which emphasize the important role of discretion in carrying out any law enforcement officer’s duties. In fact, members of a DHS Task Force sent a letter today to Congress highlighting the importance of prosecutorial discretion as an immigration enforcement tool. They write:

“there is nothing unusual in our recommendation or in DHS’s current efforts to improve its use of prosecutorial discretion. Such discretion is a normal and essential part of the everyday activities of law enforcement agencies and prosecutors’ offices at the local, state, and federal levels across the nation. Exercising prosecutorial discretion, case by case, in a systematic and professional way, does not amount to administrative amnesty. Instead it helps to make sure that resources are focused in ways that best promote the overall enforcement mission.”

To view the memo and guidance see:

DHS Guidance to ICE Attorneys (11/17/2011)
DHS PD Case Review Memo (11/17/2011)

To view the DHS Task Force Letter to Congress see:

DHS Task Force Letter to Congress (11/17/2011)

U.S. to Review Cases Seeking Deportations

2011-11-17T14:59:00.000-08:00

By JULIA PRESTON

The Department of Homeland Security will begin a review on Thursday of all deportation cases before the immigration courts and start a nationwide training program for enforcement agents and prosecuting lawyers, with the goal of speeding deportations of convicted criminals and halting those of many illegal immigrants with no criminal record.

The accelerated triage of the court docket — about 300,000 cases — is intended to allow severely overburdened immigration judges to focus on deporting foreigners who committed serious crimes or pose national security risks, Homeland Security officials said. Taken together, the review and the training, which will instruct immigration agents on closing deportations that fall outside the department’s priorities, are designed to bring sweeping changes to the immigration courts and to enforcement strategies of field agents nationwide.

According to a document obtained by The New York Times, Homeland Security officials will issue guidelines on Thursday to begin the training program and the first stages of the court caseload review. Both are efforts to put into practice a policy senior officials had announced in June, to encourage immigration agents to use prosecutorial discretion when deciding whether to pursue a deportation.

The policy, described in a June 17 memorandum by John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, suggested that the Obama administration would scale back deportations of illegal immigrants who were young students, military service members, elderly people or close family of American citizens, among others. While the announcement raised excited expectations in Latino and other immigrant communities, until now the policy has been applied spottily, deepening disillusionment with President Obama in those communities.

The Obama administration has removed high numbers of illegal immigrants, nearly 400,000 in each of the last three years. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Mr. Morton said those numbers would not decrease, but they wanted agents and courts to focus on deporting the worst offenders, including national security risks, criminal convicts and those who repeatedly violate immigration laws. Many immigration offenses, including being present in the United States without legal status, are civil violations; they are not crimes.

Administration officials have flexibility to transform immigration court procedures because those courts are part of the Justice Department in the executive branch, not part of the federal judiciary. Central to the plan is giving more power to immigration agency lawyers — the equivalent of prosecutors in the federal court system — to decide which deportation cases to press.

“We are empowering the attorneys nationally to make them more like federal prosecutors, who decide what cases to bring,” said a senior Homeland Security official, who asked not to be named because the policy has not been formally announced.

In the first stage of the court docket review, which will begin on Thursday, immigration agency lawyers will examine all new cases just arriving in immigration courts nationwide, with an eye to closing cases that are low-priority according to the Morton memorandum, before they advance into the court system.

At the same time, immigrants identified as high priority will see their cases put onto an expedited calendar for judges to order their deportations, Homeland Security officials said.

The goal is to “reduce inefficiencies that delay the removal of criminal aliens and other priority cases by preventing new low priority cases from clogging the immigration court dockets,” the Homeland Security document said. Officials said the first stage was an “initial test run” that would be completed by Jan. 13.

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group that analyzes immigration court data, reported in September that the backlog before the nation’s 59 immigration courts was at “a new all-time high.”

In a second stage, to begin Dec. 4, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department will start six-week pilot projects in the immigration courts in Baltimore and Denver, in which teams of immigration agency lawyers will comb through the current dockets of those courts. They will focus on cases of immigrants who have been arrested for deportation, but who are not being held in detention while their cases proceed.

Immigrants who are deemed to qualify for prosecutorial discretion will have their cases closed, but not dismissed, officials said. That means that agents could re-open the deportations at any time if the immigrants commit a crime or a new immigration violation. Immigrants whose cases are closed will be allowed to remain in the United States, but they will be in legal limbo, without any positive immigration status.

The pilot projects will also end on Jan. 13, and then officials will decide how to expand the program to all immigration courts nationwide early next year.

Also on Thursday, Homeland Security officials will introduce a training program based on scenarios that could arise in enforcement operations, which every Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent must complete by mid-January. The goal is to instruct agents, many of whom have expressed doubts about Mr. Morton’s policy, to apply the prosecutorial discretion criteria.

The approach of deporting some illegal immigrants but not others requires a deep change in the mentality of the agents, who have long operated on the principle that any violation was good cause for deportation.

Republicans in Congress have denounced the new deportations policy, accusing the Obama administration of trying an end-run around Congress by granting de facto amnesty to illegal immigrants. Representative Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the prosecutorial discretion policy had the “specific purpose of overruling or preventing orders of removal for illegal immigrants.”

Administration officials said they would proceed case by case using existing legal authorities, and had no plans to exempt any large group of illegal immigrants from deportation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/us/deportation-cases-of-illegal-immigrants-to-be-reviewed.html?hp

ARC Report: 5,100 Children of Deported Parents Now In Foster Care

2011-11-13T11:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.arc.org/shatteredfamilies

THOUSANDS OF FAMILIES SHATTERED

Groundbreaking National Report by the Applied Research Center Releases First Data on the Intersection Of Immigration Enforcement And Child Welfare Systems

November 2, 2011

New York, NY – A new report from the Applied Research Center (ARC) conservatively estimates that there are more than 5,000 children currently living in foster care whose parents have been either detained or deported. To date, there has been no national data available on the numbers of children impacted by the intersection of immigration enforcement and child welfare systems. http://arc.org/shatteredfamilies/

"Shattered Families" offers groundbreaking national research on the perilous intersection of immigration enforcement and the child welfare system. Historic levels of detention and deportation, combined with a clear lack of child welfare policies are resulting in the separation of thousands of families across the United States. These families face formidable barriers to reunification, and in many cases will be permanently separated. ARC projected that at least 15,000 more children will face these threats to reunification in the next five years, if the same rate holds true for new cases.“

Immigration enforcement greatly increases the chances that families will never see each other again,” said ARC President Rinku Sen. “Detaining and deporting parents shatters families and endangers the children left behind. It’s unacceptable, un-American, and a clear sign that we need to revisit our immigration policies.”

In fiscal year 2011, the United States deported a record-breaking 397,000 people and detained nearly that many. According to never before released federal data acquired by ARC through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, a growing number of deportees are parents. In the first six months of 2011, the federal government removed more than 46,000 mothers and fathers of U.S.-citizen children.

For the first time, ARC’s “Shattered Families” provides evidence on the scale and scope of this growing national problem. These impacts are not confined to border jurisdictions or states. In fact, ARC identified at least 22 states across the country where children in foster care are separated from their parents because of immigration enforcement. http://arc.org/shatteredfamilies/

“Our research found time and again that families are being left out of decision-making when it comes to the care and custody of their children,” said Seth Freed Wessler, author and principal investigator of “Shattered Families.” “As a result, children of detained and deported parents are likely to remain in foster care when they could be with their own family.”

“Shattered Families” analyzes these problems, identifies key barriers, and presents policy recommendations for Department of Homeland Security, various levels of legislature, state child welfare departments, and juvenile dependency courts on how we can better protect families from separation and reunify families in a timely way.

For more information on “Shattered Families” report findings:

• Join a press briefing call to be held Wed, 11/2, at 2pmET/11amPT
• ARC will present a public informational webinar on Thursday, 11/10, at 3pmET/12noonPT,

Information on events available at http://arc.org/shatteredfamilies/

To schedule an interview with ARC, please contact Communications Manager Rebekah Spicuglia media@arc.org or 646-490-2772.

About ARC - The Applied Research Center (ARC) is a 30-year-old racial justice think tank that uses media, research and activism to promote solutions. ARC’s mission is to popularize racial justice and prepare people to achieve it. ARC also serves as the publisher of Colorlines.com. For more information on ARC’s work, please visit http://www.arc.org/.

Key Findings: There are at least 5,100 children currently living in foster care who are prevented from uniting with their detained or deported parents.

If nothing changes, 15,000 more children may face a similar fate in the next 5 years.
This is a growing national problem, not one confined to border jurisdictions or states-- ARC identified at least 22 states where these cases have emerged.

Families are more likely to be separated where local police aggressively participate in immigration enforcement.

Immigrant victims of domestic violence are at particular risk of losing their children

ICE detention obstructs participation in Child Protective Services' plans for family unity.

Most child welfare departments lack systemic policies to keep families united when parents are detained or deported.

Federal, state and local governments must create explicit policies to protect families from separation.These polices should stop the clock on the child welfare process and the immigration enforcement process to ensure that families can stay together and allow parents to make the best decisions for the care and custody of their children.

USCIS Redesigns Employment Authorization Document and Certificate of Citizenship to Enhance Security and Combat Fraud

2011-11-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

State-of-the-art technology will deter counterfeiting, obstruct tampering, and facilitate quick and accurate authentication

Oct. 25, 2011

WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas today announced the launch of an enhanced Employment Authorization Document (EAD) and a redesigned Certificate of Citizenship (Form N-560) with new features to strengthen security and deter fraud.

As part of USCIS’s ongoing efforts to enhance the integrity of the immigration system, the state-of-the-art technology incorporated into the new documents will deter counterfeiting, obstruct tampering, and facilitate quick and accurate authentication. USCIS began issuing the new EADs today and will begin using the redesigned certificates on Oct. 30. The agency anticipates that more than 1 million people will receive the new documents over the next year.

“These enhanced documents are more secure than ever,” said Director Mayorkas. “They advance our efforts to safeguard against fraud and protect the integrity of the immigration system.”

The new features of the EAD will better equip workers, employers and law enforcement officials to recognize the card as definitive proof of authorization to work in the United States.
USCIS worked closely with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Forensic Document Laboratory to incorporate technology and tactile features in order to deter fraud and facilitate card authentication.

Additionally, USCIS employs a new and more secure printing process for its redesigned Certificate of Citizenship that renders the certificate more tamper-proof. Although the look and feel of the documents is new, the manner in which an applicant applies for and receives them will not change. USCIS will replace EADs already in circulation as individuals apply for their renewal or replacement. All previously issued EADs remain valid until the expiration date printed on the card. Previously issued Certificates of Citizenship remain valid indefinitely.

These improvements demonstrate USCIS’s ongoing efforts to produce more secure documentation. In 2010, USCIS issued the new Permanent Resident Card, which added security features to the physical card and integrated technology improvements in the card production process. Additionally, USCIS launched the redesigned Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550) featuring the naturalization candidate’s digitized photo and signature embedded into the document. USCIS will continue to enhance document security features as technology improves.

For more information on USCIS and its programs, please visit www.uscis.gov or follow us on Twitter (@uscis), YouTube (/uscis) and the USCIS blog The Beacon.

Fiscally Irresponsible: Immigration Enforcement without Reform Wastes Taxpayer Dollars

2011-10-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

October 19, 2011

Washington D.C. - Many political pundits, presidential aspirants, and Members of Congress want to have it both ways when it comes to federal spending on immigration. On the one hand, there is much talk about the need for fiscal austerity, and a Congressional “super-committee” is currently working on slashing federal spending in order to reduce the deficit. On the other hand, even though the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just announced a record high number of deportations, some still want to increase federal spending on immigration enforcement; putting more Border Patrol boots on the ground, completing the border fence, and deploying an array of high-tech gadgetry. However, they miss one very important fact: piling on more immigration enforcement without immigration reform is a practical and fiscal dead-end.

Over the past decade, the federal government has spent tens of billions of dollars trying to keep unauthorized immigrants out of the United States, or trying to get them out of the country if they are already here. The end result? Roughly 11 million unauthorized immigrants now call the United States home, the majority have been here for more than 10 years, and many have U.S.-born children. In short, the “enforcement only” approach to unauthorized immigration has proven to be costly and ineffective. But many political candidates and Members of Congress have yet to get the news that the enforcement-only approach has been tried and failed.

To learn more about the impracticality of enforcement without reform, view our Fact Check:

Fiscally Irresponsible: Immigration Enforcement without Reform Wastes Taxpayer Dollars (IPC Fact Check, October 2011)

Also see today's blog post on the recent release of DHS's fiscal year 2011 deportation numbers:

Redefining Criminality: Untangling DHS’s Record High Deportation Numbers (ImmigrationImpact.com, October 19, 2011)

Lost in Detention

2011-10-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2011

Chapter 1: "Enforcement on Steroids"

(The controversy surrounding Obama's record number of deportations)

A Frontline investigative piece on Immigration.
Video (16:48)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/lost-in-detention/

Cecilia Muñoz: “Even Broken Laws Have to be Enforced.”

2011-10-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2011, 7:53 pm ET

As director of intergovernmental affairs, Cecilia Muñoz is one of the president’s top advisers on immigration issues. She previously worked as a senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, and in 2000, she won a MacArthur “genius” grant for her work on immigration and civil rights. Here, Muñoz explains the administration’s current immigration policy: tough enforcement while trying to build bipartisan support for comprehensive immigration reform. This is the edited transcript of an interview conducted on Sept. 21, 2011.

Does President Obama believe that his aggressive policy in immigration and enforcement has been successful?

The president has said a number of times, he swore an oath to uphold the law. It’s our responsibility to enforce the laws that we’ve got. Congress gives us resources to enforce the laws that we’ve got. But how we do it matters a lot. He’s talked about that as well.

So Congress gives us the resources to remove about 400,000 people a year, but it’s very important that DHS [Department of Homeland Security] has been making strategic judgments about what that means and how we do it. The previous strategy was go after anybody you can find, which doesn’t have a lot of value as a law enforcement strategy.

“The president can’t say to the Congress, ‘I’m not going to bother to enforce this particular law because these are really compelling people.’ That’s not how democracy works.”

What this DHS has done, starting in 2010, was put forward a strategy to be strategic about how we make the choices about who we remove, how we prioritize. So what DHS is doing is prioritizing the folks who present the greatest harm for people, who have committed crimes, who have been convicted of crimes in this country, and not people who were lower priorities. And that’s the first time that the immigration enforcement regime has had that kind of strategy.

And it’s important because that’s the best way to do law enforcement. Any domestic police force does the same thing. You invest your resources where they’re going to have the greatest impact. And that’s what this administration is doing.

But it’s also true that this is a broken system of laws, and we have to fix it, and that requires the Congress of the United States. And that is the other body of work that the president is engaged in, is making sure that we fix what’s broken about this law, and that requires congressional action.

But if there is a broken law, can’t the president say: “This is a broken law, and it’s creating more problems for us as a country, and for me as an administration, for all of us. Broken laws should not be enforced”?

Even broken laws have to be enforced. The president has said many times that this is a broken law and it needs to be fixed, but he cannot say to the Congress, which passes laws, “I don’t like this one so I’m not going to enforce it.” We have an obligation to enforce the law, the federal government.

But how we do it matters, and DHS is taking very important steps to do it in a strategic way. And the feedback from the communities that are affected from the law enforcement community, from the faith community, from other constituencies, has been really important in shaping how DHS does that, to their credit. DHS has been listening to concerns across the country to make sure that this new strategy gets implemented well.

And that where it doesn’t work; it gets adjusted.

At this point, even President Obama’s supporters have said that the policy of Secure Communities has not done what it promised, which was to go after the worst of the worst, and instead at this point about 60 percent of the people who have been deported are noncriminals — noncriminals, low-level, nonviolent. So is this what you would consider a successful policy?

Well, it’s an important policy, and it’s a policy that has improved over time and will continue to improve over time. Of the people that DHS removed from the country, roughly 400,000 a year, it used to be in the Bush administration that 30 percent of the removals were criminals.

As a result of DHS’s policies, including Secure Communities, that proportion has gone up to more than half, just slightly more than half. So it’s having some impact in making sure that the number of criminals that we remove increases. And the number of folks who are not criminals has decreased as a result of that as well.

But it’s also important to understand, of the people that DHS removes from the country who are not criminals, the vast majority — well over two-thirds — are people who have just arrived, recent arrivals at the border or people who had previously been deported and re-entered, which is under our laws a felony.

So when people raise concerns about our enforcement policies not being completely focused on criminals, on the one hand they have a point. This is it’s not going to be a 100 percent record. And the concerns that they raise in the community are real. DHS is responding to them.

But on the other hand, there isn’t a clear understanding that the vast majority of the people who are deported, who are not criminals, are recent arrivals. They’re not folks who have established roots in the interior of the country. Or they’re people who were previously deported and re-entered. That’s not well understood.

Will this administration continue to oversee the deportation of 400,000 people a year?

As long as Congress gives us the money to deport 400,000 people a year, that’s what the administration is going to do. That’s our obligation under the law. We will be strategic about how we do it, and the number of those folks who are either criminals or recent arrivals will continue to go up. But yes, this is our obligation under the law.
And while we have the debate about reforming the law, we must enforce it, and we will do that.

Are you saying that this administration believes that there are 400,000 serious criminals who are not in jail right now and who should be deported? Four hundred thousand people. Where are you going to find them if you are saying that your emphasis is only on serious criminals?

As I pointed out, of the people that we remove, of the 400,000 people removed in the last year, about half of them are serious criminals under the definition in immigration law. And the vast majority of the other half are either recent arrivals, people who are in the process of crossing at the border or people who have recently been deported, or who had previously been deported and are re-entering. So that makes up the bulk of the 400,000.

In previous years, and if the trends continue, that will be reflected in the next 400,000 that we remove.But Congress passed a law, and Congress appropriates funds to implement that law, and the executive branch’s job is to enforce it. How we do it matters a lot, but the president can’t say to the Congress, “I’m not going to bother to enforce this particular law because these are really compelling people.” That’s not how democracy works.

If women, mothers of American-born children, are stopped for a traffic violation and they are driving without a license, is that somebody who would be targeted for deportation?

The policy that DHS put forward both in I think it was March of 2010 and then reiterated with more detail in June of this year, and then again in August of this year, it makes it really [clear] that DHS has priorities, folks who are priority for removal and folks who are not priorities for removal.

And DHS set up a particular task force to look at the question of traffic violations to make sure that all of the stakeholders — the law enforcement community, the immigrants’ rights community, the folks in the labor movement, folks in faith communities and others — all have a say in helping us make the determination about how we deal with folks who are guilty of minor traffic violations.

Those folks are clearly not a priority. We need to be aligned with local law enforcement and how we deal with those folks. At the end of the day, it is incredibly important for DHS to have a strategy governing its removals. I don’t think there is a lot of disagreement [that] if we’re going to do this job, it should be focused on the folks who are convicted of serious crimes. Secure Communities is an important tool in doing that.

But even the supporters of the president — the Illinois governor [Democrat Pat Quinn], governor of New York [Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo] — have said the Secure Communities is doing more damage, and in fact there’s collateral damage of mothers being separated from their children, of fathers being separated from their children. Is this collateral damage that this administration is prepared to accept?

As a result of the concerns raised by the governor of Illinois, the governor of Massachusetts [Democrat Deval Patrick] and others, DHS made adjustments on how it’s implementing the policy, so the feedback from the community has been important in shaping DHS’s work.

But at the end of the day, when you have immigration law that’s broken and you have a community of 10 million, 11 million people living and working in the United States illegally, some of these things are going to happen. Even if the law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children.

They don’t have to like it, but it is a result of having a broken system of laws. And the answer to that problem is reforming the law, making sure that we have an immigration system that works here. You can’t fix the heartbreaking things that happen as a result of immigration enforcement just through enforcement policy. You have to fix that by reforming the law, and that requires the Congress to act, which is why the president has been pushing them so hard.

Why has the Obama administration essentially made it a goal to deport those 400,000 people a year?

The Congress has made that goal.

But the administration is overseeing that.

Well, right. The Congress appropriates funds to remove roughly 400,000 people a year, and our application is to expend those funds in the wisest possible way. That’s how it all works.

But do you believe that goals, these kind of quotas, this number puts undo pressure on ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] field agents to meet that quota?

Again, it’s like any other law that Congress passes and appropriates the funds to execute, and the agency’s job is to use those funds to implement the law.

This isn’t a judgment that’s being made at ICE. This is an obligation that is being placed upon us by the Congress. How we do it matters a lot, and I think it’s to DHS’s credit that they have built a strategy that makes sense, that it is appropriate from a law enforcement perspective.

But again, we have a system of laws that I think everybody acknowledges is broken, doesn’t work terribly well, and in order to fix that, Congress needs to act, and the president has been urging them to do that. The president has been engaged in that conversation with folks in Congress since we got here, and we have to keep that conversation going until we fix it. We’re not going to be able to fix it through enforcement policy.

We’ve spoken to several high-level ICE agents who told us that if they don’t meet these deportation goals, then they pay a very high price in Washington. Is that true?

Congress passes the laws, appropriates the funds for implementing the laws, and the federal agency’s job is to do what the Congress has told them to do. That’s how a democracy works. So yes, this is what the agency is for.

But again, rather than executing a strategy that says we’ll just go after anybody we can find out of this population of 10 million or 11 million people, what DHS is doing is saying we’re going to have some priorities about this, and we’re going to have a system that makes sense. And those are important tools in enforcing the law. But they are not sufficient tools for fixing what’s broken about the law. For that, Congress needs to act, and we need immigration reform.

The president seems to have calculated that tougher enforcement might convince conservatives to support comprehensive immigration reform, but it seems now that the GOP is as intransigent as ever. So has the president now basically ended up enacting the Republican agenda on immigration?

What the president is doing is enforcing the law of the land. That’s our obligation as a federal government. There’s no quid pro quo, there is no negotiation that has happened here. Congress passes a series of laws, appropriates the funds to enforce those laws, and the executive branch’s job is to enforce them.

How we do it matters. And DHS has made some very important strides forward in making sure that they do that wisely and well. They have responded to community input and will continue to do that. But in the end, the problem here is that we have a broken system of laws and we have to fix it, and that requires an act of Congress.

I want to read something that then-candidate Obama said about immigration reform on the campaign trail. He said: “When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids — when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel,” he said, “when all of this is happening, the system isn’t working, and we need to change it.” But isn’t that exactly what’s going on today?

I was there when he said that, and that’s exactly why we need to reform immigration law. The point he was making when he said that is that the system is broken, and he was right; it is. That doesn’t mean he can say to the Congress, “I am not going to bother to enforce the law because it’s broken.” That’s not how a democracy works.What it means is that we need to be working, as we are working all across the country with every possible stakeholder, lifting every pair of hands and every possible voice to get the job done of reforming the law. That requires congressional action, and we went from the situation where we had bipartisan support for immigration reform, which passed the Senate in 2006, to an environment now where we have no rapport, no support on the Republican side for immigration reform.

And until we get to a place where we can have a bipartisan debate, we’re going to continue to have a broken system. And that’s unacceptable. The president has talked a lot about why it’s not just a moral imperative or a legal imperative; it’s an economic imperative to fix our immigration system. This is not something we can afford to kick down the road and do when it’s more comfortable.

We have a real sense of urgency about reforming this law because it’s the right thing to do for the country, because it’s an economic imperative, and because all of the work that we’re doing to build a robust economy of the future is undermined when we are trying to build it on top of a broken immigration system. This is something we’ve got to fix, and soon.

I’m going to quote from a longtime supporter of candidate Barack Obama, Nena Torres, objecting to some of the high levels of deportations. This is what she said to us. She said: “It’s shameful, and it’s shameful that it is being done by someone who is a civil rights attorney and someone who understood grassroots communities and someone who sold himself as part of the great American immigrant narrative. I don’t think I ever contemplated the fact that he would be worse than any other president of the United States on the issue of immigration.”

This president is committed to an immigration system that works, that deals with the population of immigrants that is here in the country, and that deals with making sure that immigrants who come to this country come legally. We are a long way from having that kind of system. What we have now, I think, is something that everybody agrees doesn’t work.

The way to fix it is legislative. Now, the president has been very clear on that, and it’s been a priority since we got here. In order to get to the kind of reform that’s going to be effective, that’s going to make sure that the immigrants who come to this country come legally, that’s going to make sure we don’t have a population of 10 or 11 million people without immigration status in this country, we need Congress to act. It’s not something that the president can do by himself.

And the president has been deeply engaged with all kinds of constituencies to make sure that we’re lifting every voice and every pair of hands to create the sense of urgency outside of Washington that we feel here in the White House to get this done.

Define the worst of the worst, the immigrants that you believe should be targeted for deportation. Who are they exactly?

These are folks who are convicted of serious crimes, quite literally people that, under immigration law but also under criminal law, these people who have been convicted of the most serious crimes, crimes that I think people of goodwill would agree are serious enough to merit someone being expelled from the country.

But as I said, it’s also true that of the people that are removed from the country, a great number of them are also recent arrivals, and as those are part of DHS’s priorities.

So DHS’s priorities include serious criminals. They also include people who are trying to enter at the border, because part of their job is to create a deterrent. And it also includes people who are previously deported and re-entered, because that’s a felony under immigration law.

So it’s important to present the whole picture that DHS has embarked on strategies to go after the folks convicted of the most serious crimes. But they are also removing folks at the border, and they are also removing folks who are previous deportees. And that is what makes up the roughly 400,000 that get removed every year.

While the Obama administration has been in power, we have spoken with two families where mothers of young children in one case, and of five children in another case, that are in the process — one has been deported; the other one is in the process of being deported. So when you think about mothers who are being served with a traffic violation and that they end up being deported, is this a definition of the priority person who should be deported to that country?

This is exactly what DHS is working to change.

In June they announced — actually going back to 2010 — DHS established what is called the civil enforcement memo [PDF], which establishes the priorities that I’ve described, that prioritizes people who are convicted of the most serious crimes. In June of 2011 they issued what is called a prosecutorial discretion memo [PDF], which illustrates more [clearly] how officials up and down the chain of command in the law enforcement system should use their discretion to focus on folks who are our highest priorities, and not focus on lower priorities.

And then again in August they announced that DHS and DOJ [Department of Justice] are reviewing the entire deportation caseload, because there are 300,000 people in it. It is seriously backlogged. That prevents us from using our resources to go after the most serious criminals, and the folks who are our highest priorities will stay in the deportation pipeline, and the folks who are not will not.

Those are all policy developments which are based on the principle, and if you’re doing law enforcement, you focus your resources where they’re going to have the greatest impact and not on folks that are of a low value for enforcement purposes.So these are incredibly important developments. They are unprecedented developments with respect to this agency. They are smart law enforcement, and they are more consistent with our values. Those are incredibly important changes.

DHS really has done this in collaboration with the law enforcement community, in collaboration with some of the states who are raising concerns and in collaboration with some of the community organizations who are raising concerns.

So these are incredibly important developments in how immigration laws are enforced, but they cannot by themselves fix the fact that our immigration system is broken, and in order to fix it we need Congress to step up to the plate.

Would you say, at this point, that there is a sense that this president is himself lost in detention, basically boxed into a situation where he himself is lost in this detention system?

The president is very, very clear on where he is on immigration. This is a law which is broken and needs to be reformed. He has made it very clear how he intends to reform it. There is a blueprint that is up on the White House’s website [PDF] for anybody who wants to see it.

He is working incredibly hard to find the congressional parties he needs in order to reform this law. He needs somebody on the other side of the aisle to step forward, including from among those on the other side of the aisle who have voted for immigration reform before, in the United States Senate, and he’s going to continue to press until we can get legislation through the Congress.

Cecilia, have you gone to the immigrant detention centers?

I have. I have been working on immigration policy for 25 years, so I am well familiar with immigration enforcement.

So, since your role now at the White House, you have visited?

I haven’t since I came to the White House, but I have in the past. I am quite familiar with how the immigration enforcement system works.

But if you’re in change of overseeing immigration, wouldn’t you want to be seeing what’s happening now by going into these detention centers and seeing what’s happening there?

It’s very important to have a deep understanding of the whole enforcement system. I work on immigration policy for the administration closely with the agencies that administer it. And in the end the solution here is a reform law, and I’ve been working on that for most of my career.

In fact, you received a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award [in 2000] for your work on immigration.

I did.

So how do you see your MacArthur genius award given that now you work for an administration that has deported more people than any other president in history?

You know, everybody in the immigration arena has a role to play, and it’s incredibly important that the people who are advocates in the community be able to talk to the people in government who are responsible for enforcing the law. We each have our responsibilities in this arena, and it’s important that everybody do their job wisely and well. It’s incredibly important that folks in government be able to do their job wisely and well.

When DHS says we’re going to move from an environment where we are just going after anybody we can find among the 10 million people who are here illegally and instead [are] applying a strategy, saying we’re going to be selective about who we go after, and we’re going to focus on the people who have committed serious crimes, that is an incredibly important policy development, and it’s the kind of policy development, again, that reasonable people on all sides of this debate agree is the right strategy for enforcing the law.

So it’s incredibly important that everybody engaged who is a stakeholder be able to have that conversation, and that the folks administering the laws in the federal government do as well informed a job and as wise a job as possible.

How concerned is the president about the issue that his perceived inaction on the issue of immigration by stakeholders in the community, specifically Latinos — who are very now disenchanted with the president, we’ve heard — how concerned is the president of the cost that this might have on his own re-election if he loses the Latino support?

He knows people are frustrated and shares that frustration enormously. He wants to get this fixed as much as anybody because it’s the right thing for the country, and he’s going to stay focused on fixing what’s broken about our immigration system by passing a new law with the Congress because it’s the right thing for the country. That’s what motivates him.

And that’s why his marching orders to his team are so clear, and he’s going to keep at it until we find the partners we need in the Congress to get this job done.

We’ve investigated detainee abuse at the Willacy detention facility in Texas — a record number of sexual abuse, beatings, racist name calling, cover-ups, attempts to investigate the abuses, intransigence to change. It’s a pretty miserable record for an administration that is saying that it wants to reform the system.

The detention system has been broken for a very, very long time. That did not start with this administration, and Secretary [of Homeland Security Janet] Napolitano, when she came onboard [in 2009], one of the very first things she did was bring on staff with experience in reforming what happens in detention systems. One of the first things they did was take a thorough look at what happens in immigration detention systems.

The materials that they prepared and the recommendations are, I think, part of the public record for well over a year now, and so this is something that she takes very seriously, and where the standards have begun to change and improvements have begun to be felt, we’re not finished.

We have a long way to go, but that is something that the secretary took on as a priority really on day one.

And so when you hear people say, how many more mothers, how many more fathers will this president allow to be deported who are noncriminals, what’s that number?

The question that we’re asking is, how long is the Congress of the United States going to allow this broken system to continue before it finally takes action? We are ready. We have put the policy together; we know exactly what needs to change, and we are working with everybody we can find in the business community, in the law enforcement community, in state and local governments, in the faith community, to create the space for the partners that we need in the Congress to come forward and help us reform this law.

And we are going to keep at it no matter how long it takes, because it’s so vital to this country’s future.

The president said that he was going to support immigration reform in a big way in his first year in office. And that didn’t happen.

Well, he did support immigration reform in a big way in his first year.

The reform didn’t happen.

The reform didn’t happen because it requires action on the part of the Congress of the United States, which did not take it up. We had long conversations with a bipartisan group in the Senate about bringing a bill forward. They asked us religiously [for] the language, which the administration gave them.

And at the end of the day, we could not persuade any bipartisan — even [a] pair [of legislators] — in the Senate to come forward with a bill. So as a result of that experience, we started taking the conversation outside of Washington, and we’re working with stakeholders all over the country.

We have mayors in Georgia doing roundtables. We have business leaders in the Silicon Valley doing events. We have labor leaders. We have faith leaders all over the country lifting this issue up in partnership with the administration to create the political space that’s needed for the folks on the other side of the aisle who we need to come forward to help us get this job done. And we will keep at it until we get this job done.

One last thing: You continue to say that this is a presidency that wants to follow the rule of law, but if this presidency came into power and there was a law that said that all gay people had to ride in the back of the bus, or all black people had to ride in the back of the bus, would this president say, “Well, I have a problem with that law, but I have to enforce it”?

There’s more than one example of laws that are not what we would have done in this administration that the president has been working on to fix. Immigration law is one. The other is the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy which was the law, and which we worked ultimately with the Congress to change.

This is how democracy works. It requires support around the country. It requires support among our elected officials, and it requires legislation. And that’s what we have to do in order to change immigration laws. It’s what we had to do to change the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. We are working on other fronts in similar ways, because that’s how democracy works.

Record deportations of illegal immigrants under Obama

2011-10-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

By Jordy Yager - 10/18/11 02:31 PM ET

The U.S. deported more people — nearly 400,000 — who were in the country illegally in fiscal 2011 than ever before, according to the latest numbers released Tuesday by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau.Of the 396,906 people removed from the U.S., more than half of them — 216,698 —had been previously convicted of felony or misdemeanor crimes, according to the ICE numbers, which boast a 90 percent increase in the number of criminals deported over those in fiscal 2008.

ICE Director John Morton attributed this jump to the agency’s newly revamped discretionary policy that allows agents to focus their resources on removing illegal immigrants they deem to be a more imposing threat to society over those who are in the country illegally but are not violating other laws."

Smart and effective immigration enforcement relies on setting priorities for removal and executing on those priorities," Morton said in a statement.“

These year-end totals indicate that we are making progress, with more convicted criminals, recent border crossers, egregious immigration law violators and immigration fugitives being removed from the country than ever before,” he said.

Republicans have criticized the White House’s new enforcement policies, which allow immigration officers to place an emphasis on arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes over those who are in the country illegally but have not been arrested for other crimes. Republicans say this is a backdoor path to citizenship.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, said earlier this month that the rising number of deportations show her agency is doing its job to enforce the law.“

We cannot, on the one hand, be on the verge of removing, for the third consecutive year, a record-breaking number of unlawful individuals from this country with the highest number of criminal removals in American history and, at the same time, be abrogating our law enforcement responsibilities,” Napolitano said during a talk at American University.

ICE said that of the criminals deported, 1,119 had been convicted of committing a homicide, 5,848 had been convicted of sexual offenses, and 44,653 aliens had been convicted of drug related crimes.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) strongly objected to ICE’s announcement, saying that the White House’s policies have torn apart families and are symptomatic of an “uncontrolled” Department of Homeland Security (DHS).“

All told, this administration has deported nearly 1.2 million people, leaving a wake of devastation in Latino communities across the nation,” said Joanne Lin, ACLU’s legislative counsel.

“These record-breaking deportation numbers come at a time when illegal immigration rates have plummeted, the undocumented population has decreased substantially and violent crime rates are at their lowest levels in 40 years. Our country can no longer afford to pay for uncontrolled, unwarranted DHS spending at the cost to U.S. taxpayers,” Lin said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Tuesday that he planned to ask Napolitano about the new ICE policies during Wednesday’s hearing.

“The Obama policies may be an impermissible intrusion on Congress’s plenary authority over immigration law,” said Grassley, speaking at Judicial Watch. “They’re pushing the envelope for sure and there’s little transparency in their actions.”

Source: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/188241-ice-announces-record-breaking-deportations

US expelled 397,000 undocumented migrants in year

2011-10-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

AFP – Wed, Oct 12, 2011

US authorities deported 397,000 undocumented immigrants, of which 210,000 had criminal records in the fiscal year just concluded, the top immigration enforcer told lawmakers Wednesday.

John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), offered the figure at a congressional hearing, which would outpace the records of 390,000 illegals and 195,000 with criminal records in the prior fiscal year.

"The numbers are quite strong," he told the House Judiciary Committee.

Morton said that with "limited resources," his agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, is focusing on "priority" cases -- including those who pose dangers to public safety or who are fugitives from justice.

Also in this category are persons crossing the border from Mexico, in some cases returning after being sent back.

In the face of questions about the administration's toughness on immigration, Morton said ICE had held some 25,000 hearings for businesses suspected of hiring illegals, and had arrested 217 employers along with 15,000 undocumented workers, and had imposed $6 million in fines in the fiscal year ended September 30.

Committee chairman Lamar Smith told the hearing, however, that the administration "doesn't often take enforcement of ICE's immigration laws seriously enough."

He argued that officials "intentionally allowed illegal immigrants to remain in the United States" by using "backdoor amnesty through administrative action even if it can't get congressional approval."

Smith said the claim that ICE is focusing on priority cases is "just a slick way of saying they don't want to enforce immigration laws. ICE has shown little interest in actually deporting illegal immigrants who have not yet been convicted of what they call 'serious' crimes."

Governor Brown signs California Dream Act

2011-10-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

The law grants illegal immigrants access to state aid at public universities and colleges. It is one of 50 education-related bills weighed by the governor.

By Patrick McGreevy and Anthony York, Los Angeles Times
October 9, 2011
Reporting from Sacramento

Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday granted illegal immigrants access to state financial aid at public universities and community colleges, putting California once again in the center of the nation's immigration debate.

But he vetoed a measure that would have allowed state universities to consider applicants' race, gender and income to ensure diversity in their student populations.

Deciding the fate of 50 education-related bills, the governor also rejected an effort to make it more difficult to establish charter schools. But he accepted a move to improve college life for gays, lesbians and bisexual and transgender people and a measure to restrict the privatization of libraries.

None of the other proposals, however, has drawn the attention — or rancor — surrounding the California Dream Act. Most Republican legislators voted against it, and anti-illegal-immigration groups denounced it as unfair.

Brown's signature on the bill fulfilled a campaign promise to allow high-achieving students who want to become citizens the opportunity to attend college, regardless of their immigration status."

Going to college is a dream that promises intellectual excitement and creative thinking," Brown said in a statement. "The Dream Act benefits us all by giving top students a chance to improve their lives and the lives of all of us."

Beginning in 2013, illegal immigrants accepted by state universities may receive assistance from Cal-Grants, a public program that last year provided aid to more than 370,000 low-income students.

The new law also makes students who are not legally in the country eligible for institutional grants while attending the University of California and California State University systems.

And it permits them to obtain fee waivers in the community college system.Students must graduate from a California high school after attending school in the state for at least three years and must affirm that they are in the process of applying to legalize their immigration status. They also must show financial need and meet academic standards.

The bill was by Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), who praised Brown for showing courage in signing it."

After having invested 12 years in the high school education of these young men and women, who are here through no fault of their own," Cedillo said, "it's the smartest thing for us to do to permit these students to get scholarships and be treated like every other student."

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles, said Saturday was "a great day for California, for education and for immigrant students who have kept their end of the bargain and continue to give their best to the only nation they know as their home."

But Republican lawmakers and conservative groups assailed Brown for approving AB 131.

"It's morally wrong," said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-San Bernardino). "We have just created a new entitlement that is going to cause tens of thousands of people to come here illegally from all over the world."

Donnelly said he plans a referendum drive to repeal the legislation and believes the issue will hurt Democrats in next year's elections.

Assemblyman Curt Hagman (R-Chino Hills) said Brown's signature "absolutely sends the wrong message. It says if you violate the law, it's OK."

Also opposed is the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national group pressing for a crackdown on illegal arrivals. Spokeswoman Kristen Williamson called the bill "a reckless use of taxpayer money" at a time when the state is broke, has raised tuition and has cut many services to legal residents.

Brown downplayed the cost to taxpayers. He said the California Department of Finance estimates 2,500 additional students will qualify for Cal-Grants as a result of the Dream Act, at a cost of $14.5 million.

The Cal-Grant program costs $1.4 billion, so about 1% of all Cal-Grant funds could be affected, the governor said.

But the community college fee waivers and institutional grants will likely increase the price tag. A Senate committee analysis has predicted that new costs resulting from the legislation would be $40 million a year, all told.

Brown signed another bill related to undocumented students Saturday, AB 844 by Assemblyman Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens). It allows them to serve in student government on public campuses and receive grants, fee waivers and expenses for doing so.

The governor's actions came while Congress is gridlocked over immigration reform and followed efforts by other states, including Arizona, Georgia and Alabama, to tighten laws on illegal immigration. But in 2001, Texas Gov. Rick Perry allowed undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public universities. And earlier this year, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn approved private financial aid for undocumented students and allowed them to enroll in state tuition savings programs."

There's division of opinion among the states about what to do about immigration," said Kevin Johnson, dean of UC Davis School of Law. "We will continue to get these types of differences until Congress comes up with some kind of federal immigration reform and starts to answer some of those questions in a national, as opposed to a state, way."

In California, the legislation that would have allowed the UC and Cal State systems to factor race and gender into admissions decisions was also controversial.

Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) said he wrote the bill, SB 185, to avert a clash with a 1996 voter-approved prohibition against preferential treatment for minorities in public institutions. Brown's veto statement said he agreed with the goal of the bill and noted that, as California's attorney general, he had argued that courts should allow universities to consider race to the extent allowed by the U.S. Constitution.

But "our constitutional system of separation of powers," he wrote Saturday, "requires that the courts — not the Legislature — determine the limits of Proposition 209," the measure voters passed.

The governor also vetoed AB 86, which would have required at least half of the classified staff at a school to sign petitions for it to become a charter. Brown, who started two charter schools in Oakland, said in his veto message to Assemblyman Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) that charter schools are already hard to establish and even more difficult to maintain.

Brown signed AB 438, by Assemblyman Das Williams (D-Santa Barbara), restricting the privatization of public libraries, a growing trend as municipal governments have fallen on hard times. Those that are privatized must continue to pay government wages.

The governor also approved a measure by Assemblyman Marty Block (D-San Diego) that will encourage state university systems to collect data on students' sexual orientation and encourage the legislative analyst to use it to recommend improvements in the quality of life for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. That bill is AB 620.

Arnold Jaffe Speaks on Television Program

2011-09-22T11:59:00.000-07:00

-----Original Message-----
From: William Smithers
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 5:40 PM
To: Arnold Jaffe
Subject: Your "Just Between Us!" interview is a WAVE finalist!

Dear Mr. Jaffe,

Lorrie and I would like you to know that your interview with us for our Channel 17 television program "Just Between Us!" is one of two of our shows- among three finalists - that have been nominated for the 2011 WAVE (Western Access Video Excellence) Award in the category "Talk Show- Issues (Community Producer)." Award winners will be announced in San Jose on October 8, 2011.

The interview is available at our website:
http://SB-JustBetweenUs.com
via the "Directory of TV Interviews" page.

Friends, family, co-workers and clients who did not see the original broadcast or who would like to see it again may do so there.

I would think that the League of Women Voters, at whose lecture program I first saw you, would be interested to know this.

Very best wishes from Lorrie and me,

Bill Smithers

Improving the Naturalization Process

2011-09-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

September 19, 2011

Washington D.C. - Citizenship Day, which was celebrated this past Saturday, September 17, is a good time to reflect on the naturalization process and the need for better integration policies in America. Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases, Improving the Naturalization Process: Better Immigrant Integration Leads to Economic Growth, by Mary Giovagnoli, Esq.

Becoming a citizen is hard work. A new country, new rules, high costs, and little targeted support for new immigrants makes what should be a journey of exploration and opportunity one that may be frustrating and lonely. Integration is an often overlooked but key component of U.S. immigration policy. Successful integration of immigrants fuels their success, strengthens communities, and builds bridges between newcomers and other community members.

Time and again, an influx of immigrants has been shown to reverse economic decline and breathe new life into urban areas, small towns, and rural communities. Moreover, integration can be a key to entrepreneurship and future economic growth. Solid integration policies offer benefits to both the immigrant and the receiving community. The investment in immigrants, therefore, is an investment in the country’s own well-being.

To read the piece in its entirety, see:

Improving the Naturalization Process: Better Immigrant Integration Leads to Economic Growth by Mary Giovagnoli, Esq.

Deportation Program Sows Mistrust, U.S. Is Told

2011-09-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

September 15, 2011

By JULIA PRESTON

A task force advising an Obama administration deportation program has sharply criticized immigration officials for creating confusion about its purposes and has found that the program had an “unintended negative impact” on public safety in local communities.

In a report on the program, known as Secure Communities, the task force said that the program had eroded public trust by leading to the detention of many immigrants who had not committed serious crimes, after officials said its aim was to remove “the worst of the worst” immigrant criminals from the United States. The task force report was completed Wednesday. The report also said that immigration officials had created tensions with local authorities by making inconsistent statements on whether states and cities were required to participate.

In the most significant of its recommendations, the task force said that fingerprint identifications through the program should no longer lead federal agents to deport immigrants arrested by local police officers for minor traffic violations. The task force, which included law enforcement chiefs from four major cities as well as immigrant advocates and state homeland security officials, urged Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that operates the program, to start over to “reintroduce” it in many places where local opposition had swelled.

The report added to the controversy surrounding the Secure Communities program, a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s efforts to curb illegal immigration by deporting as many as 400,000 foreigners a year.

John Morton, the director of the immigration agency, named the task force in June to channel and address resistance from state officials, local police chiefs and immigrant organizations. But in the final hours of work on the report, new dissension arose in the task force. Five of its 19 members, including all three who represented labor unions, resigned on Wednesday rather than endorse the final report.

The report shows that divisions persisted among the remaining members of the diverse group. Some thought the program was too deeply flawed to continue. Others, especially the police officials, argued that information-sharing among law enforcement agencies under the program was too vital to halt.

Under Secure Communities, fingerprints collected from anyone arrested by local or state police are checked against F.B.I. criminal databases — a routine police procedure — and also through Department of Homeland Security databases, which record immigration violations. After initiating the program in 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has extended it across about half of the country, recently to growing outcry.

Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, who was the task force chairman, said there was a “strong consensus” in the group that Secure Communities should focus on deporting serious and violent felons. But many local police officials told the task force that the program had eroded trust between them and immigrant communities by leaving the impression that they were engaged in enforcing federal immigration laws. Some communities had become reluctant to report crimes.

“You can’t mix in low-level offenders and not lose credibility in the communities,” Mr. Wexler said. In four public hearings, the task force learned of many cases of illegal immigrants stopped by the police for minor traffic offenses — or, in some cases, for no offense at all — who were swept into deportation after being flagged by a Secure Communities check.

“To the extent that Secure Communities may damage community policing,” the task force report found, “the result can be greater levels of crime.”

The task force said immigration officials had made confusing statements about the legal authorities underpinning the program. After initially suggesting that state officials could delay their participation, administration officials now say they are required to extend the program nationwide by 2013.

The task force said the immigration agency should make broader and far more systematic use of prosecutorial discretion to concentrate its resources on deporting convicted criminals.

In a letter submitted Wednesday, representatives of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and two unions of immigration officers said they were resigning from the task force because the final report “demonstrates a clear absence of our voice.” They did not detail their disagreements.

Arturo Venegas, the former police chief of Sacramento, and director of the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative, a police organization, said in a resignation letter that the recommendations did not go far enough to ensure that immigrants detained for minor offenses would not be deported. A representative of the National Immigration Forum, an advocacy group, also resigned. Roberto Villaseñor, the police chief of Tucson, Ariz., and a task force member who did endorse the report, said the police had to continue sharing fingerprints with the immigration authorities. “I don’t think that as law enforcement we should turn away from that,” he said.

Mr. Morton said he would meet with the task force members who resigned to hear their concerns.

Rethinking Conventional Wisdom on Border Security

2011-09-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

September 12, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases two “Perspectives” on border enforcement: How to Fix a Broken Border: Hit the Cartels Where It Hurts, part one of a three-part series by Terry Goddard, former Arizona Attorney General, and Guns, Drugs, and Money: Tackling the Real Threats to Border Security, by Josiah Heyman, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Texas, El Paso.

Terry Goddard argues in How to Fix a Broken Border: Hit the Cartels Where It Hurts that “much of the ‘secure the border’ debate is nonsense. Again and again, symbols trump reality, misinformation buries the truth. Programs like building a bigger border wall or enlisting police in the local enforcement of immigration laws are sold as ways to make the border more secure. They will not.” According to Goddard, our border-enforcement resources should be deployed not against unauthorized immigrants, but against the criminal cartels in Mexico that control the smuggling of people, drugs, guns, and money across the border. “A more effective border strategy starts with the…torrent of cash pouring across the border into the cartel pocketbooks. So, go after the money. Taking away the profit cripples the organization. Conversely, as long as the money from drug sales and human smuggling—which may total more than $40 billion a year—flows to the cartels, the violence in Mexico, the sophisticated smugglers crossing our border, and the perception that nothing is being done to defend the border will continue.”

Josiah Heyman argues in Guns, Drugs and Money: Tackling the Real Threats to Border Security that: “1) the U.S. border communities themselves are secure; 2) the main risks to that security are potential, not actual—stemming from the dangers posed by criminal organizations, not by migrants or international terrorists; and 3) there is a mis-prioritization of resources away from ports of entry toward migration enforcement.” Heyman recommends that the federal government “take an intelligence-driven approach to homeland security, rather than a mass migration enforcement approach.” And he recommends that the government “shift resources from enforcement in between ports of entry (border patrolling, fences/walls, drones, etc.) to ports of entry, the higher likelihood travel path for guns, drugs, assassins, and terrorists.”

To view the papers in their entirety, see:

How to Fix a Broken Border: Hit the Cartels Where It Hurts, by Terry Goddard (IPC Perspectives, September 2012)

Guns, Drugs, and Money: Tackling the Real Threats to Border Security, by Josiah Heyman (IPC Perspectives, September 2012)

Who May Qualify to Remain in U.S. Under New Obama Immigration Policy

2011-09-05T17:08:00.000-07:00

The president [on August 18] made a major shift in immigration policy, announcing that the administration might allow many of the 300,000 illegally immigrants currently facing deportation to remain in the country.

The White House announced that it would use more discretion and review deportation cases on an individual basis, possibly sparing those who aren’t deemed a true threat to public safety. Here’s an article from WSJ’s Miriam Jordan announcing the policy shift.

So, under the president’s new case-by-case approach to deportation, what type of folks stand an improved chance of remaining in the U.S. ? The administration fortunately has provided some guidance.

We start with a statement posted to the White House blog from Cecilia Munoz, the White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs.

“There are more than 10 million people who are in the U.S. illegally; it’s clear that we can’t deport such a large number,” she writes. “So the Administration has developed a strategy to make sure we use those resources in a way that puts public safety and national security first.”In deciding who to deport, Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department will apply “common sense guidelines,” Munoz writes. She links to a June 17, 2011 memo written by John Morton, director of U.S. Custom and Immigration Enforcement, which spells out the sort guidelines that will be used.

In deciding whether to prosecute an individual, Morton writes, immigration officials should consider such factors as:

the person’s length of presence in the United States;

the circumstances of the person’s arrival in the United States, particularly if the alien came to the United States as a young child;

the person’s pursuit of education in the United States, with particular consideration given to those who have graduated from a U.S. high school or have successfully pursued or are pursuing a college or advanced degrees at a legitimate institution;

whether the person, or the person’s immediate relative, has served in the U.S. military, reserves, or national guard;

the person’s criminal history, including arrests, prior convictions, or outstanding arrest warrants;

the person’s ties and contributions to the community, including family relationships;

the person’s age, with particular consideration given to minors and the elderly;

whether the person has a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, child, or parent;

whether the person is the primary caretaker of a person with a mental or physical disability, minor, or seriously ill relative;

whether the person or the person’s spouse is pregnant or nursing.

Morton cautions that the list of factors he provides is not exhaustive and that no one factor is determinative of whether a person will stay or go.

A senior administration official told WSJ that the new immigration policy is designed to make better use of limited immigration-enforcement resources and to help ease overburdened immigration courts. But a natural question that arises is whether immigration authorities, with their limited resources, will have the bandwidth to make the sort of case-by-case deportation determinations called for by the new policy.

Thanks to Victor Nieblas for providing the information above.
**

ADVICE FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT IN DEPORTATION PROCEEDINGS (OR HAVE A PENDING DEPORTATION ORDER)

1. undocumented immigrants who are not in deportation proceedings can NOT get a work permit
2. undocumented immigrants, who are not in deportation proceedings or have a deportation order, should NOT pay even one dollar to an attorney or consultant to try to benefit from this policy. ALERTA! NO HAGA CASO A LOS QUE LE PROMETEN UN PERMISO DE TRABAJO O LEGALIZACION SI UD. LE PAGA DINERO. ESTO NO ES UNA AMNISTIA O LEGALIZACION!!

ADVICE FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE IN DEPORTATION PROCEEDINGS (BUT DO NOT HAVE AN ADMINISTRATIVELY FINAL DEPORTATION ORDER

DHS/ICE, principally through the who represent ICE in deportation cases, will review the 300,000 cases of people currently in deportation (removal) proceedings to determine which cases should be administratively closed.

There is a possibility (but not a guarantee) that persons whose cases are closed will be able to apply for a work permit.

There are no ICE guidelines or procedures written specifically for the implementation of this new policy.

One group which was specifically mentioned as worthy of favorable prosecutorial discretion and the closing of their cases are young people who meet the requirements for the DREAM Act. See the part in bold above.

DHS said that it wanted to focus deportation proceedings on those who have committed crimes which represent a danger to the community. We don’t know yet if ICE is likely to close cases of immigrants in deportation proceedings who have an arrest or conviction for driving without a license.

If a person is in deportation proceedings and does not have a lawyer, she should obtain one soon.

If the person is in deportation proceedings and has a lawyer, she does not need to contact the lawyer in most cases before November 1st….

…unless the person has an immigration court hearing before January 1, 2012 or…

..unless there is something the lawyer and client are supposed to file soon (such as a notice of appeal or an application).

ADVICE FOR PEOPLE WHO ALREADY HAVE A DEPORTATION ORDER BUT NEVER LEFT

Obtain a consultation with a good immigration attorney, show the attorney as many of the papers in your case that you have, and definitely bring your “A number”

It is less clear how this new policy will apply to people who already have a deportation order.

Quién Puede Calificar para Permanecer en los E.U. Bajo la Nueva Política de Inmigración de Obama?

2011-09-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

Por Mark Silverman, Immigrant Legal Resource Center

** LOS UNICOS QUE PODRIAN BENEFICIAR DE ESTA NUEVA POLITICA SON LOS QUE ESTAN EN PROCESO DE DEPORTACION, PRINCIPALMENTE EN LA CORTE DE INMIGRACION.

LOS QUE NO ESTAN EN UN CASO DE DEPORTACION NO PUEDEN OBTENER UN PERMISO NI BENEFICIAR EN NINGUNA MANERA DE ESTA NUEVA POLITICA.
EJEMPLO DE DOS AMIGOS:

ERNESTO ENTREGADO YA ESTA EN EL PROCESO DE DEPORTACION PORQUE TIENE UN CASO EN LA CORTE DE INMIGRACION.

· No tiene ORDEN de deportación, pero tiene un caso de deportación en la corte de inmigración en San Francisco.
· ERNESTO PODRIA BENEFICIAR DE ESTA NUEVA POLITICA. Los abogados de ICE deben revisar su caso para decidir si van a cerrar el caso.
· Si cierran su caso, Ernesto ya no tendra riesgo de deportación y TAL VEZ puede obtener un permiso de trabajo – aunque esto no es claro todavía.

ISRAEL INCOGNITO NO ESTA EN EL PROCESO DE DEPORTACION. No tiene un caso en la corte de inmigración, ISRAEL NO PODRIA BENEFICIAR DE ESTA NUEVA POLITICA.**

El presidente hizo [el 18 de agosto] un cambio en política de inmigración, anunciando que la administración podría permitir que muchos de los 300,000 inmigrantes ilegales que actualmente enfrentan el proceso de deportación permanecer en el país.

La Casa Blanca anunció que usaría más discreción y revisión de los casos de deportación individualmente, preservando posiblemente a aquellos que no son considerados como una verdadera amenaza a la seguridad pública. Aquí está un artículo de Miriam Jordan del Wall Street Journal anunciando el cambio de política.

Así, bajo la nueva vía de acceso a la deportación caso-por-caso del presidente, qué tipo de gente tiene una mejor oportunidad de permanecer en los E.U.? Afortunadamente la administración ha proveído cierta guía.

Comenzamos con un comunicado puesto en el blog (vía internet) de la Casa Blanca de parte de Cecilia Muñoz, Directora de Asuntos Intergubernamentales de la Casa Blanca.

“Hay más de 10 millones de gente que están en los E.U. ilegalmente; está claro que no podemos deportar a tan grande número," escribe ella. “Por lo tanto, la Administración ha desarrollado una estrategia para asegurar que usemos aquellos recursos de una manera que ponga a la seguridad pública y la seguridad nacional primero."

En cuanto a decidir a quien deportar, el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional y el Departamento de Justicia aplicarán "directivas de sentido común," escribe Muñoz. Ella hace una liga (enlace) con un memo del 17 de junio, 2011 escrito por John Morton, Director de la Implementación de leyes de Aduana e Inmigración de los E.U., el cual deletrea la clase de directivas o principios que serán usados.

Al decidir si se procesa a un individuo, Morton escribe, los oficiales de inmigración deberían de considerar factores tales como:

el tiempo que la persona ha estado presente en los Estados Unidos;

las circunstancias de la llegada de la persona a los Estados Unidos, particularmente si el extranjero vino a los Estados Unidos como un niño pequeño;

la búsqueda de educación de la persona en los Estados Unidos, dándole consideración particular a quienes se hayan graduado de una escuela preparatoria (high school) de los E.U., o que han buscado o están buscando exitosamente un colegio (universidad) o cursos avanzados en una institución legítima;

si la persona o los parientes cercanos a la persona, han servido en las fuerzas armadas, las reservas, o la guardia nacional de los E.U.;

la historia criminal de la persona, incluyendo arrestos, sentencias anteriores, u órdenes de arresto pendientes;

los vínculos y contribuciones de la persona a la comunidad, incluyendo relaciones familiares;

la edad de la persona, dando consideración particular a menores y a los ancianos;

si la persona tiene un/a esposa/o, hijo/a, o padre/madre ciudadano/a de los E.U. o residente permanente;

si la persona es el guarda principal de una persona con una incapacidad mental o física, un menor, o un pariente cercano seriamente enfermo;

si la persona o la esposa de la persona está embarazada o amamantando.

Morton advierte que la lista de factores que el proporciona no es exhaustiva y que ningún factor es determinante de si una persona permanece o se va.

Un oficial superior de la administración le dijo a WSJ (Wall Street Journal) que la nueva política de inmigración está diseñada para hacer un mejor uso de los limitados recursos que hay para implementar las leyes de inmigración y para ayudar a aligerar las sobrecargadas cortes de inmigración. Pero una pregunta natural que surge es si las autoridades de inmigración, con sus limitados recursos, tendrán la capacidad para clasificar las determinaciones de deportación caso-por-caso citadas por la nueva política.

CONSEJO PARA LA GENTE QUE NO ESTA EN PROCESO DE DEPORTACION

ALERTA! NO HAGA CASO A LOS QUE LE PROMETEN UN PERMISO DE TRABAJO O LEGALIZACION SI UD. LES PAGA DINERO. ESTO NO ES UNA AMNISTIA O LEGALIZACION!!

1. No pueden solicitar un permiso de trabajo ni beneficiar de esta nueva politica en ninguna manera.
2. No deben de pagar ni un sólo dólar a un abogado o consultor para tratar de beneficiarse de ésta política.

LO QUE PUEDEN HACER AHORA PARA PREPARAR EN CASO DE QUE ICE COMIENZA UN CASO DE DEPORTACION CONTRA USTED EN EL FUTURO

Ahorrar dinero para pagar una fianza.

Poner sus documentos en orden desde que entro a los Estados Unidos para mostrar su estancia aqui, como por ejemplo:
a. como todos sus documentos de rentas
b. cuentas bancarias
c. documentos de la escuela de usted o sus hijos,
d. pasaportes de usted y sus hijos
e. talones que cheques
f. archivos médicos,
g. partidas de nacimiento de sus hijos,
h. certificados de matrimonio
i. y cualquier otra prueba que verifique su entrada y presencia en los Estados Unidos.

CONSEJO PARA GENTE QUE ESTA EN PROCESO DE DEPORTACION

DHS/ICE, principalmente a través de quienes representan a ICE en casos de deportación, revisarán los 300,000 casos de la gente que actualmente está en proceso de (supresión) deportación para determinar cuales casos deberían de ser cerrados administrativamente.

Hay una posibilidad (pero no una garantía) de que personas cuyos casos están cerrados, podrán solicitar un permiso de trabajo.

No hay directivas o procedimientos de ICE escritos específicamente para la implementación de ésta nueva póliza o política.

Un grupo, el cual fué mencionado específicamente como merecedor de discreción favorable en el procesamiento y la conclusión o cierre de sus casos, son gente joven quienes reúnen los requerimientos para el DREAM Act o Acta del SUEÑO. Vea la parte en letra más obscura o remarcada arriba.

DHS (el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional) dijo que quería enfocar el proceso de deportación en aquellos que han cometido crímenes, los cuales representan un peligro para la comunidad. Aún no sabemos si es probable que ICE cierre casos de inmigrantes en proceso de deportación que tengan un arresto o sentencia por conducir sin licencia.

Si una persona está en proceso de deportación y no tiene un abogado, el/ella debería de obtener uno pronto.

CONSEJO PARA LA GENTE QUE YA TIENE UNA ORDEN DE DEPORTACION PERO QUE NUNCA SE FUE

Obtenga una consulta con un buen abogado de inmigración, muestre al abogado todos los papeles y documentos que tenga sobre su caso, y definitivamente traiga su “A number” (Número con USCIS, empieza con la letra A).

Está menos claro cómo ésta nueva política será aplicada a la gente que ya tiene una orden de deportación.

Gracias a Victor Nieblas por proveernos con parte de la información de arriba.

Federal judge blocks Alabama illegal immigration law

2011-08-31T17:15:00.000-07:00

By JAY REEVES - Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — 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 judge said she will issue a longer ruling by Sept. 28, and her temporary order will remain in effect until the day after. She heard arguments from the Justice Department and others during a daylong hearing last week.

Similar laws have been passed in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia. Federal judges already have blocked all or parts of the laws in those states.

Among other things, the law would require schools to verify the citizenship status of students, but it wouldn't prevent illegal immigrants from attending public schools.

The law also would make it a crime to knowingly assist an illegal immigrant by providing them a ride, a job, a place to live or most anything else — a section that church leaders fear would hamper public assistance ministries. It also would allow police to jail suspected illegal immigrants during traffic stops.

Finding a way to curtail public spending that benefits illegal immigrants has been a pet project of Alabama conservatives for years. Census figures released earlier this year show the state's Hispanic population more than doubled over a decade to 185,602 last year, and supporters of the law contend many of them are in the country illegally.

Isabel Rubio, executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, which is among the groups that sued over the law, hopes Blackburn will block it entirely but was happy with the temporary reprieve."

We are pleased that Judge Blackburn is taking more time to study the case," she said.

Republican Gov. Robert Bentley said he would continue to defend the law, and GOP leaders in the House and Senate praised Blackburn — a Republican appointee — for taking time to fully consider the law."

We must remember that today's ruling is simply the first round in what promises to be a long judicial fight over Alabama's right to protect its borders," said House Majority Leader Micky Hammon of Decatur. "To put it in sports terms, it is the first half-inning of the first game of a seven-game World Series."

While the Obama administration contends the state law conflicts with federal immigration law, state Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, contends the federal government isn't doing its job enforcing immigration laws. Beason said that he spent years researching immigration law to help write the 70-plus page law, and that it's unrealistic to expect a judge to go through it all in a few days."

You just can't do that," he said.

DHS Announces Expansion of Prosecutorial Discretion Guidelines, Signals Opportunity to Regain Common Sense

2011-08-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

August 18, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it would put guidelines in place across all immigration agencies to ensure that its enforcement priorities are focused on removing persons who are most dangerous to the country.

In a letter to Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and other senators who had requested that DHS consider deferring the removal of all DREAM Act eligible students, DHS announced that it would not categorically defer removal, but that persons who were not high priority targets for removal would have the opportunity to request prosecutorial discretion on a case by case basis. Low priority cases-previously identified in a prosecutorial discretion memo issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton on June 17-include persons who are not criminals and have been in the country since childhood, have strong community ties, are veterans or relatives of persons in the armed services, are caregivers, have serious health issues, are victims of crime or otherwise have a strong basis for remaining in the United States.

DHS announced the creation of a joint committee with the Department of Justice that will review nearly 300,000 cases currently in removal proceedings and determine which cases are low priority and can be administratively closed. In addition, agency-wide guidance will be issued to ICE, USCIS and CBP officers to ensure that they appropriately exercise discretion when determining whether a low priority case should be referred to immigration court.

Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center, stated:

The American Immigration Council welcomes DHS's announcement today that it will attempt to put muscle behind new guidelines on prosecutorial discretion. We have long advocated for using the tools of the executive branch to do effective immigration enforcement that does not cripple families and our economy. The creation of an interagency working group and the expansion of prosecutorial discretion guidance is a critical step toward slowing down the deportation of immigrants who have so much to give to this country. However, only comprehensive immigration reform can permanently address the problems of our immigration system.

According to Melissa Crow, Director of the Legal Action Center:

Today's announcement clearly indicates the Obama Administration's commitment to implementing the expansive use of prosecutorial discretion authorized by the June 17th Morton Memo. As we closely monitor how these new announcements are implemented, DREAM students, military families, victims of crime, and many other individuals who pose no threat to public safety may receive a reprieve from removal. We hope that the forthcoming guidance will help to ensure that DHS field offices across the country use their enforcement resources in a way that meaningfully advances the agency's priorities and prevents low priority cases from continuing to clog the court system.

Federal Policy Resulting in Wave of Deportations Draws Protests

2011-08-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

August 16, 2011

By JULIA PRESTON

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.

The lawyers’ report includes the recent case of an immigrant in New Mexico detained for deportation after the local police questioned him about burning leaves in the front yard. A woman in Minnesota was held by federal agents after the traffic police stopped her saying she failed to signal a right turn. An immigrant facing deportation from Florida was a passenger in a vehicle pulled over in a traffic stop; the vehicle was driven by his wife, a United States citizen.

In 87 cases, the report found, the illegal immigrants facing deportation had no criminal history, and 79 of them were close relatives of American citizens or legal permanent residents. Many had lived for more than a decade in the United States.

“Fundamentally, D.H.S. is saying one thing but doing another,” Mr. Chen said, arguing that the lawyers’ findings contradicted figures provided by immigration officials. He said the agency, by detaining large numbers of immigrants after minor offenses, was “distorting its own mission of focusing on public safety and national security risks.”

Eleanor Pelta, the president of the lawyers’ association, urged Mr. Morton to improve screening procedures so that arrests by local police did not lead automatically to federal deportation.

Cecilia Muñoz, the White House official who oversees immigration policy, said Mr. Obama strongly favored Secure Communities because he does not have the option of saying, “While I’m waiting for Congress to come forward, I am not going to bother to enforce the law.” The program is “the best tool we have,” she said, “to enforce the law in the best possible way.”

Fear and frustration about Secure Communities spilled over during the hearing on Monday in Los Angeles, one of five organized by the task force. One speaker, Isaura Garcia, 20, said she had been reported to immigration authorities by the Los Angeles police after she called 911 when she was beaten by her boyfriend.

The program drew praise from a representative of a Los Angeles County supervisor, Michael D. Antonovich, a Republican. But an official from the office of Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, a Democrat, echoed immigrants’ criticisms.

Shouting erupted after one citizen, Julio Giron, yelled from the crowd to defend the program, which he said was needed because Mr. Obama had failed to secure the border. Soon after, most of the opponents, who significantly outnumbered the supporters, marched out, calling on the task force to resign.

Ian Lovett contributed reporting.

Shelve Secure Communities

2011-08-15T18:58:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration should stop making matters worse by tinkering with a failed program to identify and deport dangerous illegal immigrants.

August 12, 2011

Lawmakers in California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York have sought for several months to withdraw from Secure Communities, a supposedly voluntary federal fingerprint-sharing program designed to identify and deport dangerous immigrants. The Obama administration is now trying to make the states' opposition moot — a tactic that may provide the legal basis for expanding Secure Communities but does nothing to improve the program's damaged credibility.

Launched in 2008 and due to be in effect nationwide in 2013, Secure Communities requires the FBI to share with the Department of Homeland Security the fingerprints of everyone booked into local jails. The department then checks the prints against its immigration database. But some state officials balked at the program, citing fears that it might hinder public safety more than it helps it.

This month, the Department of Homeland Security abruptly announced that it was canceling agreements with all local officials. It explained that it would no longer invite them to opt into the program because local police already send the FBI the fingerprint data of every detainee.

States signed up for Secure Communities because they thought it would make their neighborhoods safer by getting serious criminals off the streets. But the government's own data indicate that more than half of those deported under the program were undocumented immigrants with no criminal record or only minor ones — not violent felons.

Moreover, the program's staggering failure to prioritize deportation efforts may actually result in more harm than good. Law enforcement officials in San Francisco, Santa Clara County and elsewhere want out of the program because they say it has a chilling effect on immigrants' willingness to report crimes or assist authorities. Police must now persuade immigrants that officers are interested only in preventing crimes, not deporting them.

The Obama administration says it already has taken steps to fix that problem, creating a task force and issuing new guidelines instructing agents and prosecutors to focus on criminals. The states, however, are growing increasingly tired of the administration's mixed signals on immigration.

The president has publicly called for an overhaul of the nation's broken immigration system to give those who work hard but are illegally in the country a chance to remain here legally. Yet his administration has failed to curb a program that deports many of the very people he says deserve a chance to stay.

The president's leadership on immigration has been anemic. He can't solve the problem alone, but he has done little beyond delivering speeches blaming Congress. At the very least, Obama should shelve Secure Communities and stop making matters worse.

Board of Immigration Appeals Guts Legal Protections for Immigrants Under Arrest

2011-08-15T18:52:00.000-07:00

August 15, 2011

Washington, D.C.—The American Immigration Council strongly condemns last week’s ruling from the Board of Immigration Appeals holding that immigrants arrested without a warrant are not entitled to certain Miranda-like warnings prior to questioning by immigration officers. In a precedent decision, the Board held that noncitizens need not be informed of their right to counsel or warned that their statements can be used against them until after they have been placed in formal deportation proceedings.

For decades, immigrants placed under arrest have been entitled to these critical advisals. Like “Miranda” warnings for criminal suspects, such notifications help to ensure that statements made during questioning are not the product of coercion. As a result of last week’s ruling, noncitizens under arrest will now be even more vulnerable to pressure from interrogating officers, and immigration judges will face greater difficulty determining whether statements made during questioning were truly voluntary. “

This decision epitomizes the substandard system of justice that’s been created and imposed on immigrants in the United States,” said Melissa Crow, Director of the American Immigration Council’s Legal Action Center. “The Board’s ruling renders the advisals practically meaningless and makes immigrants less likely to remain silent when questioned and less likely to assert their right to counsel.”

The Board of Immigration Appeals is the highest administrative tribunal on immigration and nationality matters in the United States. Decisions of the Board may be subject to review by federal courts or by the Attorney General. The ruling came in Matter of E-R-M-F- & A-S-M-, 25 I&N Dec. 580 (BIA 2011).

Mexican Migration Patterns Signal a New Immigration Reality:

2011-08-02T23:54:00.000-07:00

Fewer Coming, Fewer Leaving, and 3/5 of Unauthorized Have Been Here for a Decade or Longer

August 1, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases a summary of recent data on Mexican migration to and from the United States. This data provides an important reminder that as migration patterns change over time, so too must U.S. immigration policies. Fewer Mexicans are migrating to the United States, fewer Mexican immigrants in the United States are returning home, and immigrants from Mexico are parents to a new generation of Mexican Americans who are U.S. citizens.

New reports from the Pew Hispanic Center and the RAND Corporation provide useful information about the state of immigration today. Although this data deals with Mexican immigrants as a whole and not just the unauthorized, it is a useful indicator of what is taking place in the unauthorized population. More than half (55 percent) of Mexican immigrants in the United States are unauthorized, and roughly three-fifths (59 percent) of all unauthorized immigrants are from Mexico.

The data reveals an emerging new reality: fewer immigrants are coming, fewer are leaving, and a majority of the unauthorized population has been here for a decade or longer. These trends suggest that our immigration policies must transition away from the current efforts to drive out unauthorized immigrants with deep roots in this country. We need a more nuanced set of policies that help immigrants who are already living here and contributing to the U.S. economy to more fully integrate into U.S. society.

To view the fact sheet in its entirety, see:

Mexican Migration Patterns Signal a New Immigration Reality (IPC Fact Check, August 1, 2011)

It's time for immigration reform

2011-07-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: Douglas S. Massey is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University

By Douglas S. Massey – Special to CNN

For years, conservatives and many liberals have stated their unwillingness to consider comprehensive immigration reform until “America regained control of its borders.” That moment has arrived.

According to estimates from the Mexican Migration Project, which I co-direct, the rate of new undocumented migration from Mexico dropped to zero in 2008 for the first time in 50 years.
This remarkable event partly reflects the drop in labor demand in the context of a deep economic recession, but it also stems from a massive increase in border enforcement. Since 1990, the size of the Border Patrol has increased by a factor of five and its budget by a factor of 13.

Although this escalation surely helped to reduce the inflow of undocumented migrants, however, it also discouraged the outflow of those already here. The probability that an undocumented migrant returned to Mexico within 12 months of entering reached a record low value of around 8% in 2007. Among those who did return, most did not seek reentry, with the likelihood of attempting a return trip to the United States standing at just 5%.

At present, therefore, new undocumented migrants are not heading northward; former undocumented migrants are coming back in very small numbers; and settled undocumented residents are staying put. As a result of these trends, the population of undocumented U.S. residents peaked at 12.6 million persons in 2008 and fell to 10.8 million in 2009, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Net undocumented migration is now slightly negative.

The advent of net out-migration does not reflect a significant move toward “self-deportation” among undocumented residents present in the United States, however. As already noted, long-term undocumented residents are less likely than ever to leave. Some of the decline stems from an unappreciated shift to guest worker migration. From 1990 to 2008 the number of Mexicans admitted with temporary work visas grew from 17,000 to 361,000 per year.

Other former undocumented migrants are legalizing through actions taken by legal family members. The number of legal Mexican immigrants attaining U.S. citizenship surged from 18,000 in 1990 to 232,000 in 2008. U.S. citizens are allowed to sponsor the entry of their spouses, minor children, and parents without numerical limitation and since 1990 a record two million Mexicans have naturalized. As result, whereas just 5% of all Mexicans entering the Untied States as legal immigrants were relatives of citizens, 59% fell into this category in 2008, a total of 112,000 persons.

In sum, of the four principal components of comprehensive immigration reform, three have already been substantially achieved. The border is now under control and net-undocumented migration has fallen below zero; a guest worker program has been created to bring in more than 360,000 temporary Mexican migrants per year; and legal immigrants have increasingly taken it upon themselves to “expand” the quotas by naturalizing and sponsoring the entry of immediate relatives outside of the numerical quotas.

In practical terms, there is really only one thing that remains to be accomplished: the creation of a pathway to legalization for long-term undocumented residents. Somewhere around three million of these people entered the country as minors. They did not make the decision to violate U.S. immigration law and should not be held responsibilities for choices made by their parents. In the absence of a criminal record or other disqualifying circumstances, those who entered as minors should be given an immediate and unconditional amnesty and be allowed to proceed with their lives in the only country that most of them know.

For their part, undocumented migrants who entered as adults should be offered a temporary legalization that confers the right to live and work in the United States for some extended period, during which they would be able to accumulate points ultimately to qualify them for legal permanent residence. Points would be awarded for socially desirable behaviors such as paying taxes, learning English, studying civics, holding a steady job, owning a home, parenting U.S. citizen children and generally staying out of trouble. Once a certain minimum threshold of points is achieved, migrants would be allowed to pay a fine as restitution for violating the law and then, having paid their debt to society, get on with their lives as legal permanent residents of the United States. We are much closer to the ultimate goals of immigration reform than most people realize.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of Douglas S. Massey.

Better Lives for Mexicans Cut Allure of Going North

2011-07-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

Economic, demographic and social changes in Mexico are suppressing illegal immigration as much as the poor economy or legal crackdowns in the United States.

By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: July 6, 2011

AGUA NEGRA, Mexico — The extraordinary Mexican migration that delivered millions of illegal immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years has sputtered to a trickle, and research points to a surprising cause: unheralded changes in Mexico that have made staying home more attractive.

A growing body of evidence suggests that a mix of developments — expanding economic and educational opportunities, rising border crime and shrinking families — are suppressing illegal traffic as much as economic slowdowns or immigrant crackdowns in the United States.

Here in the red-earth highlands of Jalisco, one of Mexico’s top three states for emigration over the past century, a new dynamic has emerged. For a typical rural family like the Orozcos, heading to El Norte without papers is no longer an inevitable rite of passage. Instead, their homes are filling up with returning relatives; older brothers who once crossed illegally are awaiting visas; and the youngest Orozcos are staying put.

“I’m not going to go to the States because I’m more concerned with my studies,” said Angel Orozco, 18. Indeed, at the new technological institute where he is earning a degree in industrial engineering, all the students in a recent class said they were better educated than their parents — and that they planned to stay in Mexico rather than go to the United States.

Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton, an extensive, long-term survey in Mexican emigration hubs, said his research showed that interest in heading to the United States for the first time had fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. “No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped,” Mr. Massey said, referring to illegal traffic. “For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative.”

The decline in illegal immigration, from a country responsible for roughly 6 of every 10 illegal immigrants in the United States, is stark. The Mexican census recently discovered four million more people in Mexico than had been projected, which officials attributed to a sharp decline in emigration.

American census figures analyzed by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center also show that the illegal Mexican population in the United States has shrunk and that fewer than 100,000 illegal border-crossers and visa-violators from Mexico settled in the United States in 2010, down from about 525,000 annually from 2000 to 2004. Although some advocates for more limited immigration argue that the Pew studies offer estimates that do not include short-term migrants, most experts agree that far fewer illegal immigrants have been arriving in recent years.

The question is why. Experts and American politicians from both parties have generally looked inward, arguing about the success or failure of the buildup of border enforcement and tougher laws limiting illegal immigrants’ rights — like those recently passed in Alabama and Arizona. Deportations have reached record highs as total border apprehensions and apprehensions of Mexicans have fallen by more than 70 percent since 2000.

But Mexican immigration has always been defined by both the push (from Mexico) and the pull (of the United States). The decision to leave home involves a comparison, a wrenching cost-benefit analysis, and just as a Mexican baby boom and economic crises kicked off the emigration waves in the 1980s and ’90s, research now shows that the easing of demographic and economic pressures is helping keep departures in check.

In simple terms, Mexican families are smaller than they had once been. The pool of likely migrants is shrinking. Despite the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico, birth control efforts have pushed down the fertility rate to about 2 children per woman from 6.8 in 1970, according to government figures. So while Mexico added about one million new potential job seekers annually in the 1990s, since 2007 that figure has fallen to an average of 800,000, according to government birth records. By 2030, it is expected to drop to 300,000.

Even in larger families like the Orozcos’ — Angel is the 9th of 10 children — the migration calculation has changed. Crossing “mojado,” wet or illegally, has become more expensive and more dangerous, particularly with drug cartels dominating the border. At the same time, educational and employment opportunities have greatly expanded in Mexico. Per capita gross domestic product and family income have each jumped more than 45 percent since 2000, according to one prominent economist, Roberto Newell. Despite all the depictions of Mexico as “nearly a failed state,” he argued, “the conventional wisdom is wrong.”

A significant expansion of legal immigration — aided by American consular officials — is also under way. Congress may be debating immigration reform, but in Mexico, visas without a Congressionally mandated cap on how many people can enter have increased from 2006 to 2010, compared with the previous five years.

State Department figures show that Mexicans who have become American citizens have legally brought in 64 percent more immediate relatives, 220,500 from 2006 through 2010, compared with the figures for the previous five years. Tourist visas are also being granted at higher rates of around 89 percent, up from 67 percent, while American farmers have legally hired 75 percent more temporary workers since 2006.

Edward McKeon, the top American official for consular affairs in Mexico, said he had focused on making legal passage to the United States easier in an effort to prevent people from giving up and going illegally. He has even helped those who were previously illegal overcome bans on entering the United States.

“If people are trying to do the right thing,” Mr. McKeon said, “we need to send the signal that we’ll reward them.”

Hard Years in Jalisco

When Angel Orozco’s grandfather considered leaving Mexico in the 1920s, his family said, he wrestled with one elemental question: Will it be worth it?

At that point and for decades to come, yes was the obvious answer. In the 1920s and ’30s — when Paul S. Taylor came to Jalisco from California for his landmark study of Mexican emigration — Mexico’s central highlands promised little more than hard living. Jobs were scarce and paid poorly. Barely one of three adults could read. Families of 10, 12 and even 20 were common, and most children did not attend school.

Comparatively, the United States looked like a dreamland of technology and riches: Mr. Taylor found that the wages paid by the railroads, where most early migrants found legal work, were five times what could be earned on farms in Arandas, the municipality that includes Agua Negra.

Orozco family members still talk about the benefits of that first trip. Part of the land the extended family occupies today was purchased with American earnings from the 1920s. When Angel’s father, Antonio, went north to pick cotton in the 1950s and ’60s with the Bracero temporary worker program, which accepted more than 400,000 laborers a year at its peak, working in the United States made even more sense. The difference in wages had reached 10 to 1. Arandas was still dirt poor.

Antonio, with just a few years of schooling, was one of many who felt that with a back as strong as a wooden church door, he could best serve his family from across the border.
“I sent my father money so he could build his house,” Antonio said.

Legal status then meant little. After the Bracero program ended in 1964, Antonio said, he crossed back and forth several times without documentation. Passage was cheap. Work lasting for a few months or a year was always plentiful. So when his seven sons started to become adults in the 1990s, he encouraged them to go north as well. Around 2001, he and two of his sons were all in the United States working — part of what is now recognized as one of the largest immigration waves in American history.

But even then, illegal immigration was becoming less attractive. In the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration added fences and federal agents to what were then the main crossing corridors beyond Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. The enforcement push, continued by President George W. Bush and President Obama, helped drive up smuggling prices from around $700 in the late 1980s to nearly $2,000 a decade later, and the costs continued to climb, according to research from the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego. It also shifted traffic to more dangerous desert areas near Arizona.

Antonio said the risks hit home when his nephew Alejandro disappeared in the Sonoran Desert around 2002. A father of one and with a pregnant wife, Alejandro had been promised work by a friend. It took years for the authorities to find his body in the arid brush south of Tucson. Even now, no one knows how he died.

But for the Orozcos, border enforcement was not the major deterrent. Andrés Orozco, 28, a middle son who first crossed illegally in 2000, said that while rising smuggling costs and border crime were worries, there were always ways to avoid American agents. In fact, while the likelihood of apprehension has increased in recent years, 92 to 98 percent of those who try to cross eventually succeed, according to research by Wayne A. Cornelius and his colleagues at the University of California, San Diego.

A Period of Progress

Another important factor is Mexico itself. Over the past 15 years, this country once defined by poverty and beaches has progressed politically and economically in ways rarely acknowledged by Americans debating immigration. Even far from the coasts or the manufacturing sector at the border, democracy is better established, incomes have generally risen and poverty has declined.
Here in Jalisco, a tequila boom that accelerated through the 1990s created new jobs for farmers cutting agave and for engineers at the stills. Other businesses followed. In 2003, when David Fitzgerald, a migration expert at the University of California, San Diego, came to Arandas, he found that the wage disparity with the United States had narrowed: migrants in the north were collecting 3.7 times what they could earn at home.

That gap has recently shrunk again. The recession cut into immigrant earnings in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, even as wages have risen in Mexico, according to World Bank figures. Jalisco’s quality of life has improved in other ways, too. About a decade ago, the cluster of the Orozco ranches on Agua Negra’s outskirts received electricity and running water. New census data shows a broad expansion of such services: water and trash collection, once unheard of outside cities, are now available to more than 90 percent of Jalisco’s homes. Dirt floors can now be found in only 3 percent of the state’s houses, down from 12 percent in 1990.

Still, education represents the most meaningful change. The census shows that throughout Jalisco, the number of senior high schools or preparatory schools for students aged 15 to 18 increased to 724 in 2009, from 360 in 2000, far outpacing population growth. The Technological Institute of Arandas, where Angel studies engineering, is now one of 13 science campuses created in Jalisco since 2000 — a major reason professionals in the state, with a bachelor’s degree or higher, also more than doubled to 821,983 in 2010, up from 405,415 in 2000.

Similar changes have occurred elsewhere. In the poor southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, for instance, professional degree holders rose to 525,874 from 244,322 in 2000.

And the data from secondary schools like the one the Orozcos attended in Agua Negra suggests that the trend will continue. Thanks to a Mexican government program called “schools of quality” the campus of three buildings painted sunflower yellow has five new computers for its 71 students, along with new books.

Teachers here, in classrooms surrounded by blue agave fields, say that enrollment is down slightly because families are having fewer children, and instead of sending workers north, some families have moved to other Mexican cities — a trend also found in academic field research. Around half the students now move on to higher schooling, up from 30 percent a decade ago.
“They’re identifying more with Mexico,” said Agustín Martínez González, a teacher. “With more education, they’re more likely to accept reality here and try to make it better.”

Some experts agree. Though Mexicans with Ph.D.’s tend to leave for bigger paychecks abroad, “if you have a college degree you’re much more likely to stay in Mexico because that is surely more valuable in Mexico,” said Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center.
If these trends — particularly Mexican economic growth — continue over the next decade, Mr. Passel said, changes in the migration dynamic may become even clearer. “At the point where the U.S. needs the workers again,” he said, “there will be fewer of them.”

Praying for Papers

The United States, of course, has not lost its magnetic appeal. Illegal traffic from Central America has not dropped as fast as it has from Mexico, and even in Jalisco town plazas are now hangouts for men in their 30s with tattoos, oversize baseball caps and a desire to work again in California or another state. Bars with American names — several have adopted Shrek — signal a back and forth that may never disappear.

But more Mexicans are now traveling legally. Several Orozco cousins have received temporary worker visas in the past few years. In March, peak migration season for Jalisco, there were 15 people from Agua Negra at the border waiting to cross.

“And 10 had visas,” said Ramón Orozco, 30, another son of Antonio who works in the town’s government office after being the first in his family to go to college. “A few years ago there would have been 100, barely any with proper documents.”

This is not unique to Agua Negra. A few towns away at the hillside shrine of St. Toribio, the patron saint of migrants, prayers no longer focus on asking God to help sons, husbands or brothers crossing the desert. “Now people are praying for papers,” said María Guadalupe, 47, a longtime volunteer.

How did this happen?

Partly, emigrants say, illegal life in the United States became harder. Laws restricting illegal immigrants’ rights or making it tougher for employers to hire them have passed in more than a dozen states since 2006. The same word-of-mouth networks that used to draw people north are now advising against the journey. “Without papers all you’re thinking about is, when are the police going to stop you or what other risks are you going to face,” said Andrés Orozco.

Andrés, a horse lover who drives a teal pickup from Texas, is one of many Orozcos now pinning their hopes on a visa. And for the first time in years, the chances have improved.

Mexican government estimates based on survey data show not just a decrease in migration overall, but also an increase in border crossings with documents. In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, 38 percent of the total attempted crossings, legal and illegal, were made with documents. In 2007, only 20 percent involved such paperwork.

The Mexican data counts attempted crossings, not people, and does not differentiate between categories of visas. Nor does it mention how long people stayed, nor whether all the documents were valid.

Advocates of limited immigration worry that the issuing of more visas creates a loophole that can be abused. Between 40 and 50 percent of the illegal immigrants in the United States entered legally with visas they overstayed, as of 2005, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

More recent American population data, however, shows no overall increase in the illegal Mexican population. That suggests that most of the temporary visas issued to Mexicans — 1.1 million in 2010 — are being used legitimately even as American statistics show clearly that visa opportunities have increased.

Easing a Chaotic Process

One man, Mr. McKeon, the minister counselor who oversees all consular affairs in Mexico, has played a significant role in that expansion.

A lawyer with a white beard and a quick tongue, Mr. McKeon arrived in the summer of 2007. And after more than 30 years working in consular affairs in China, Japan and elsewhere, he quickly decided to make changes in Mexico. Working within administrative rules, State Department officials say, he re-engineered the visa program to de-emphasize the affordability standard that held that visas were to be denied to those who could not prove an income large enough to support travel to the United States.

In a country where a person can cross the border with a 25-cent toll, Mr. McKeon said, the income question was irrelevant. “You have to look at everyone individually,” he said in an interview at his office in Mexico City. “I don’t want people to say, here’s the income floor, over yes, lower no.”

This led to an almost immediate decrease in the rejection rate for tourist visas. Before he arrived, around 32 percent were turned down. Since 2008, the rate has been around 11 percent.
Mr. McKeon — praised by some immigration lawyers for bringing consistency to a chaotic process — was also instrumental in expanding the temporary visa program for agricultural workers. Called H-2A, this is one of the few visa categories without a cap.

Around 2006, as the debate over immigration became more contentious, employers concentrated in the Southeast began applying for more workers through the program. Mr. McKeon began hosting conferences with all the stakeholders and deployed new technology and additional staff members. The waiting time for several visa categories decreased, government reports show. For H-2As, Mexican workers can now receive their documents the same day that they apply.

Mr. McKeon also pushed to make the program more attractive to Mexicans who might otherwise cross the border illegally. Two years ago, he eliminated a $100 visa issuance fee that was supposed to be covered by employers but was usually paid by workers. And he insisted that his staff members change their approach with Mexicans who had previously worked illegally in the United States.

“The message used to be, if you were working illegally, lie about it or don’t even try to go legally because we won’t let you,” said one senior State Department official. “What we’re saying now is, tell us you did it illegally, be honest and we’ll help you.”

Specifically, consulate workers dealing with H-2A applicants who were once illegal — making them subject to 3- or 10-year bans depending on the length of their illegal stay — now regularly file electronic waiver applications to the United States Customs and Border Patrol. About 85 percent of these are now approved, Mr. McKeon said, so that in 2010 most of the 52,317 Mexican workers with H-2A visas had previously been in the United States illegally.

“It’s not easy to go through this process,” Mr. McKeon said, “and I think people who are willing to go through all of that and risk going back to the United States where they have to pay taxes, and withholding, I think we should look favorably on them.”

Speaking as the son of a New Jersey plumber, he added: “My bias is toward people who sweat at work because I really think that’s the backbone of our country. With limited resources, I’d rather devote our efforts to keeping out a drug kingpin than trying to find someone who works a couple of months at Cousin Hector’s body shop.”

A Divisive Topic

In the heated debate over immigration, however, this topic is inevitably divisive. Pro-immigrant groups, when told of the expansion to legal immigration, say it still may not be enough in a country where the baby boomers are retiring in droves.

Farmers still complain that the H-2A visa program is too complicated and addresses only a portion of the total demand. As of 2010, there were 1,381,896 Mexicans still waiting for their green-card applications to be accepted or rejected. And the United States currently makes only 5,000 green cards annually available worldwide for low-wage workers to immigrate permanently; in recent years, only a few of those have gone to Mexicans.

On the other side, Steven A. Camarota, a demographer at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors reduced immigration, said that increasing the proportion of legal entries did little good.

“If you believe there is significant job competition at the bottom end of the labor market, as I do, you’re not fixing the problem,” Mr. Camarota said. “If you are concerned about the fiscal cost of unskilled immigration and everyone comes in on temporary visas and overstays, or even if they don’t, the same problems are likely to apply.”

By his calculations, unskilled immigrants like the Orozcos have, over the years, helped push down hourly wages, especially for young, unskilled American workers. Immigrants are also more likely to rely on welfare, he said, adding to public costs.

The Orozco clan, however, may point to a different future. Angel Orozco, like many other young Mexicans, now talks about the United States not as a place to earn money, but rather as a destination for fun and spending.

Today he is just a lanky, shy freshman wearing a Daughtry T-shirt and living in a two-room apartment with only a Mexican flag and a rosary for decoration.

But his dreams are big and local. After graduating, he said, he hopes to work for a manufacturing company in Arandas, which seems likely because the director of his school says that nearly 90 percent of graduates find jobs in their field. Then, Angel said, he will be able to buy what he really wants: a shiny, new red Camaro.

Officials call for California to withdraw from controversial illegal immigration enforcement program

2011-06-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

June 10, 2011 11:19 am

Seven Democratic members of California’s Congressional Delegation called on Gov. Jerry Brown Friday to suspend California’s participation in the Secure Communities immigration enforcement program.

In recent weeks, governors in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts sought to suspend or declined to enter into Secure Communities participation agreements. Earlier this week, the Los Angeles City Council voted nearly unanimously to support legislation allowing communities to opt out of the program.

Gov. Brown “should side with both the officers who patrol our communities and the people they protect and end Secure Communities in California,” said Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles).

Under the program, the fingerprints of all arrestees booked into local jails are forwarded to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for screening. It was touted as a way to target serious criminals for deportation but has generated controversy because many of those detained are either not convicted of crimes or are low-level offenders.

A California bill that seeks to modify Secure Communities and allow counties to opt out is making its way through the Legislature but whether states and counties can legally decline to participate is not clear.

In addition to Roybal-Allard, Reps. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), Linda Sanchez (D-Lakewood), Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk) and Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) signed the letter. It was organized by Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles).

Supreme Court: State can offer illegal immigrants reduced tuition

2011-06-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

Washington (CNN) -- The Supreme Court has upheld a California law giving illegal immigrants living there reduced in-state tuition rates at public universities, the same rates legal state residents enjoy.

The justices without comment Monday refused to accept an appeal from out-of-state students attending California schools, who said it was unfair that as U.S. citizens, they had to pay as much as $20,000 more than illegal immigrants. They claimed such "preferential treatment" violated federal law.

The court decision is a victory for immigrant rights groups. California is one of a dozen states that make undocumented aliens conditionally eligible for in-state tuition, according to the legal brief filed by the suing students. Those various laws will remain intact for now.

The California law was passed a decade ago, and has been the subject of litigation ever since. It requires illegal immigrants to attend a California high school for at least three years, and to successfully graduate.

At issue is whether these state laws step on a congressional law limiting public education benefits for those in the country illegally. That 1996 federal law said "residence within a state" cannot be used as the basis to allow "any postsecondary benefit" -- including lower tuition rates -- unless all U.S. citizens would similarly benefit.

The California Supreme Court had unanimously ruled the state law relied on other important criteria -- especially the gradation requirement -- not residency, and was therefore proper. The out-of-state students had claimed in their appeal they were there were being discriminated against, by paying higher rates. They argued it was improper to deny U.S. citizens a benefit undocumented aliens are allowed. As in California, the difference can be significant. Full-time out-of-state students pay as much as five times more tuition than in-state counterparts at the various University of California campuses.

State education officials in their brief to the high court estimated about 41,000 students in 2010 benefited from the lower tuition, mostly those attending community colleges.

At the larger, four-year, state-chartered University of California system -- with its 10 campuses statewide, about 2,019 students paid in-state tuition in 2009 under the state law at issue. An estimated 600 were believed to be illegal immigrants, said the state.

The other states with similar laws are: Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. Another dozen states have passed specific laws refusing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.Congress is considering a similar law, called the DREAM Act. It would speed citizenship for younger illegal immigrants who attend college or join the military.

Other states, led by Arizona, have passed legislation cracking down on undocumented residents. A statute currently under review by the federal courts would, among other things, give police authority to check a person's immigration status if officers have a "reasonable suspicion" that the individual is in the country illegally. The issue here is whether such state action steps on traditional federal authority over immigration matters.

The case turned aside Monday is Martinez v. Regents of the University of California (10-1029).

Secure Communities program: A flawed deportation tool

2011-05-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

The program, once billed as a voluntary partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and localities, is now mired in controversy.

LA Times Editorial

May 23, 2011

When federal officials first announced the Secure Communities program in 2008, they billed it as a powerful tool in the battle to identify and deport illegal immigrants who had been convicted of violent crimes. Dozens of states, including California, signed on, agreeing that police would submit the fingerprints of all arrestees to be checked against federal databases for criminal convictions and deportation orders.

But the program, once billed as a voluntary partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and localities, is now mired in controversy. The government is investigating whether it has failed to nab dangerous criminals and has instead been used to target low-level nonviolent offenders. Since its launch, more than half of those deported under Secure Communities had minor or no criminal convictions, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. In Los Angeles County, for example, nearly half of the 11,774 deported under the program from August 2009 to January 2011 had no convictions or had committed misdemeanors. They were targeted for deportation because the program doesn't distinguish between criminals and those who illegally entered the U.S. or overstayed a visa — a civil violation.

What's more, in some cities with large immigrant communities, police are concerned that their participation in the program will have a chilling effect on immigrants' willingness to report crimes or provide useful information. They point to cases like that of Isaura Garcia, an immigrant living in Los Angeles, who called 911 in February to report an alleged beating by her partner. Because police often arrest both parties in domestic disputes, her fingerprints were submitted to immigration officials; despite having no criminal record, she was flagged for deportation proceedings because she was in the country illegally. Another case involved a street vendor with no prior criminal record who was was arrested in downtown Los Angeles last month after she ran when police approached her. The woman remains detained, though no charges were filed, and is awaiting deportation for being in the U.S. illegally.

The result is that a growing number of states that were initially drawn to the program are telling the Department of Homeland Security that they want to withdraw or modify their participation. A bill sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) would require that only the fingerprints of convicted felons be submitted to immigration officials. It would also allow any county to opt out of the program. The bill is now before the full Assembly.

If federal immigration officials are unwilling to target the people they said they would target, then Ammiano's proposal will set modest and sensible limits. It would help focus enforcement efforts on felons who commit rape, murder or other violent crimes instead of street vendors and domestic violence victims.

See this and other related stories at: http://latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-secure-20110523,0,4886580.story

Immigration Court Backlog Likely to Get Worse Before It Gets Better

2011-05-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

May 18, 2011

by Ben Winograd

See Original Article at: Immigration Court Backlog Likely to Get Worse Before It Gets Better

Our nation’s immigration courts are backlogged. Historically backlogged. At the end of last year, more than 260,000 cases remained pending before immigration judges. Across the country, the average wait was nearly sixteen months. In California, thousands of cases have been pending for more than two years. While justice is not always swift, our immigration courts are getting increasingly further from the finish line.

Numbers aside, the delays remain problematic from both a legal and practical standpoint. For individuals with no viable claims of relief, the backlogs delay the point by which they must inevitably leave the country. Meanwhile, immigrants wrongfully placed in removal proceedings—and asylum seekers whose fates hinge on the outcome of a hearing—remain stuck in legal limbo and can needlessly languish in detention. At the same time, Immigration Judges may feel (perhaps subconscious) pressure to resolve cases quickly rather than thoroughly.

Unfortunately, as numerous witnesses testified today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the backlogs are likely to get worse before (or if) they get better. Juan Osuna, the Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, noted that immigration judges’ burgeoning caseloads are “directly tied to annual increases in cases filed in the immigration courts by DHS.” In other words, the more immigrants are swept into removal proceedings through cooperation with state and local law enforcement, including programs like Secure Communities, the longer the backlog will be.

At the same time, the witnesses agreed that hiring more immigration judges alone could not fix the problem. Karen Grisez, appearing on behalf of the American Bar Association, recommended more extensive use of pre-trial settlement conferences, which allow attorneys to mutually resolve claims before hearings begin, and the initial referral to trained DHS officers of asylum claims raised for the first time in removal hearings. Noting the frequency of meritless claims unwittingly filed by unrepresented immigrants, Grisez also suggested expanding access to the Justice Department’s Legal Orientation Program, which currently is available only to immigrants in detention facilities.

Another witness, Julie Myers Wood, who headed ICE during the second half of the Bush Administration, stressed that government attorneys should more frequently exercise prosecutorial discretion when deciding which cases to bring. A former federal prosecutor, Myers Wood said the hardest cases to litigate involved defendants representing themselves, and thus recommended the appointment of counsel for vulnerable immigrants—such as unaccompanied minors, certain asylum seekers, and those with mental disabilities.

But not every means of reducing the backlog is a good one. For example, Myers Wood, along with Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), suggested expanding a process—known as “expedited removal”—in which certain immigrants can be deported with no hearing at all. Though expanding expedited removal could potentially lessen the caseload on immigration courts, efficiency alone is never a valid justification for sacrificing immigrants’ legal rights.

The final point of agreement at the hearing was that the enactment of comprehensive immigration reform would be the best way to ease the burden on immigration courts. By reducing the number of immigrants eligible for deportation, Congress would, by necessity, reduce the number of immigrants placed in removal proceedings. Yet given the lack of Congressional movement on immigration reform or Administrative relief, the backlog of removal hearings, like the undocumented population itself, appears here to stay for the foreseeable future.

La Opinión: Editorial - Baca and Secure Communities

2011-05-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

May 17, 2011

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=O4D4T8SqWG4Uq8B3kcOimivF7b3vw0bc

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca supports the Secure Communities program, as he explained a few days ago on the radio program "Which Way LA?" Ironically, the reasons he gave for his support are precisely the problems of a program that has been misused and is prone to being abused.

Secure Communities was intended as a public safety program to arrest and deport undocumented dangerous criminals. However, its implementation has strayed far beyond that goal, and people without criminal records have been arrested and deported. For example, it is estimated that 3,000 individuals, almost one-fourth of those deported from Los Angeles since August 2009 under this program, did not meet the definition of "dangerous criminal."

This is not a problem for Baca. According to his explanation, when an undocumented immigrant is arrested by a sheriff’s deputy, it is equivalent to being guilty of a crime since the undocumented do not have civil rights like everyone else. In practice, under the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, being a suspect is the same as being found guilty of a crime.

This is the essential problem with this program. When suspects are taken to county jail by a police officer or sheriff’s deputy, they are within the reach of immigration authorities. Baca seems to think every arrest made by the police or sheriff’s deputies is justifiable beyond a shadow of a doubt. But it is common knowledge that this perfection does not exist and that —as with everything else— some officers abuse their authority, have bad intentions or just make mistakes during arrests.

When someone reports a crime and the officer in charge sees, perceives or thinks that there is an irregularity regarding the victim or the person reporting it, the situation can take a 180-degree turn and end in the complainant being deported. This can happen, and is a fear many undocumented immigrants have. Because of this, the enforcement of Secure Communities undermines the trust that exists between law enforcement and immigrant communities.

The Latino community does not support the Secure Communities program, as the sheriff believes. Everyone wants dangerous criminals to be taken off the streets, but not at the cost of deporting the innocent. Nor is there complete faith in the infallibility of an arrest such that it should be used to determine that a crime was committed and who committed it.

We have been worried about Sheriff Baca’s enthusiasm for the Secure Communities program. We are much more concerned now after hearing his position, and the arguments to end this program are even stronger.

President Obama on Fixing Our Broken Immigration System: "E Pluribus, Unum"

2011-05-13T10:06:00.000-07:00

Posted by Jesse Lee
on May 10, 2011 at 05:52 PM EDT

In a debate where the participants on all sides are too often portrayed as caricatures, the President sought to break through the stalemate by reminding us all that it is a debate about real people. Speaking in El Paso, Texas, he talked about the graduates from 181 countries at Miami Dade Community College, who erupted with applause as the American flag came out before the President’s commencement address there recently. He talked about a Marine who came from Papua New Guinea and deployed to Iraq three times – when asked about becoming an American citizen, he said, “I might as well. I love this country already.”

He was also up front about the legitimate frustrations that American citizens, including those who immigrated legally, can feel:

"Others avoid immigration laws by overstaying their visas. Regardless of how they came, the overwhelming majority of these folks are just trying to earn a living and provide for their families. (Applause.) But we have to acknowledge they’ve broken the rules. They’ve cut in front of the line. And what is also true is that the presence of so many illegal immigrants makes a mockery of all those who are trying to immigrate legally."

Perhaps his central argument for fixing an immigration system that we all know is broken, however, was that it’s an integral part of America winning the future and creating a stronger economy for our kids:

"So one way to strengthen the middle class in America is to reform the immigration system so that there is no longer a massive underground economy that exploits a cheap source of labor while depressing wages for everybody else. I want incomes for middle-class families to rise again. (Applause.) I want prosperity in this country to be widely shared. (Applause.) I want everybody to be able to reach that American dream. And that’s why immigration reform is an economic imperative. It’s an economic imperative. (Applause.)

And reform will also help to make America more competitive in the global economy. Today, we provide students from around the world with visas to get engineering and computer science degrees at our top universities. (Applause.)

But then our laws discourage them from using those skills to start a business or a new industry here in the United States. Instead of training entrepreneurs to stay here, we train them to create jobs for our competition. That makes no sense. In a global marketplace, we need all the talent we can attract, all the talent we can get to stay here to start businesses -- not just to benefit those individuals, but because their contribution will benefit all Americans.

Look at Intel, look at Google, look at Yahoo, look at eBay. All those great American companies, all the jobs they’ve created, everything that has helped us take leadership in the high-tech industry, every one of those was founded by, guess who, an immigrant. (Applause.)

So we don’t want the next Intel or the next Google to be created in China or India. We want those companies and jobs to take root here. (Applause.) Bill Gates gets this. He knows a little something about the high-tech industry. He said, “The United States will find it far more difficult to maintain its competitive edge if it excludes those who are able and willing to help us compete.”

So immigration is not just the right thing to do. It’s smart for our economy. It’s smart for our economy. (Applause.) And it’s for this reason that businesses all across America are demanding that Washington finally meet its responsibilities to solve the immigration problem. Everybody recognizes the system is broken. The question is, will we finally summon the political will to do something about it? And that’s why we’re here at the border today."

The President also spoke about another piece of legislation that has been stalled in the stalemate over all things immigration-related -- the DREAM Act:

"And we should stop punishing innocent young people for the actions of their parents. (Applause.) We should stop denying them the chance to earn an education or serve in the military. And that’s why we need to pass the DREAM Act. (Applause.) Now, we passed the DREAM Act through the House last year when Democrats were in control. But even though it received a majority of votes in the Senate, it was blocked when several Republicans who had previously supported the DREAM Act voted no.

That was a tremendous disappointment to get so close and then see politics get in the way. And as I gave that commencement at Miami Dade, it broke my heart knowing that a number of those promising, bright students -- young people who worked so hard and who speak about what’s best in America -- are at risk of facing the agony of deportation. These are kids who grew up in this country. They love this country. They know no other place to call home. The idea that we’d punish them is cruel. It makes no sense. We’re a better nation than that. (Applause.)

So we’re going to keep fighting for the DREAM Act. We’re going to keep up the fight for reform. (Applause.) And that’s where you come in. I’m going to do my part to lead a constructive and civil debate on these issues. And we’ve already had a series of meetings about this at the White House in recent weeks. We’ve got leaders here and around the country helping to move the debate forward.

But this change ultimately has to be driven by you, the American people. You’ve got to help push for comprehensive reform, and you’ve got to identify what steps we can take right now -- like the DREAM Act, like visa reform -- areas where we can find common ground among Democrats and Republicans and begin to fix what’s broken."

Again turning to the real people affected by this issue, he told the story of José Hernández, who went from picking cucumbers and strawberries with his parents as a child to flying 100 miles above the surface of the Earth on the shuttle Discovery:

"Think about that, El Paso. That’s the American Dream right there. (Applause.) That's what we’re fighting for. We are fighting for every boy and every girl like José with a dream and potential that's just waiting to be tapped. We are fighting to unlock that promise, and all that holds not just for their futures, but for America’s future. That's why we’re going to get this done. And that's why I’m going to need your help."

See original article here: President Obama on Fixing Our Broken Immigration System: "E Pluribus, Unum

Senators Reintroduce the DREAM Act

2011-05-11T17:37:00.000-07:00

May 11, 2011

Washington, D.C. - Today, Senators Richard Durbin, Harry Reid, and Robert Menendez re-introduced the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. Last fall, the DREAM Act passed the House of Representatives, and garnered the support of a majority in the Senate, but was ultimately defeated when the Senate failed to invoke cloture and proceed to debate. The sponsors of the DREAM Act hope to build on last year’s momentum and continue to highlight the importance of fully utilizing the talent and potential of thousands of young people who are Americans in every way but their birth certificates.

First introduced in 2001, the DREAM Act would address the plight of young immigrants who have been raised in the U.S. and managed to succeed despite the challenges of being brought here without proper documentation. The proposal would offer a path to legal status to those who have graduated from high school, stayed out of trouble, and plan to attend college or serve in the U.S. military for at least two years.

Each year, approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school, many at the top of their classes, but cannot go on to college, join the military, work, or otherwise pursue their dreams. They belong to the 1.5 generation: immigrants brought to the United States at a young age who were largely raised in this country and therefore share much in common with second-generation Americans. These students are culturally American and fluent in English, growing up here and often having little attachment to their country of birth.

The moral, intellectual and practical rationale for the DREAM Act is overwhelming. The White House supports it. The Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice, entrusted with enforcing and implementing our immigration laws, support it. The Department of Education and America's academic and faith community support it, as well as state legislators, community groups, and the American public. The DREAM Act is even part of the Department of Defense's 2010-2012 Strategic Plan to assist the military in its recruiting efforts.

Despite broad support for the legislative proposal, the divisive political environment around immigration poses an enormous challenge for the DREAM Act. If Congress fails to act, the Administration can and should take more decisive steps to ensure that the values driving their legislative agenda are reflected in their implementation and interpretation of current law. DHS should ensure that its officers use their prosecutorial discretion to defer the removal of any eligible student caught up in the broken immigration system.

For research and resources on the DREAM Act visit IPC's resource page:

IPC DREAM Act Resource Page
IPC Executive Action Resource Page

President Obama Puts Immigration Reform Back on the Table

2011-05-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

May 10, 2011

Washington, D.C. - Today, President Obama offered his most concrete articulation of a new way forward for resolving our broken immigration system. Echoing and expanding upon the concepts of innovation, entrepreneurship, and the American Dream, the President invited the American public to join him in pressing Congress for comprehensive immigration reform.

Benjamin Johnson, Executive Director of the American Immigration Council, issued the following statement:

“The President continues to refine his argument that comprehensive immigration reform is a key component of ensuring our success in the 21st century. While this message cannot be repeated often enough, the blueprint for change released by the White House today marks a new page in the immigration debate. The blueprint offers numerous ideas that can be translated into specific legislation and will challenge both parties to come together to work in the country’s best interests. The blueprint also invites the public to engage Congress directly on this issue, setting the stage for a showdown between the President and the public—who overwhelmingly support immigration reform—and a recalcitrant Congress.

We look forward to engaging in a more robust discussion of the economic impact of immigration, and we take today’s events as a signal that the Administration will continue to lead on this important issue. Immigration reform is on the table, and the time is long overdue for an honest, constructive debate over how to create a 21st century immigration system that is good for American workers and families, and reflects our history as a nation of immigrants.”

To view information on the economics of immigration reform, see:

The Economics of Immigration Reform (IPC Resource Page, 2011)

Paying it forward: Nearly 100 volunteer in Mission for Mentors Telethon

2011-05-11T17:22:00.000-07:00

April 13, 2011 5:34 AM

CAROLYN BOLTON, NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT

The 14th annual Mission for Mentors Telethon neared its goals Tuesday as prospective mentors phoned the organization's mobile headquarters at Center Court in Paseo Nuevo. A minute after 8 p.m., as the telethon was winding down and the TV cameras being shut off, 94 people had pledged a total of 4,888 volunteer hours to the Fighting Back Mentor Program, and organizers were hoping for a few last-minute stragglers. "We're already past last year," said Ann Cowell, a mentor program advocate. "We're hoping to shoot for a hundred mentors."

Last year, mentors pledged close to 5,000 volunteer hours, Ms. Cowell said.

"I've been talking to people on the phones and they've been saying that they've been getting a lot of men calling in, which is fantastic 'cause that's what we really needed," Ms. Cowell said. "We're really excited."

Penny Jenkins, project director for Fighting Back, also expressed enthusiasm about the program's success. "It really is rewarding to everybody involved," she told the News-Press.

Ms. Jenkins helped jump-start the mentor program 16 years ago to help reduce alcoholism and drug abuse through prevention, intervention, treatment and aftercare.

"I think we're getting a whole lot more kids that have experienced violence in their life, and more kids that have experienced gang members in their life," Ms. Jenkins said. "So, we're hoping to get more male mentors to work with the more high-risk kids."

While the program is underscoring its need for more male mentors, it still needs female mentors.
"We're emphasizing men, but we still need women," Ms. Jenkins said.

Some students in the program aren't in serious danger of becoming involved in gang-related or abusive activities, but nevertheless need someone to look up to.

"There's also kids that aren't high-risk," Ms. Jenkins said. "They just need a person -- a role model," she said.

Some of the highlights of the mentor program are those students who have excelled despite serious problems, Ms. Jenkins added.

"They come back and see us, and they're in college or they have a good job, or they have a family already," she said.

"The reward is seeing healthy kids as a result of (the mentor program)."

Students aren't the only ones benefitting from the program, Ms. Jenkins said. "The mentors get as much out of this as the kids do," she said.

Arnold Jaffe, an immigration attorney from Santa Barbara, has been a mentor for the past seven years. "It's been really incredible," he said. "You get to be a friend, you get to receive more than you give.

"I learned a lot about listening and sort of drawing a young guy out," he said of his partner, Anthony. "He was in the fourth grade when I started and is a junior in high school now," Mr. Jaffe said. "So, I've got to watch him play football and basketball and go out with girls."

The fun of being a mentor is learning how to give advice when asked for it, he said. "Which is an advantage of being a mentor as opposed to be a parent, where you feel like you have to give advice if you're not asked."

The program has been great because all it has ever required of him is to act naturally, Mr. Jaffe said. "It's a wonderful thing to make a difference in the world in a way that's really easy -- by just connecting and being you," he said. Mr. Jaffe emphasized the need to pay it forward.

"We all, I think, have gotten a certain distance in our lives because of the kindness of other people," he said. "And that's what this is about. It's been terrific."

Judge Gives Immigrant in Same-Sex Marriage a Reprieve From Deportation

2011-05-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

May 07, 2011

By JULIA PRESTON

An immigration judge in Newark responded to an unusual signal from the Obama administration that it is exploring legal avenues for recognizing those marriages in immigration cases.

Read the entire article:
Judge Gives Immigrant in Same-Sex Marriage a Reprieve From Deportation

As Barriers to Lawyers Persist, Immigrant Advocates Ponder Solutions

2011-05-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

By SAM DOLNICK

More than two years ago, a federal judge in New York began a crusade to find lawyers for the many immigrants who are detained or deported because they lack representation. Powerful figures, including Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, heard the call and helped draw attention to the issue.

But the problem persists in immigration court, where defendants have no right to a court-appointed lawyer, forcing many to go without and drastically raising their chances of being deported. Although Mr. Bloomberg promised $2 million to train lawyers in immigration issues, the city has not produced the money.

On Tuesday, about 200 leaders from legal, governmental and immigration circles gathered in Manhattan to discuss the barriers that deny many immigrants proper legal counsel. Robert A. Katzmann, the federal judge who started the effort and organized the symposium, called the problem a “substantial threat to the fair and effective administration of justice.”

John Paul Stevens, the retired Supreme Court justice, who galvanized immigrant advocates with a decision last year that said lawyers must tell their clients about the deportation consequences of pleading guilty, delivered the keynote address.

“The need for legal representation for immigrants is really acute,” Mr. Stevens said. He urged the audience to push for Congress to grant state and federal judges discretion in deportation cases because, he said, “the consequences are just so drastic.”

Immigrants’ fate in deportation cases often comes down to whether they can afford a lawyer. Immigrants with legal representation are at least five times as likely to win their cases as those without, yet in New York only 40 percent of detained immigrants have lawyers, according to research by Judge Katzmann’s group that was released Tuesday.

More than a quarter of immigration defendants who have not been detained do not have lawyers either, the study showed.

“The fact that so many can face such dire results at the hands of our legal system without the benefits of competent counsel is one of the blatant injustices of our time,” said Matthew Diller, dean of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, where the conference was held.

The problem only gets worse when immigrants are sent to distant detention centers in places like Texas or Louisiana, as happens to nearly two-thirds of those taken into immigration custody in New York. Nearly 80 percent of those immigrants are unrepresented, according to the study, which examined Justice Department data from 2005 to 2010.

“If they don’t have a lawyer, it’s because they don’t have anything,” said Lynn M. Kelly, executive director of the City Bar Justice Center. “People beg, borrow and pass the hat around the community to hire attorneys.”

But simply hiring a lawyer is not necessarily a solution. Lazy and unprepared lawyers fill immigration courts, bungling cases at grave costs to their clients, experts say.

“The too-often-poor quality of representation continues to undermine the effective administration of justice,” said Judge Katzmann, who sits on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

More than 50 New York lawyers who have been expelled or suspended by the Justice Department have cases pending before the immigration courts or the Board of Immigration Appeals, the new research says.

People posing as lawyers are another common problem for vulnerable immigrants, many of whom cannot speak English. “Across New York, fraudulent legal service providers are making huge profits by defrauding immigrant communities,” said Janet Sabel, an official in the state attorney general’s office.

It is highly unusual for a federal judge to embrace a public issue with such vigor, but Judge Katzmann said his background — he is the grandson of Russian immigrants and the son of a refugee from Nazi Germany — had granted him a special sympathy “for those who come to this country and want to make it great.”

His study group, which draws more than 50 immigration experts, has made some progress since it began work in 2008.

The Legal Orientation Program, a Justice Department project that advises immigrants on their rights, opened a New York City branch last year. The ranks of pro bono lawyers working on immigration cases have grown, and the authorities have stepped up efforts to crack down on fraudulent lawyers.

But with much work remaining, many advocates looked to Mr. Bloomberg to fulfill his 2009 campaign promise to spend $2 million to train lawyers. Fatima A. Shama, the city’s immigrant affairs commissioner, said the mayor had not forgotten.

“We will do what we need to do, not only to maintain our commitment around a campaign promise, but around what’s right,” Ms. Shama told the crowd.

At the session Tuesday, many acknowledged that there were no quick fixes to the challenges of immigrant representation.

“These problems have been around for a long time,” said Claudia Slovinsky, a veteran immigration lawyer. She said that only a sweeping solution ensuring representation to all immigrants would address the fundamental inequalities.

“Everything we’re doing in the meantime is short-term improvements of a weak system,” Ms. Slovinsky said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/nyregion/barriers-to-lawyers-persist-for-immigrants.html?scp=5&sq=immigration&st=cse

Letter from the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration

2011-04-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

April 14, 2011
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528

Dear Secretary Napolitano:

As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security, I am responsible for directing the Senate's oversight of the immigration functions of the Department of Homeland Security and for directing the Senate's legislative agenda with regard to immigration, citizenship, and refugee laws.

It is in this capacity that I would like to draw your attention to a recurring problem in our immigration system-that is, the suboptimal use of scarce government resources in our detention and removal process. As has become evident through the budgetary parameters set forth in H.R. 1473-the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011-as many in Congress are calling for substantial cuts to every agency's budget, it appears that the Department of Homeland Security will likely be required to operate with fewer resources both
this year and into the future.

In an environment where agency funds are decreasing, it is important that the Department of Homeland Security focus its immigration enforcement efforts on terrorists, criminals, and others who impose a real security threat to our nation. According to a March 2, 2011 memorandum of John Morton, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE only has the funding to remove 400,000 individuals per year. Given that this entire number can be filled by criminal aliens and others posing security threats, it makes eminent sense to focus ICE's enforcement efforts on these criminals and security threats, rather than non-criminal populations.

On a daily basis, my office receives requests for assistance in many compelling immigration cases. These cases often involve non-criminal immigrants such as: (1) high-school valedictorians and honor students who did not enter the country through their own volition and yet are being deported solely for the illegal conduct of their parents; (2) bi-national same-sex married couples who are being discriminated against based on their sexual orientation who would otherwise be able to remain in the United States if they were in an opposite-sex marriage; (3) agricultural workers who perform back-breaking labor and are providing for their families; and (4) immigrant parents with U.S. citizen children, whose deportation will only lead to increased costs to the states in foster care and government benefits.

While it is undisputed that you are obligated to enforce our nation's immigration laws, and I would support a broader approach in a world of unlimited resources, it is unwise and inefficient in this environment to substantially focus our scarce law enforcement resources on non-criminal cases when there are still criminal aliens who are living in our population and have not been apprehended by DHS.

In this regard, I ask that you use your discretion to weigh--on a case-by-case basis-whether the detention and removal funds that will be used to deport any non-criminal immigrant from one of the four groups listed above justifies diverting scarce resources from attempting to capture, detain, prosecute, and remove criminal aliens. While, in some cases, the answer might still be in the affirmative, it is hard to believe that every case should result in removal. Every dollar spent on detention, prosecution and removal of a non-criminal immigrant is a dollar that cannot be spent getting criminal aliens off of our streets and out of our country.

I thank you for your attention to this important matter, and look forward to working with you in any manner necessary to further our joint mission of securing the country.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer
Chairman
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security

Obama vows again on immigration

2011-04-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

By ABBY PHILLIP 04/19/11 5:47 PM Updated: 04/19/11 6:34 PM

President Obama told about 70 community and religious leaders on Tuesday that he hasn’t given up on immigration.

According to Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti, Obama made a “compelling case” in a meeting at the White House that he was still committed to changing the immigration system, despite his failure to move legislation in either body of Congress in the last two years.

Obama said he wouldn’t let the failed voted in December on the Dream Act, which would allow the children of illegal immigrants to attend public universities and achieve a path to citizenship, be the last word on that bill.

Rev. Al Sharpton told reporters that at the “unusual meeting,” in which Obama stayed the whole time, Obama asked the leaders to continue pushing their constituencies to apply congressional pressure on immigration.

“I think he was very candid, but I think he also put out the challenge for those of us that participated to give him feedback from various constituencies,” Sharpton said. “All politicians have to listen to their base.”

Asked about whether the timing of the meeting was designed to gin up support before Obama’s three-day trip to the West Coast, Sharpton said he and others in the room didn’t ask.

“One thing I don't think any of us did ... none of us asked the president, ‘Why did you invite us now?’ ” Sharpton said.

The White House later released this statement:

"In a meeting in the State Dining Room this afternoon, the President and members of his Cabinet and senior staff met with a broad group of business, law enforcement, faith, and former and current elected leaders from across the political spectrum to hear their ideas and suggestions on how to tackle our shared challenge of fixing our nation’s broken immigration system in order to meet our 21st century economic and security needs.

"The President reiterated his deep disappointment that Congressional action on immigration reform has stalled and that the DREAM Act failed to pass in the U.S. Senate after passing with a bipartisan majority in the U.S. House in December. The President listened to stakeholders describe a variety of problems that result from the broken system, including: educating the best and brightest but then shipping that talent overseas; concerns over the ability of businesses to reliably hire and retain a legal workforce; and the need to level the playing field for American workers by ending the underground labor market. In addition, local law enforcement officers expressed concern that without reform, enforcing federal immigration laws is a distraction from their important public safety and crime fighting mandates to keep their local communities safe, and faith leaders highlighted the damage to families and communities when families are separated, including parents who are taken away from their U.S. Citizen children.

"The President reiterated his commitment to comprehensive immigration reform that both strengthens security at our borders while restoring accountability to the broken immigration system, and pointed out that perpetuating a broken immigration system is not an option if America is to win the future.

"The President made it clear that while his Administration continues to improve our legal immigration system, secure our borders, and enhance our immigration enforcement so that it is more effectively and sensibly focusing on criminals, the only way to fix what’s broken about our immigration system is through legislative action in Congress. The President noted that he will continue to work to forge bipartisan consensus and will intensify efforts to lead a civil debate on this issue in the coming weeks and months, but also noted that he cannot be successful if he is leading the debate alone. The President urged meeting participants to take a public and active role to lead a constructive and civil debate on the need to fix the broken immigration system. He stressed that in order to successfully tackle this issue they must bring the debate to communities around the country and involve many sectors of American society in insisting that Congress act to create a system that meets our nation's needs for the 21st century and that upholds America's history as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. The President further committed that his Cabinet and White House team will follow up with each participant to maximize the outcome of this meeting in order to elevate the immigration debate. "

How Immigration Activists Are Fighting Deportation Policy With Social Media

2011-04-20T10:06:00.000-07:00

Juan E. Gastelum is Master of Science student at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. You can follow him on twitter @juangastelum.

Walter Lara’s first tweet back in 2009 started with the words “I’m being deported.” Two years later, he lives in Miami, works legally, has a driver’s license and pays in-state tuition at Miami Dade College.

He is one of a few dozen young, undocumented immigrants who have avoided deportation and are now enjoying the benefits — even if only temporary — of being in the United States legally as a result of campaigns in which social media played a crucial role.

Social media platforms provide the means by which these youths, who call themselves Dreamers, can find each other without travelling or exposing their status. They appeal to supporters nationwide and petition en masse for extensions on deportation dates. They help garner the attention of politicians, lawyers and advocacy groups. And they get Dreamers’ stories out into the public sphere when the attention of the mass media is elsewhere.

Lara, 25, was two weeks away from being deported when Maria Lacayo, a childhood friend, created a Facebook group called “Keep Walter’s Dream Alive.” On the group’s Page, she explained Lara’s situation: His parents brought him to the U.S. from Argentina illegally when he was only three. He is an honor student, and he would be eligible for legal residence under the Dream Act. She also shared her contact information and linked to her Twitter account.
“I woke up the next morning and I had over 400 emails,” says Lacayo, who became Lara’s impromptu campaign manager.

People she had never met started suggesting courses of action and organizations pledged their support. After an influential child advocacy non-profit posted Lara’s information on its website, the group grew to more than 2,000 members. And a Twitter account created the same day on behalf of Lara accumulated more than 300 followers within hours.

With the help of their followers and several non-profits, the pair jumped onto the mass media’s radar, obtained a letter of support from Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, and crashed the switchboard at the Department of Homeland Security on two consecutive days. Three days before he was scheduled to depart, Lara received a yearlong deferment that has since been renewed once.

Dreamers now see Lara’s as a flagship case and have since mimicked and built upon his and Lacayo’s use of social media to halt more deportations.

Alonso Chehade, 24, also faced deportation when he contacted Lacayo only days after Lara’s deferment. He learned what they had done and launched his own campaign in Seattle. Chehade obtained pro-bono legal representation and, with the help of one of the same non-profits, managed to get 5,000 supporters to send in letters to local Congressmen using an online fax service linked to his Facebook Page and personal website. His deportation was delayed indefinitely after Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat in Washington, intervened on his behalf.

The most important role of social media, says Chehade, is to demonstrate public sympathy for people in his position. Since his case was resolved, he has dedicated his efforts to unifying online supporters across various platforms.

A large community of pro-immigrant bloggers and organizers started to develop around 2005, says Kyle de Beausset, who curates a Google group in which more than 1,000 active bloggers across the country interact privately online. But platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have made it much easier for young undocumented youth to find each other without necessarily having to expose themselves.

“They were able to get together anonymously, see the numbers that they had and then start building on that,” says de Beausset.

Indeed, several online venues have become the go-to places for young undocumented immigrants facing deportation and empathizers alike. On Facebook, it is a page with more than 88,000 likes called “Dream Act 2010.” And on Twitter, @DreamAct, which is run by activist group DreamActivist.org, has more than 9,000 followers. These venues have proven, as Chehade would put it, the power of organized clicks.

Campaigns usually start with an individual tweet or Facebook status update that alerts the network that someone has been detained or has received notification that he or she will be deported. Hashtags or @messages ensure that those are targeted at the group and known organizers, who then spread the word and start online petitions that are directed at legislators. Videos of the person telling his or her story are often posted on YouTube. At the same time, organizers on the ground work on getting attorneys and setting up rallies. If all these come together successfully, a deportation can be halted.

Rigoberto Padilla, who was granted a reprieve by Homeland Security in 2009 after a similar campaign, says the organization he now volunteers for in Chicago has stopped six deportations since he started there about a year ago. Two other organizations in Washington, D.C., and Maine report comparable numbers.

The two platforms have also centralized online support for the Dream Act — which would benefit all Dreamers — keeping the contentious bill at the forefront of political discussion. In February, for example, the Dream Act 2010 page directed so many votes to YouTube’s World View program that a Dream Act query was presented as the number one question to that month’s guest, Rep. John Boehner, an Ohio Republican.

Still, Dreamers regard their colossal victories as minimal in comparison to their ultimate goal: to ensure that others in their position — 2.1 million, according to a study by the Migration Policy Institute — can stay in the country long enough to see the Dream Act through.

In Georgia, Politics Trump Common Sense on Immigration

2011-04-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

Leaving "Wisdom, Justice and Moderation" Behind

April 15, 2011

Washington D.C. - Last night, the Georgia legislature passed HB 87, a bill modeled after Arizona's SB 1070 law. The bill allows local police to investigate the immigration status of individuals and requires businesses to verify work eligibility of new hires through E-Verify, a flawed federal employment verification system. Governor Nathan Deal has indicated he will sign the bill despite pleas from Georgia's business community who rightly fear the law will hurt the state's critical farming and restaurant industries.

By doing so, Governor Deal is ignoring the economic reality of the state's $1.3 billion budget shortfall, and the fact that the costs associated with the bill have not been enumerated by state legislators who failed to attach a fiscal note to it. He is also closing his eyes to the cautionary tale that Arizona provides. After passage of their similar law - which has not been implemented and has been deemed unconstitutional - they lost $141 million from cancelled conferences, including a "quarter billion dollars in lost economic output," a projected $86 million in lost wages, 2,800 jobs over the next two to three years and more than $1 million that the state has already spent on legal fees defending it. Plans for an economic boycott of Georgia are also reportedly underway.

In addition to the the economic disaster this law will inflict on the state, the Governor should be prepared for the considerable reputational damage that will also follow. By allowing this bill to become law, the Governor is walking away from the state's motto "Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation" and is poised to leave a dark mark on Georgia's history and his own governing legacy. These state measures are economic and public relations disasters and are no replacement for common sense solutions at the federal level.

House Subcommittee Continues Assault on All Forms of Immigration

2011-04-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

April 5, 2011

Washington D.C. - Opponents of immigration reform are often quick to differentiate their disdain for unauthorized immigration from their alleged support of legal immigration. However, finding any evidence of that support has always been elusive and, over the past several months, the House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement has conducted hearings that question the value of all forms of immigration. They continue to perpetuate the myth that all immigrants - including legal immigrants - are stealing jobs from native-born workers.

Today, the committee continues these same attacks on legal channels of immigration with a hearing on diversity visas, a program which provides 55,000 green cards annually by lottery to persons from countries that do not currently send many immigrants to the United States. The diversity visa is a relatively small program designed to increase the diversity of our immigrant flows. One prime example of a diversity visa winner is famed soccer player Freddy Adu.

The Subcommittee's hearing last week on H-1B visas was another example of their political strategy that attempts to pit one category of immigrants against another, as well as to isolate issues rather than looking at them in context.The H-1B visa program is the main immigration category used by U.S. employers to bring foreign, professional-level talent to the U.S. for key positions. While it is used a great deal by the IT industry, it is also used for countless other highly specialized positions that require at least a baccalaureate degree in a specific field. H-1B petitions are sought for nanoscientists, applied mathematicians, risk analysts, pharmaceutical researchers, automotive designers, international legal experts, film editors, and micro-imaging engineers. We know that despite the high rate of unemployment in the U.S., we still have major shortages in highly technical fields. The H-1B is often used by employers to address those shortages. Furthermore, studies show that, overall, five jobs are created for every H-1B worker brought into the U.S. The sharing of knowledge in highly technical fields typically results in innovation and expansion of opportunities and employment for native-born workers.

While there are a range of appropriate questions that can be asked about immigration, proposing the elimination of a class of visas without looking at the broader issues inevitably pits groups of immigrants and other stakeholders against each other - rather than creating a real dialogue about how to create an immigration system that operates as a valuable resource to the American economy. The lack of genuine oversight and stewardship on the part of the Subcommittee's leadership makes one wonder what their real motives are.

"Just Between Us!" Television Program with Attorney Arnold Jaffe Now Online

2011-03-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

From: William Smithers
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 11:32 AM
To: Arnold Jaffe
Subject: Your "Just Between Us!" interview is now online

Dear Mr. Jaffe --

Today, your interview with Lorrie and me for the Channel 17 television program "Just Between Us!" has been posted to our web site:

http://sb-justbetweenus.com/

Each week, a different previously-broadcast episode of the show is posted to the site, and there is a Directory of TV Interviews to access episodes posted earlier.

Friends, family, co-workers who missed the original broadcast or who would like to see it again now have the opportunity to see it online.

We would suggest that you and they might also like to sample other interviews as well; there are interesting people in Santa Barbara!

Best wishes from us both,

Bill Smithers

POTENTIAL IMMIGRATION IMPLICATIONS FOR SAME-SEX COUPLES OF JUSTICE DEPARTMENT'S ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING DOMA SECTION 3

2011-03-02T08:43:00.000-08:00

February 24, 2011

By David A. Isaacson

The Justice Department announced Wednesday, that, based in part on the recommendation of Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama has determined that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional, and will no longer defend it in court. This is because, facing litigation within the jurisdiction of a circuit court of appeals (the Second Circuit) that has never ruled on the appropriate standard of review to be applied to laws concerning sexual orientation, the Administration determined that a heightened standard of review is appropriate, and that Section 3 of DOMA cannot withstand review under such a standard (although the Justice Department had previously argued that Section 3 could survive the looser rational-basis test applicable under the precedent of some courts of appeals). The announcement is available online at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/February/11-ag-222.html, and a related letter sent by Attorney General Holder to Speaker of the House John Boehner is available at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/February/11-ag-223.html.

The announcement states, however, that Section 3 of DOMA will remain in effect until either it is repealed or “there is a final judicial finding that strikes it down,” and until such time “the Executive Branch will continue to enforce the law.” The letter to Speaker Boehner states even more specifically that “the President has instructed Executive agencies to continue to comply with Section 3 of DOMA, consistent with the Executive’s obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, unless and until Congress repeals Section 3 or the judicial branch renders a definitive verdict against the law’s constitutionality.”

Section 3 of DOMA, 1 U.S.C. § 7, provides that for purposes of federal law, “the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” Among other consequences under federal law, this means, according to the consistent interpretation of USCIS and the former INS, that a same-sex spouse cannot be granted immigration benefits by virtue of his or her marriage to a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. This aspect of DOMA, as interpreted in a 2003 memorandum by William Yates of USCIS, was discussed in a March 2004 web article by Cyrus D. Mehta (http://www.cyrusmehta.com/News.aspx?MainIdx=ocyrus200591724845&Month=&Source=Zoom&Page=1&Year=All&From=Menu&SubIdx=964).

The recent Administration announcement suggests that, following successful litigation, same-sex spouses whose marriages are recognized by their state of residence may find themselves able to seek immigration benefits based on their marriages, although this will for the moment not be possible without litigation given the Administration’s position that Section 3 of DOMA will continue to be enforced until a court declares it unconstitutional. Litigation is not certain to succeed, however, because Congress or individual members of Congress may intervene to defend the constitutionality of DOMA. Indeed, one of the purposes of the statutory provision, 28 U.S.C. § 530D, that required Attorney General Holder’s notification to Speaker Boehner was to enable such defense by a House of Congress or individual members, and the Attorney General said of the pending challenges to Section 3 of DOMA in his letter that Justice Department attorneys “will also notify the courts of our interest in providing Congress a full and fair opportunity to participate in the litigation in those cases.” Moreover, there is some risk that any challenge to Section 3 of DOMA could be less likely to succeed in the immigration context than in other contexts, given the “plenary power” doctrine and the history of judicial deference to Congress in this context – as in Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787 (1977), where the Supreme Court upheld a provision of the INA that discriminated against illegitimate children – although it is also possible that Section 3 of DOMA will be voided in all contexts by a judicial holding that it is, as a general matter, unconstitutional.

Given the uncertainty regarding the timing and nature of final judicial action on this subject, it would be extremely risky for same-sex married couples to affirmatively seek immigration benefits in reliance on this announcement. It could even be quite risky for same-sex couples to marry in reliance on the announcement, if the current status of one of the spouses depends on showing a foreign residence and no intent to abandon it (such as with a B-1/B-2 visitor or F-1 student). This risk and others were discussed in more detail in a July 8, 2010 advisory from Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) following their victory in a district court case challenging Section 3 of DOMA, http://www.immigrationequality.org/template.php?pageid=1115.

Same-sex spouses of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents who are already in removal proceedings, however, should consider seeking adjustment of status under INA § 245 based on an I-130 petition filed by their spouse if they are otherwise eligible for that relief, and/or cancellation of removal under INA § 240A(b) based on the hardship to their spouse if they were to be removed if they are otherwise eligible, and preserving the issue for judicial review. Similarly, same-sex couples who are not yet married could consider moving to a state that recognizes same-sex marriages if they do not reside in one already, entering into a state-recognized marriage, and seeking adjustment of status or cancellation of removal for the non-U.S.-citizen spouse based on that marriage—bearing in mind that like any other marriage, a same-sex marriage could only be a basis for immigration benefits if it were established to the satisfaction of the immigration authorities that such a marriage was bona fide, that is, was truly meant to establish a shared life together rather than being done purely for immigration purposes, and that in the case of adjustment of status based on a marriage entered into while one spouse is in removal proceedings, INA sections 204(g) and 245(e) would require a showing by clear and convincing evidence that the marriage was not entered into for immigration purposes. The concerns raised by GLAD in its previous advisory continue to apply, however, and it is therefore this author’s view that the preferable course in cases where removal proceedings have not already been commenced would generally be to await further developments before filing any petition or application based on a same-sex marriage.

Is More Getting Us Less? Real Solutions for Securing our Border

2011-02-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

February 15, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the House Committee on Homeland Security's Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security held a hearing entitled "Securing our Borders - Operational Control and the Path Forward." Continued oversight of border security is commendable, but the subcommittee should avoid falling into the same old paradigm presented today and exemplified by Congressman Mike Rodgers of Alabama. The Congressman asked Michael J. Fisher, Chief of the Border Patrol at the Department of Homeland Security, "What do you need to secure the border?" What do you need to provide that rock solid prevention of illegal immigration?" These types of wrong-headed questions have resulted in a decade of misguided solutions. Congress continues to appropriate record amounts of money for personnel and technology at the border, but refuses to enact immigration reforms that would address the root causes of unauthorized immigration and other border problems.

To provide perspective, the Immigration Policy Center releases Is More Getting Us Less? Real Solutions for Securing our Border by Eric Olson and David Shirk. Their research at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego has shown that record levels of spending on border security have, in fact, made our border less secure. That spending, coupled with a lack of legal avenues for entry, have become a boon to the criminal cartels who have capitalized on a growing industry of smuggling migrants into the U.S. Enhanced security has also had the unintended consequence of interrupting historical, cyclical flows of migration, where migrants would come and go seasonally. The authors disentangle the multitude of issues that arise along the border, and make solid recommendations for seriously tackling our border problems.

To read the piece in its entirety see:
Is More Getting Us Less? Real Solutions for Securing our Border

(IPC Perspectives, February 15, 2011)

Deeper into the Shadows: The Unintended Consequences of Immigration Worksite Enforcement

2011-02-10T18:17:00.000-08:00

February 9, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases Deeper into the Shadows: The Unintended Consequences of Immigration Worksite Enforcement by Jeffrey Kaye. This paper examines what happens to workers and their employers after an I-9 audit, and argues for worksite enforcement that is more targeted.

Before the onset of the Great Recession, immigrant labor was cited as a boon to the U.S. economy. In towns and cities across the country, immigrant labor - documented or otherwise - filled positions in growing businesses and industries where demand outpaced the supply of native-born workers. Since the onset of the economic downturn in 2008 and the rise in U.S. unemployment, some analysts and politicians - looking for a convenient scapegoat - have turned on that immigrant workforce and their employers, arguing that deporting eight million undocumented immigrant workers will create eight million new jobs for the native-born. This over-simplified equation ignores the complicated and interdependent roles that immigrants play in our economy. Only by overhauling our current immigration system and replacing it with one that meets the needs of the 21st century will we get past the hardships and quandaries Mr. Kaye so ably details in his report.

To view the special report in its entirety see:

Deeper into the Shadows: The Unintended Consequences of Immigration Worksite Enforcement by Jeffrey Kaye. (IPC Special Report, February 9, 2011)

THIS WEEK IN IMMIGRATION

2011-02-07T18:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.immigrationimpact.com/

The Rally Against State Immigration Legislation Continues
A Washington Post article this week highlighted what many state business groups, law enforcement officers and concerned legislatures have been cautioning for months - at a time of economic uncertainty, states simply cannot afford the costly legal battles and political backlash caused by Arizona-style immigration legislation. Over the past month, SB1070 copycat bills in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah, have been met with considerable hesitation and criticism from constituents worried about the social and economic impact on their state. Some states, like Mississippi and Wyoming, have even rejected initial versions of copycat bills due to high costs. But as other states consider enforcement legislation (California joined the fray this week, as did Georgia's state Senate), those worried about how enforcement legislation will cost their state feel they can no longer afford to be quiet. Read more...

How Reuters, Northeastern University Stifle Immigration Debate by Suppressing Labor Analysis
On January 20, Reuters published a news article with the following headline: "Exclusive: Over a Million Immigrants land U.S. jobs in 2008-10." The article, which reported on data exclusively provided to Reuters by the Center for Labor Market Studies (CLMS) at Northeastern University in Boston, appeared just a few days before the House Immigration Subcommittee held its first hearing of the new Congress criticizing the Obama Administration on worksite enforcement. The article was also quoted in testimony by Mark Kirkorian of the Center for Immigration Studies as proof that the native-born are losing out to immigrants in the work force. The CLMS "study," however, which supports the flawed restrictionist theory that America can deport its way out of unemployment, actually backfired during the hearing. Read more...

Senator Cornyn, Republicans Continue to Stammer on Immigration Reform
The official Republican response to the State of the Union address may have been delivered by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), but the immigration response came from Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn who fired off an editorial questioning the President's commitment to border security and immigration reform. While the Administration has certainly heard Sen. Cornyn's accusations before, his mixed messaging on border security and reform efforts seem indicative of a larger Republican problem - one in which words don't quite match up with deeds. Read more...

Study Shows 287(g) Program Fails to Prioritize Serious Criminals
This week, the Migration Policy Institute released a new study on ICE's 287(g) program, Delegation and Divergence: A Study of 287(g) State and Local Immigration Enforcement. The study, which assesses the implementation, enforcement outcomes, costs, community impacts of the program generally, and provides an in-depth study in seven jurisdictions: Cobb County, GA; Frederick County, MD; Gwinnett County, GA; Los Angeles County, CA; Prince William County, VA; Las Vegas, NV; and the state of Colorado, found that 287(g) program is not living up to its promise. In fact, the study finds that ICE's allows jurisdictions to "operate the 287(g) program in fundamentally different ways across the country." Read more...

What Does the Vitter-Paul Resolution to Amend the Constitution Solve, Exactly?
In the latest attack on the Constitution and U.S. citizenship, Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a resolution (S. J. RES. 2) last week proposing an amendment to the constitution to limit citizenship to children born in the U.S. if 1) one parent is a U.S. citizen, 2) one parent is a legal permanent resident residing in the U.S., or 3) one parent is on active duty in the U.S. military. Arizona State Rep. Kavanaugh also introduced two bills last week attempting to deny citizenship to children born in the state to undocumented immigrants and require state officials to issue distinctive looking birth certificates to those children the state does not consider citizens. While these bills might make for splashy headlines, they do nothing to end undocumented immigration. In fact, it would make life more difficult for every person in the U.S., who would then have to prove their citizenship status in order to determine the status of their newborns. Read more...

This Week in Council Publications:

Federal Court Upholds Immigrants' Right To Reopen Cases From Outside the U.S.
(LAC Press Release, February 3, 2010)

Responding to State Immigration Legislation: A Resource Page

House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement: A Preview of What's to Come

2011-02-02T09:03:00.000-08:00

January 26, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the newly named House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement held its first hearing of the new session entitled, "ICE Worksite Enforcement - Up to the Job?" The name change seems to be a signal that Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith and Subcommittee Chairman Elton Gallegly will focus on enforcement, rather than immigration reform this session. It is hardly surprising, then, that the first hearing of the year was designed to challenge the Obama administration's decision to move from the massive worksite raids of the past to the use of employer worksite audits.

The following statements were made today during a pre-hearing press conference call organized by the Immigration Policy Center:

Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center said:

The Obama Administration's stepped up worksite enforcement efforts include conducting a record numbers of I-9 audits and collecting millions of dollars in fines. While this is an improvement over the arrests and round-ups involved in large-scale raids, which targeted workers, this new strategy is not without controversy. Across the country, I-9 audits, when not carefully conducted within the guidelines ICE has set for itself, can inadvertently lead to hardships for employers and workers alike, leading to the firing of thousands of workers, and leaving employers without the workers they need. If today's hearing is any indication of the committee's long-term vision, then we are in for sound bites rather than substance, and a call for the good old days of immigration enforcement first and forever."

Emily Tulli, Policy Attorney at the National Immigration Law Center said:

"This enforcement-only agenda, with military-style raids as its centerpiece, may make for good PR, but it is ineffective policy. These raids terrorize communities, shutter businesses, and hurt our local economies. This enforcement-only model is not only unsustainable and inhumane, but also doesn't fix our broken immigration system. Instead of looking backwards, we need to focus on practical solutions that help American workplaces thrive. ICE has a unique opportunity to meet their goals while helping to support labor law enforcement. Our economic recovery depends upon allowing good employers to thrive, while ensuring that bad apple employers who exploit workers are appropriately punished. ICE should use its significant enforcement dollars to target and penalize the worst employers, helping to create an incentive for employer compliance with immigration and labor law."

Javier Morillo-Alicea President of Service Employees International Union Local 26 in Minneapolis, Minnesota said:

"We are going to see more and more small business going underground and paying people off the books as a way not to be audited. The assumption that an ICE audit results in unauthorized workers being replaced by authorized workers should be checked. It's time for us to look at the problem and understand that we cannot deport our way out of illegal immigration nor can we audit our way out of illegal immigration."

Dan Siciliano, Senior Lecturer in Law and Associate Dean for Executive Education and Special Programs at Stanford Law School said:

"There is no evidence to support the idea that worksite raids open up jobs for U.S. workers. Most immigrant workers-mid-skill, low skill, documented and undocumented-don't compete with American workers. The 2010 Census is showing us that this trend has accelerated over the last decade. We have a low-skilled worker gap in the country. The overall skill level of US workers is increasing, which means those low skill jobs are becoming harder to fill. It isn't right to look at the economy and workforce as a set of little boxes whereby you pluck someone out of workplace, leaving a perfect empty seat for someone to fill. Labor force dynamics are much more complex than that."

Also see additional IPC resources on this topic:

A Framework for Effective Immigration Worksite Employer Enforcement (IPC, Jaunary 25, 2011) This paper provides background on immigration worksite enforcement efforts and lays out principles that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the administration's immigration worksite enforcement program. The principles include: accountability to stated priorities, accessibility of information, uniformity and consistency of standards, and proportionality of sanctions.

After the Raid is Over: Marshalltown, Iowa and the Consequences of Worksite Enforcement Raids (IPC Special Report, January 25, 2011) This paper examines the effects of a large immigration raid on a single company in America's heartland. It reviews the ICE raid on the Swift & Company pork processing facility in Marshalltown, Iowa in 2006 and the toll it has taken on the community's financial, social, and human capital.
"We are going to see more and more small business going underground and paying people off the books as a way not to be audited. The assumption that an ICE audit results in unauthorized workers being replaced by authorized workers should be checked. It's time for us to look at the problem and understand that we cannot deport our way out of illegal immigration nor can we audit our way out of illegal immigration."

President's Plans for Winning the Future Include Immigration Reform

2011-02-02T08:43:00.000-08:00

Discusses Immigration Policy in Plan for Economic Prosperity

January 26, 2011

Washington, D.C. - Last night in his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called on Republicans and Democrats to work together to "win the future" by taking on challenges that have been decades in the making - challenges like updating our current immigration laws to meet the needs of the country. The President outlined an ambitious agenda focused on innovation, education, and reform designed to expand economic growth and personal opportunity for all Americans. He specifically called on Congress to work with him to reform our laws so that we are able to attract the best and brightest minds from around the world, retain highly educated foreign students by making it easier for them to live and work in the United States, stop wasting the talent of students brought to this country illegally as children, and to end the problem of illegal immigration once and for all.

The following is a statement from Benjamin Johnson, Executive Director of the American Immigration Council:

"President Obama reminded Americans that they are capable of big things and big ideas. By acknowledging the contributions of immigrants - as entrepreneurs, innovators, students and workers - in his vision of a renewed America, the President reiterated that creating a 21st century immigration system is part of the solution for America's full economic recovery and future growth. But the President went a step further, decrying immigration policies that simply don't make sense, such as turning away the best and brightest minds from around the world, sending foreign students back to their countries to compete against us, or denying an education to students who have the potential to fill the jobs of the future.

By placing his discussion of immigration policy squarely within his plans for economic prosperity, the President continues the important work of reframing the immigration debate that he began during a major immigration speech last summer. By coupling his analysis with calls for civil discourse and more bipartisanship, he set the stage for a fresh start on this often divisive issue. We urge the Members of Congress to follow the President's lead and to come together to reform an immigration system that has, for too long, been out of step with what the country needs - innovators, entrepreneurs, skilled workers of all sorts, and dreamers."

Investing in the American Dream: The DREAM Act Would Allow Undocumented Youth to Give Back to America

2010-12-06T00:24:00.000-08:00

December 2, 2010

Washington D.C. - Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases Investing in the American Dream: The DREAM Act Would Allow Undocumented Youth to Give Back to America, a Perspectives piece by Dr. Roberto G. Gonzales, an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Social Work. Dr. Gonzales has been conducting a four-and-a-half year study of undocumented immigrant young adults in Los Angeles and a companion study in Seattle.

Dr. Gonzales writes:

"Undocumented immigrant youth - those who migrate at early ages and reside in the United States without legal permission - confront a troubling mix of circumstances. At some point during their adult lives, doors stop opening altogether for undocumented youth. Whether it is a series of blocked opportunities within the labor market or the end of educational opportunities, there comes a time when these young men and women run out of options. These moments contradict all that these young people have been taught in school, and send the message that their dreams will not be realized and that all of their hard work was in vain.

In most respects, these young people are already important members of U.S. society. After having been educated in our schools, they envision their futures here, and powerfully internalize American values and expectations of merit. Paradoxically, their efforts to adapt and contribute economically are met with legal obstacles. Rather than valuing them as important societal resources, current policies restrict their options and curb the transformative potential they have in their communities. Without full legal rights, they are barred from the very mechanisms that have ensured high levels of economic and social mobility to other immigrants throughout U.S. history.

This also means there is significant lost potential for the U.S. Without the incentive and means to continue their education, undocumented youth are not continuing their education, and the U.S. is losing out on their productivity, entrepreneurship, and creativity, as well as tax revenue from their potentially higher earnings."

To read the Perspectives piece in its entirety see:

Investing in the American Dream: The DREAM Act Would Allow Undocumented Youth to Give Back to America (IPC Perspectives, December 2, 2010)

Restrictionist Group Continues Cynical Legacy of Counting Costs While Ignoring Benefits of Immigration

2010-12-01T19:00:00.000-08:00

December 1, 2010

Washington D.C. - In a new report, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) paints a misleading financial portrait of the DREAM Act. The report, entitled Estimating the Impact of the DREAM Act, claims that the bill would be a burden on U.S. taxpayers and would "crowd out" native-born students in the classroom. However, the available evidence does not support either of these dire predictions.

In fact:

Institutions of higher education overwhelmingly support the DREAM Act, which would likely increase school revenues as students who would not normally attend college start to pay tuition.
The 10 states which, since 2001, have passed laws allowing undocumented students to qualify for in-state tuition have not experienced a large influx of new immigrant students that displaces native-born students.
Most DREAM Act students would likely enroll in community colleges, most of which have open enrollment, based on a philosophy that all qualified students should have the opportunity to learn. Historically, more than 80% of community college students hold full or part-time jobs, thus contributing to their own educations (and the tax base) even as they attend school. The American Association of Community Colleges estimates that state and local governments receive a 16% return on every dollar they invest in community colleges due to the increased earnings of college graduates.
Legalizing DREAM Act students would increase beneficiaries' earnings potential, as well as the U.S. tax base. A 2010 study by the UCLA North American Integration and Development Center estimates that the total earnings of DREAM Act beneficiaries over the course of their working lives would be between $1.4 trillion and $3.6 trillion.

CIS's cynical mischaracterization of the DREAM Act is not only inaccurate, but hypocritical as well. CIS frequently laments that so many immigrants to the United States have low levels of education, yet opposes a measure that would allow some of these immigrants to become more educated. What alternative to the DREAM Act does CIS propose? According to the Center for American Progress the cost to deport more than two million children and young adults who were raised in the United States would be $48.6 billion. How is that sound fiscal policy?

The U.S. economy doesn't need more deportations; it needs more college graduates. According to a recent report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, "not enough Americans are completing college... by 2018, we will need 22 million new college degrees-but will fall short of that number by at least 3 million postsecondary degrees, Associate's or better." The DREAM Act would help meet this need.

Dispelling DREAM Act Myths

2010-11-25T12:56:00.000-08:00

November 23, 2010

Washington D.C. - The DREAM Act - a popular proposal to provide legal status to undocumented youth who entered the U.S. as children, graduated from U.S. high schools, and attend college or enter the military - is the target of a smear campaign from anti-immigration hardliners. This tired effort to pit immigrants and native-born, whether they are workers or students, against one another is not only destructive, but has no basis in fact. Moreover, it ignores the economic benefits that come from legalizing a group of talented, hard-working individuals who want nothing more than to contribute to America and repay the country for the opportunities they've been given.

Research has shown that providing a legal status for young people who have a proven record of success in the United States would be a boon to the economy and the U.S. workforce. The U.S. military also needs the DREAM Act. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy, Bill Carr, stated that the law would be "good for readiness" and would help to recruit "cream of the crop" students. The DREAM Act is part of the Department of Defense's 2010-2012 Strategic Plan to assist the military in its recruiting efforts.

Yet, despite the popular support and extensive data that should make passage of the DREAM Act a no-brainer, there are those who continue to spread half-truths. The Immigration Policy Center has compiled a fact check that breaks down typical myths about the DREAM Act.

To view the fact check, in its entirety see:

Dispelling DREAM Act Myths (IPC Fact Check, November 23, 2010)

The DREAM Act to be Revived in Congress

2010-11-23T13:08:00.000-08:00

November 18, 2010

Washington, D.C. - Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that he would introduce the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act as a stand alone bill during the lame duck session of Congress.

First introduced in 2001, the DREAM Act would address the plight of young immigrants who have been raised in the U.S. and managed to succeed despite the challenges of being brought here without proper documentation. The proposal would offer a path to legal status to those who have graduated from high school, stayed out of trouble, and plan to attend college or serve in the U.S. military for at least two years.

Each year, approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school, many at the top of their classes, but cannot go on to college, join the military, work, or otherwise pursue their dreams. They belong to the 1.5 generation: immigrants brought to the United States at a young age who were largely raised in this country and therefore share much in common with second-generation Americans. These students are culturally American, growing up here and often having little attachment to their country of birth. The vast majority are bicultural and fluent in English.

Research has shown that providing a legal status for young people who have a proven record of success in the United States would be a boon to the economy and the U.S. workforce. University presidents and educational associations, as well as military recruiters, business and religious leaders have added their voice to those calling for passage of the bill. The DREAM Act is even part of the Department of Defense's 2010-2012 Strategic Plan to assist the military in its recruiting efforts.

Unfortunately, immigration status and the associated barriers to higher education contribute to a higher-than-average high-school dropout rate. The DREAM Act would eliminate these barriers for many students, and its high-school graduation requirement would provide a powerful incentive for students who might otherwise drop out to stay in school and go on to college.

For research and resources on the DREAM Act visit IPC's resource page:

IPC DREAM Act Resource Page

ICE's Enforcement Priorities and the Factors That Undermine Them

2010-11-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

November 9, 2010

Washington D.C. - Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases a special report examining ICE's Enforcement Priorities and the Factors That Undermine Them, by Michele Waslin, Ph.D. The paper reviews the steps that ICE has taken in recent months to clarify its enforcement priorities and how those priorities are playing out nationally and in local communities.

"As part of its strategy to gain support for comprehensive immigration reform, the administration has continually touted its enforcement accomplishments. In fact, over the last two years, the Obama administration has committed itself to a full-court press to demonstrate how committed the administration is to removing criminals and others who remain in the country without proper documentation.They have continued to use the enforcement programs of the previous administration, including partnering with state and local law enforcement agencies to identify, detain, and deport immigrants. However, in doing so, they have lost the ability to fully control their own enforcement priorities and enforcement outcomes, and the results have demonstrated that the state and local partners are not necessarily committed to the same priorities."

To view the report, in its entirety see:

ICE's Enforcement Priorities and the Factors that Undermine Them, by Michele Waslin, Ph.D. (IPC Special Report, November 9, 2010)

Special Edition: Immigration Detainers

2010-10-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

Director's Corner
Special Edition: Immigration Detainers

This week we continue our Director's Corner series on DHS programs that operate at the state and local level by focusing on immigration detainers. Like Secure Communities (the focus of last week's edition) immigration detainers impact immigration practitioners and their clients because they often result in detention and initiation of removal proceedings. If you have clients or case examples affected by state and local initiatives (like Secure Communities or detainers) please see the Take Action below to contact AILA.

What are Immigration Detainers?

An immigration detainer is a tool used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to identify potentially removable individuals who are in criminal custody nationwide.

The detainer is a non-binding request from ICE to another law enforcement agency (LEA) - such as a state or local jail - for notification that an individual is scheduled to be released from local custody and is intended to provide ICE a window within which to make timely arrangements to assume custody of that individual. In effect, the detainers authorizes the LEA to continue holding the individual for an additional 48 hours after their release from criminal custody - that is, after the individual has posted bond, completed a criminal sentence, or had the case against them dismissed.

At the end of the 48-hour period, the detainer expires. If ICE has not taken custody of the individual the LEA is required to release them.

How Does ICE Identify Individuals That May be Subject to a Detainer?

In recent years, the use of detainers has expanded greatly as they have become the linchpin of programs such as 287(g), Secure Communities, and the Criminal Alien Program which increasingly intertwine the state criminal justice systems with federal immigration enforcement.

Depending on the degree of cooperation between local jails and ICE, a detainer is issued in a number of ways. In jails where ICE agents are present, ICE agents may use booking information or other information provided by local officials to make decisions about whom to interview and whether to issue a detainer. If the jail has a 287(g) agreement with ICE, deputized local law enforcement officers work with ICE to interview arrestees and issue detainers. In the case of Secure Communities, an individual's fingerprints are run at booking through both the FBI and immigration databases. A detainer is issued if ICE believes the individual is removable from the U.S.

In cases where the jail has no formal partnership with ICE, a detainer can still issued if local officials contact ICE with information about persons they believe to be foreign-born - often based on booking information or simply because they look or sound "foreign."

What's wrong with Immigration Detainers?

Detainers Are Widely Misunderstood by LEAs
Misunderstandings about the nature of detainers are rampant among LEAs, particularly concerning the 48-hour limit for lawfully holding someone on a detainer. Frequently LEA officers hold individuals far beyond the 48-hour time limit. Yet detainees have little recourse when they are detained unlawfully; they languish in detention until ICE comes to pick them up, weeks or months after the detainer expired. Furthermore, LEAs often misunderstand, or are misinformed by ICE about, the meaning of a detainer, regarding it as a requirement to maintain custody, rather than a request.

Prolonged Detention for Immigrants
A detainer often affects a person’s ability to be released on bail pending criminal charges. Generally, criminal defendants with less serious charges are allowed to return to their communities before trial if they post bail. However, when ICE issues a detainer, some courts consider the detainer an adverse factor when determining a bail amount or whether to set bail at all. Other times, a judge may set bail, but the sheriff's office will refuse to accept bail from anyone with an ICE detainer. As a result, immigrants with minor, non-violent offenses, who otherwise would have been released from custody, spend months in jail waiting for the criminal charges against them to be resolved.

Detainer Policy Isn't in Sync with ICE Enforcement Priorities
In June, ICE issued a memo on its enforcement priorities, focusing on immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes. In contradiction to its own stated policies, ICE continues to issue detainers pre-trial and without regard to the seriousness of the criminal offense for which the alleged non-citizen, and sometimes U.S. citizen, was arrested.

ICE Request for Comment on Detainer Policy

On August 1, 2010, ICE issued draft guidance policy which aimed to provide additional guidance on detainer issuance but which unfortunately did not address many of AILA's larger concerns with detainers policy. AILA and other organizations issued comments identify several major problems with the proposed guidance.

For more information, read the draft guidance policy and AILA comments.

Stay tuned. Same Pulse Time. Same Pulse Channel.

Loren Crippin
Advocacy Associate
Special Contributor to the Director's Corner

Giving Facts a Fighting Chance: A GuideAnswers to the Toughest Immigration Questions

2010-10-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

October 12, 2010

Washington, D.C. - In heated, election-year politics, the facts often take a back seat to campaign rhetoric - particularly when it comes to immigration. In an effort to defend the facts and provide basic answers to the most commonly asked questions, the Immigration Policy Center releases: Giving Facts a Fighting Chance: Answers to the Toughest Immigration Questions.

This comprehensive Q&A guide reviews the most current research available, debunks myths, and answers some of the most common immigration-related questions, including those about worksite enforcement, border security, birthright citizenship, access to public benefits, immigrants and crime, immigrant integration, the economic impacts of immigration, and more.

To view the guide in its entirety, see:

Giving Facts a Fighting Chance: Answers to the Toughest Immigration Questions (IPC Guide, October 12, 2010)

Touting the Record

2010-10-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

10/07/2010, 1:57 pm

by Victor Nieblas Pradis, AILA Secretary

Yesterday, the secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano and the director of ICE, John Morton proudly announced they had broken a record—in fiscal year 2010, the Obama Administration deported 392,000 immigrants. That’s good news for those who claim Obama does not enforce the nation’s dysfunctional immigration laws. But, statistics and numbers do not tell the entire story.

Everyone agrees that we need to protect the American public. And the Administration has correctly made removing dangerous criminals a top priority. Yet, only half of those removed—more than 195,000—were convicted criminals. And there is no way to know whether they were priority cases—Terrorists and dangerous criminals—or simply folks who had been deported for some long ago youthful indiscretion. The rest of the deportees–197,000 people–had committed no crimes and were otherwise likely law abiding, hard working folks. The government’s big statistic leaves me wondering how many of them were mothers and fathers forced to leave American families.

ICE programs like Secure Communities and the Criminal Alien Program (CAP), aimed at detaining noncitizen criminals, might look good on paper but don’t necessarily stand up to close scrutiny. Both programs have drawn criticism because they are susceptible to abuse. Critics argue they lack safeguards against racial profiling or related abuses.. The Administration stated Wednesday that no racial profiling will occur because the Secure Communities program screens everybody who gets fingerprinted regardless of race. Yet, this claim does not account for the fact that an individual’s immigration history can be checked regardless of whether he or she is ever charged with an offense. The obvious danger is that an arrest may easily become a pretext for a quick check on a person’s immigration status creating a very real danger that people who look or sound “foreign”– including US citizens – will be subjected to racial profiling.

The CAP program has resulted in Latinos suffering increased rates of arrests for petty offenses. A report on the CAP program discovered that implementation of the CAP program in Irving, Texas coincided with a spike in the arrests of Latinos for petty crimes. See Trevor Gardner II and Aarti Kohli, The C.A.P. Effect: Racial Profiling in the ICE Criminal Alien Program (The Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity, Sept. 2009). The report concluded that there is compelling evidence that the CAP program “tacitly encourages local police to arrest Hispanics for petty offenses.” The report also noted that ICE is not following the program’s congressional mandate to focus resources on the deportation of immigrants with serious criminal histories.

In Florida the most recent ICE data shows that in Broward and St. Lucie counties over 51 percent of Secure Communities deportations are of non-criminals. All 67 Florida counties became party to Secure Communities as of June 2010. See, ICE, Secure Communities: Setting the Record Straight. In Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 54 percent of deportations are of non-criminals. In Harris County, Texas, 1,880 of the roughly 8,000 illegal immigrants removed through the program were counted as aggravated felons, about 5,500 had convictions for lesser crimes and 620 had no criminal history. See Susan Caroll, All Texas counties join ICE immigrant checks. Yet, the Harris County Texas Sheriff failed to mention this at yesterday’s press conference. In Webb County, Texas, 53 percent of individuals deported pursuant to Secure Communities had no criminal record. In Maricopa County, Arizona it was 54 percent. In Pima County, Arizona, it was 51%. See, ICE, Setting the Record Straight. Yet, Wednesday’s announcement continues to boast that Secure Communities as a program that successfully targets serious criminal aliens. This is simply not the case.

The bottom line is that Secure Communities has created “insecure communities” where people live in fear and families have been separated due to minor driving violations. Addressing this concern, the Administration stated in yesterday’s announcement, “unfortunately families do get separated in the immigration process.” What about America’s commitment to “family values”? Where is the humanity in this process? Numbers and statistics do not tell the whole story.

Some communities have requested to opt-out of the Secure Communities program to maintain their strong relationships with the community. In a recent letter Secretary Napolitano assured Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren that a community not wishing to participate in the Secure Communities program could opt out. Yet, in Wednesday’s announcement Secretary Napolitano stated, “we do not view this as an opt-in, opt out program.”

Thus, while the higher deportation numbers are offered to underscore the Administration’s enforcement efforts, we need to ask whether, in the absence of a comprehensive fix to our dysfunctional immigration system, it is also smart enforcement. Who has been deported? Are we removing undocumented youngsters whose only offense is to dream? Are we deporting future soliders and scholars? Are we deporting mothers and fathers who support American families? Are we forcibly separating mothers from small children? Are we deporting the Nikki Diaz Santillan’s of our country who work tirelessly to make our businesses and families prosper while receiving no reward for their efforts?

If these are the people we are deporting, then there is nothing to tout about.

I fear that by the time we get around to reaching a solution countless American families will have been separated and destroyed. I for one hope that the Administraion’s next announcement of record breaking immigration news will be that it has kept its promise to the American people to fix our badly broken immigration system.

Now that would be something to tout about.

The American Immigration Council Addresses Problems with Draft Immigration Detainer Policy

2010-10-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

October 5, 2010

Washington D.C. - The American Immigration Council has joined a number of organizations in formally commenting on a proposed detainer policy issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Detainers are requests from ICE to local law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to hold people - whom they suspect may be in the country illegally or who may be deportable for other reasons - so they can be transferred into ICE's custody. There has been much criticism about how ICE uses detainers, and the use of detainers has expanded over time with enforcement programs like 287(g), Secure Communities, and the Criminal Alien Program. To address the criticisms, ICE developed new draft guidelines on the issuance of detainers.

The Immigration Council acknowledges ICE's attempt to ameliorate its detainer policies and is grateful for the opportunity to comment. However, the comments identify several major problems with the proposed guidance, including:

The proposed guidelines do not reflect ICE's stated enforcement priorities. In July, ICE issued a memo on its enforcement priorities, focusing on immigrants with serious criminal histories. ICE's proposed detainer guidelines contradict those priorities. Although ICE claims to target convicted criminals who pose a threat to public safety, the proposed guidance would allow ICE to issue detainers against people arrested for minor offenses and suspects charged with crimes but not convicted.
The guidance does not address the continuing confusion about detainers. Many LEAs mistakenly believe that detainers require them to detain people until ICE assumes custody. In fact, a detainer is merely a request, not a requirement. Moreover, federal regulations clearly state that detainers permit LEAs to hold people for no more than 48 hours (excluding weekends and holidays) after their release from local custody. Because LEAs regularly violate this rule, they unlawfully detain people who then languish in detention with little recourse. The proposed guidelines contain no provisions to educate LEAs about detainers and do not require ICE to educate detained people about their rights or their ability to challenge a detainer.

Getting detainer policy right is important because ICE detainers have severe consequences for people being held in jails. Apart from the concerns raised above, detainers impact whether people are granted bail, the amount of bail, and their ability to have legal representation and a fair hearing in their criminal cases. Communities also incur significant costs for the extended incarceration of people subject to ICE detainers. Though ICE should be commended for formalizing a written detainer policy, the draft guidance leaves the most challenging issues unresolved.

To view American Immigration Council's comments in their entirety, see:

Comments on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Draft Detainer Policy (Legal Action Center, October 1, 2010)

For more information on immigration detainers, see:

Immigration Detainers: A Comprehensive Look (Immigration Policy Center Fact Check, February 17, 2010

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill Introduced in the Senate

2010-10-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

Menendez-Leahy Bill Another Step Forward

September 30, 2010

Washington D.C. - On Wednesday, Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced S.B. 3932, The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010. The bill takes a broad approach to solving the wide range of problems that plague our broken immigration system. It offers proposals on border, interior, and worksite enforcement, on legalization, and on future flows of immigration. Now the Senate and House both have a vehicle (Congressman Luis Gutierrez previously introduced a CIR bill in the House last December) for generating a serious discussion on immigration reform in the coming weeks. These bills are a direct response to the overwhelming public demand for solutions to our broken immigration system. Both political parties have acknowledged that this broken system is no longer sustainable, and is disrupting America's businesses, families, and long-term economic recovery.

"It is hard to turn ideas into legislation and legislation into good law, but Senators Menendez and Leahy have injected new life into the immigration reform debate," said Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center. "At a time when every social issue we care about bumps up against immigration - healthcare, national security, and the economy - this bill is a step in the right direction. However, attention now turns to the rest of the Senate and House - where there are serious comprehensive proposals which lawmakers can react to and build upon - and the question remains; will they embrace this challenge or kick it down the road once again?"

The Immigration Policy Center has prepared a summary of the The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010 which can be accessed at:

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010: A Summary (September 30, 2010)

Role of Immigration in Strengthening America's Economy

2010-09-30T07:14:00.000-07:00

Congressional Hearing Featuring Bloomberg and Murdoch

September 29, 2010

Washington D.C. - On thursday, the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law Membership will hold a hearing on the "Role of Immigration in Strengthening America's Economy," featuring New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Fox owner Rupert Murdoch (an immigrant himself). The two formed a new coalition earlier this year to press for immigration reform.

In anticipation of the event, the Immigration Policy Center wants to draw your attention to a resource page featuring a wide range of studies which analyze the economic impact of immigration on the U.S. The available data shows that legalizing undocumented workers would improve wages and working conditions for all workers, and increase tax revenues for cash-strapped federal, state, and local governments. The IPC has also synthesized a number of state studies which assess the economic impact of immigration on state and local economies.

To view the Economics Resource Page, see:

The Economics of Immigration Reform (Resource Page)

To view the State by State Economic Benefits of Immigration, see:

The Economic and Political Power of Immigrants, Latinos, and Asians in all 50 States (IPC State by State Fact Sheets)

The DREAM Act: Creating Economic Opportunities

2010-09-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

September 20, 2010

Washington, D.C. - As the bipartisan call for passing the DREAM Act gets louder - from military, education, faith, and Republican leaders alike - some may overlook the economic benefits of granting legal status to eligible undocumented youth who want to attend college or join the military. There are currently 2.1 million undocumented youths living in the U.S. who, without the DREAM Act, are unlikely to go to college and cannot work legally in the U.S. The DREAM Act, however, would provide an opportunity for them to live up to their full potential as future doctors, nurses, teachers, and entrepreneurs and make greater contributions to the U.S. economy and society.

The DREAM Act would give beneficiaries the opportunity to increase their standard of living - and their tax contributions: If legalized, DREAM Act beneficiaries would have access to greater educational opportunities and better jobs, which in turn means more taxable income. According to a study from Arizona State University, an individual with a bachelor's degree earns approximately $750,000 more over the course of his/her lifetime than an individual with only a high-school diploma.

The DREAM Act would save taxpayers money: A RAND study from 1999 shows that raising the college graduation rate of Hispanics to that of non-Hispanic whites would increase spending on public education by 10 percent nationwide, but the costs would be more than offset by savings in public health and benefits, as well as by increased tax revenues resulting from higher incomes.

The DREAM Act keeps talented students in the United States: Letting the talent of DREAM Act students go to waste "imposes economic and emotional costs on undocumented students and on U.S. society as a whole." The DREAM Act would stop brain drain by allowing our most talented students to remain in the country.

While some in Congress continue to play politics with the DREAM Act, America and its taxpayers continue to lose. Without the DREAM Act, the United States is missing out on talented workers and entrepreneurs, and is losing vital tax revenues and other economic contributions.

To read IPC's Fact Check, see:

The DREAM Act: Creating Economic Opportunities
(IPC Fact Check, September 16, 2010)

For more information on the DREAM Act see:

The DREAM Act in Arizona: An Economic Perspective
(Arizona State University, September 17, 2010)

Essential to the Fight: Immigrants in the Military
(IPC Special Report, November, 2009)

IPC DREAM Act Resource Page

DREAM Act Coming to the Senate Floor

2010-09-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

Senator Reid to Attach Act to Defense Authorization Bill

September 15, 2010

Washington, D.C. - Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that he would attach the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act to the Department of Defense authorization bill expected to come before the Senate as early as next week. The vote will be an important test of whether Congress can transcend partisan politics and work together on crafting solutions to the broken immigration system that both Democrats and Republicans acknowledge is in desperate need of reform. That the proposal will be considered as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill is appropriate, given the Department of Defense's support for DREAM Act as a way to improve military readiness.

First introduced in 2001, the DREAM Act would address the plight of young immigrants who have been raised in the U.S. and managed to succeed despite the challenges of being brought to the U.S. without proper documentation. The proposal would offer a path to legal status to those who have graduated from high-school, have stayed out of trouble and plan to attend college or serve in the U.S. military for at least two years.

Each year, approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school, many at the top of their classes, but cannot go to college, join the military, work, or otherwise pursue their dreams. They belong to the 1.5 generation - any (first generation) immigrants brought to the United States at a young age who were largely raised in this country and therefore share much in common with second generation Americans. These students are culturally American, growing up here and often having little attachment to their country of birth. They tend to be bicultural and fluent in English.

Research has shown that providing a legal status for young people who have a proven record of success in the United States would be a boon to the economy and the U.S. workforce. University presidents and educational associations, as well as military recruiters, business and religious leaders have added their voice to those calling for passage of the bill. Foreign-born students represent a significant and growing percentage of the current student population. Unfortunately, immigration status and the associated barriers to higher education contribute to a higher-than-average high dropout rate, which costs taxpayers and the economy billions of dollars each year.

The DREAM Act would eliminate these barriers for many students, and the DREAM Act's high school graduation requirement would provide a powerful incentive for students who might otherwise drop out to stay in school and graduate. This will help boost the number of high skilled American-raised workers. As they take their place in the workplace as hard working, taxpaying Americans, they will contribute a lifetime of revenues at the local, state and federal level.

Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy, Bill Carr, supports the DREAM Act and stated that the law would be "good for readiness" and would help to recruit "cream of the crop" students. The DREAM Act is part of the Department of Defense's 2010-2012 Strategic Plan to assist the military in it's recruiting efforts.

For more information on the DREAM Act see:

The DREAM Act: Creating Opportunities for Immigrant Students and Supporting the U.S. Economy (IPC Fact Check, July 2010)

Essential to the Fight: Immigrants in the Military (IPC Special Report, November, 2009)

IPC DREAM Act Resource Page

Immigration Enforcement in a Time of Recession

2010-09-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

Explaining the Recent Decline in Unauthorized Migration

September 9, 2010

Washington, D.C. - Recent estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center indicate that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States has declined by roughly one million since 2007-bringing the total size of the unauthorized population to approximately 11.1 million. Coming after the release of similar estimates by the Department of Homeland Security in January, these figures have provoked considerable speculation as to how much of the decline is attributable to the current recession, and how much is the result of heightened immigration enforcement.

Ultimately, it is impossible to disentangle the impact of the recession from that of enforcement with any degree of certainty. Nevertheless, the available research indicates that the recession is likely playing a major role in discouraging new unauthorized immigrants from entering the country due to the lack of jobs. After all, federal spending on immigration enforcement has been rising steadily since the early 1990s, while the size of the unauthorized population continued to increase until the current recession hit. Research also suggests that when the economy begins to improve again, unauthorized immigration is likely to increase as well - unless the broken immigration system which spurs unauthorized migration has been fixed by then.

To read IPC's Fact Check see:

Immigration Enforcement in a Time of Recession (IPC Fact Check, September 9, 2010)

U.S. sues controversial Arizona sheriff in civil-rights investigation

2010-09-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

Justice Department officials say Maricopa County's Joe Arpaio failed to turn over documents in a probe of his agency's immigration enforcement operations. Among his tactics are 'sweeps' of immigrant-heavy neighborhoods.

By Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times
10:23 AM PDT, September 2, 2010
Reporting from Denver

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday announced it had sued Joe Arpaio, the controversial sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona, for failing to turn over documents in a probe of whether his aggressive operations against illegal immigrants had violated civil rights.

The litigation came two months after a Justice Department lawsuit halted a tough new Arizona immigration law, which Arpaio strongly supported. The new lawsuit is unrelated to the immigration law and stems from an investigation into the sheriff's immigration enforcement operations. The department said it was the first time in 30 years a police agency had not cooperated in a civil-rights probe.

"The actions of the sheriff's office are unprecedented. It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities," said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil-rights division, in a statement.

Arpaio's attorney said he could not comment on the lawsuit until he had time to review it.

For more than three years, Arpaio has attracted praise as well as condemnation for using his deputies to track down illegal immigrants. The most high-profile example is his so-called "sweeps," during which deputies flood immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, stop people for minor infractions such as driving with a broken taillight and check their immigration status. The tactics have made Arpaio popular in Arizona, the main gateway for illegal immigrants into the United States, but also have drawn widespread complaints that he unfairly targets Latinos.

Last year, the Obama administration withdrew from part of an agreement that had allowed Arpaio's deputies to enforce federal immigration laws. The move made little difference —the Sheriff says he can use state laws against illegal immigrants and has continued his operations. He has also touted the fact that federal civil rights investigators have yet to charge him with anything, while simultaneously announcing he was not cooperating with them and barring them from his facilities.

In the lawsuit, the Department of Justice said it asked for 51 different sets of documents in March 2009, shortly after launching the probe. Arpaio's office provided only 11 pages and had not handed over any others. His office also would not let investigators tour the county jail or other sheriff's facilities. Arpaio previously said he had no legal obligation to give the Justice Department other material and dismissed the probe as politically motivated.

Arpaio's agency also has been sued by a coalition of private civil-rights lawyers who have complained that it has not provided them with documents. A federal judge earlier this year found the sheriff's department had destroyed documents on the sweeps that the plaintiff's attorneys were legally entitled to review and sanctioned the agency.

Arpaio is also under investigation by a federal grand jury for alleged abuse of power in a separate probe. He has denied those allegations.

nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com

Judge doubts the constitutionality of Arizona's immigration law

2010-07-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton says the provision that makes lacking immigration documents a crime may violate prior rulings that bar states from creating their own immigrant registration systems.

By Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times
1:12 PM PDT, July 22, 2010
Reporting from Phoenix

A federal judge on Thursday expressed skepticism that a key part of a controversial Arizona law to control illegal immigration is constitutional.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton noted at a hearing that the U.S. Supreme Court has long barred states from creating their own immigrant registration systems. She said the Arizona measure's stipulation that makes a crime of failing to have immigration documents may violate that.

John Bouma, the attorney representing Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, tried to convince Bolton otherwise but eventually gave up. "I didn't have the feeling I persuaded you last week either," he said, alluding to a previous hearing.

Bolton did not issue a ruling.

The statements came as Bolton heard arguments from civil rights groups urging her to stop the law from going into effect July 29. The Obama administration has also sought an injunction. Its arguments will be heard later Thursday afternoon.

Omar Jadwat, an attorney with the ACLU, argued that the law, SB 1070, ignores the complexities of the federal immigration system to focus on trying to drive illegal immigrants from the state. "What we're facing here," he said, "is an attempt by a state to create an interrelated system of immigration laws that displace the federal" statutes.

Bouma said Arizona was only trying to enforce federal laws the U.S. government is ignoring. He urged Bolton not to enjoin the law."

We're talking about an extraordinary remedy," he said, referring to the requests to halt SB 1070 from taking effect. "We're talking about imposing on the sovereignty of the state."

In addition to making a lack of immigration documents a state crime, the law requires police officers to determine the immigration status of people they lawfully stop who they suspect are in the country illegally. Supporters argue that SB 1070 is needed to protect Arizona from crime spilling over from Mexico.

But civil rights groups contend that the measure will lead to racial profiling, and the Obama administration has said it is an unconstitutional attempt by a state to regulate immigration, which is a federal responsibility.

nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

The DREAM Act: Creating Opportunities for Immigrant Students and Supporting the U.S. Economy

2010-07-14T10:52:00.000-07:00

July 13, 2010

Washington D.C. - Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases a Fact Check on the DREAM Act. Each year, approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school, many at the top of their classes, but cannot go to college, join the military, work, or otherwise pursue their dreams. They belong to the 1.5 generation - any (first generation) children brought to the United States at a young age by their parents who were largely raised in this country and therefore share much in common with American born-children. These students are culturally American, growing up here and often having little attachment to their country of birth. They tend to be bicultural and fluent in English. Many don't even know that they are undocumented immigrants until they apply for a driver's license or college, and then learn they lack Social Security numbers and other necessary legal documents.

The plight of the DREAM Act students encapsulates many facets of today's immigration crisis. Caught in a system where there is little, if any, means for legalizing their status, smart, hard-working kids face an uncertain future because of their inability to continue their education, work, or join the military. The loss of potential, productivity, and hope for these individuals is also a loss for this country. The United States is missing out on talented workers and entrepreneurs, and is losing vital tax revenues and other economic contributions. While fixing this particular problem will hardly resolve the need for comprehensive immigration reform, it will unlock the door to the American dream for thousands of young people each year.

To view the fact sheet it its entirety see:

The DREAM Act: Creating Opportunities for Immigrant Students and Supporting the U.S. Economy (IPC Fact Check, July 13, 2010)