11 countries plan to lobby against U.S. immigration law
Via The Miami Herald
Latin
American diplomats teamed up Monday to lobby Washington against a tough
immigration plan that would include a large wall along the Mexico-U.S.
border to keep out illegal immigrants.
Foreign ministers from 11 Latin American countries gathered in the
seaside resort city of Cartagena, where they decided to send a scouting
mission to Washington next week to identify key U.S. lawmakers on the
immigration debate, Salvadoran Foreign Minister Francisco Lainez
announced.
The region will urge those lawmakers in coming weeks to change or
defeat altogether a bill making its way through the U.S. Congress that
would make it harder for undocumented immigrants to get jobs and would
authorize construction of a fence along parts of the 2,000-mile
Mexico-U.S. border.
Carolina Barco, Colombia’s foreign minister, said immigrants’
contribution to U.S. development “has been fundamental . . . but due
to Sept. 11, the pendulum seems to have shifted in the opposite
direction and migration is looked upon with a distrusting eye.”
”The point we have made with clarity is that [the border wall]
doesn’t seem to us to be the solution,” said Mexican Foreign Secretary
Luis Ernesto Derbez.
The countries meeting in Cartagena — Mexico, Central American
nations, Colombia, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic — met in January
in Mexico City to discuss the same issue, demanding the United States
to implement guest-worker programs and legalize undocumented migrants.
At that meeting, they also condemned proposals for tougher border
enforcement.
The U.S. House of Representatives already approved the bill in
December, and the Senate will consider a version of the law next month.
Authorities estimate there are about 11 million undocumented
migrants in the United States, the majority of them coming from Latin
America — mostly Mexico, but also countries as far away as Colombia
and Ecuador.
These workers have come to play an important part in Latin American
economies, sending billions of dollars home to their families each year.
Some Immigrants Meet Harsh Face of Justice
Via the LA Times
The complaints about immigration judges were alarming.
In
San Francisco, a U.S. citizen was wrongly deported to Mexico after a
judge failed to verify the authenticity of his birth certificate and
tax records — actions that drew harsh criticism from a federal appeals
court.
In Chicago, an appellate board found that a political asylum case
involving an Albanian citizen was mishandled because the judge relied
on testimony from a document expert who did not speak or read Albanian.
And in Boston, a judge was suspended for more than a year after he
referred to himself as “Tarzan” during a court proceeding for a Ugandan
woman named Jane.
Describing the conduct of some judges as
“intemperate and even abusive,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales
recently announced that the Justice Department was launching a
comprehensive review of the nation’s immigration courts.
“To
the aliens who stand before you, you are the face of American justice,”
Gonzales wrote in a Jan. 9 memo to immigration judges. “I insist that
each be treated with courtesy and respect.”
U.S. Tech Firms, Citing ‘Brain Drain,’ Push to Hire More Skilled Foreigners
Via the Los Angelas Times
0212/2006
President Bush’s recent call for more visas for skilled foreign workers
increases the likelihood that relief is on the way for U.S. technology
firms that say they are struggling to fill key positions.
In a Feb. 2 speech at the Minnesota headquarters of 3M, the president
said it was a “mistake not to encourage more really bright folks who
can fill the jobs that are having trouble being filled here in
America.” He called on Congress to be “realistic” and “reasonable” and
expand the quota of H-1B visas, which are used to bring in skilled
workers on a temporary basis.
Paul Zulkie, a Chicago immigration attorney, said the president’s
statement raised the pressure on Congress to respond to a “crisis faced
by American businesses.” He said he gets at least two calls a week from
companies desperate for help in hiring prospective foreign employees.
Silicon Valley companies are among the most vocal advocates of H-1B
reform. For decades, these companies attracted engineers, computer
programmers and other professionals from around the globe. Now they say
they are experiencing a reverse brain drain as skilled workers flock to
the booming economies of China and India.
“Every employer still
faces a shortage of certain talent,” said Lynda Ward Pierce, head of
human resources for SVB Financial Group, the parent company of Silicon
Valley Bank. “I think people going from here to there exacerbates the
problem.”
Though the debate in this country about outsourcing
work overseas has quieted down in the United States, it remains a
sensitive political issue. In December, an effort to get an H-1B visa
expansion provision attached to a budget bill was defeated in Congress.
“The business community is incredulous at the congressional
intransigence in refusing to raise the cap,” said Zulkie, the immediate
past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn.
In
response to high demand for H-1B visas at the start of the decade,
Congress expanded the annual quota to 195,000 visas for three years,
then cut it back to the current 65,000.
The allotment of H-1Bs
for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1 was filled by August, and
companies have to wait until April to apply for next year’s slots. The
U.S. agreed this year to give 20,000 additional visas to foreign
graduates of U.S. master’s and PhD programs, but those were filled last
month.
If no changes are made, immigration experts expect
next year’s quota to be filled even faster, given the improving economy
and tightening of the job market.
Click to read article
BIA Rules on Failure of Trial Court to Advise of Immigration Consequences of Guilty Plea
BIA court rules that a conviction vacated for failure of the trial court to advise the alien defendant of the possible immigration consequences of a guilty plea is no longer a valid conviction for immigration purposes.
INS into DHS – Where is it now?
On November 25, 2002, the President signed the Homeland Security
Act of 2002 into law. This law transferred INS functions to the new Department
of Homeland Security (DHS). Immigration enforcement functions were placed within
the Directorate of Border and Transportation Security (BTS), either directly, or under
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) (which includes the Border Patrol and INS
Inspections) or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (which includes the
enforcement and investigation components of INS such as Investigations,
Intelligence, Detention and Removals).
As of March 1, 2003, the former Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) was abolished and its functions and units incorporated into the new
Department. Below are links to Web information about
the new locations, responsibilities and contacts (HQs/field) of the former INS
immigration services and immigration enforcement units.
Three Convicted in Immigrants’ Deaths
Via Yahoo
HOUSTON – A jury Wednesday convicted three people in the nation’s
deadliest human smuggling attempt, in which 19 people died after being
left inside an airtight truck trailer.
The defendants, all U.S. citizens, were convicted of conspiracy to
harbor and transport illegal immigrants, as well as other counts, and
all face life in prison.
They were accused of hiding and transporting some of the immigrants
before the group was packed into the trailer in South Texas. The jury
had to decide whether each defendant was responsible for the smuggling
of each immigrant involved.
State wins $10 Million judgment in immigration scam perpetrated by Non-lawyer “Immigration Consultant”
Houston Chronicle (02/07/2006)
The Texas Attorney General’s Office announced Monday that it had won a
$10 million judgment against a Pasadena-based immigration consultant
accused of bilking hundreds of immigrants out of hundreds of thousands
of dollars for fraudulent services.
The lawsuit alleged Perez charged customers for legal advice and help in preparing immigration documents though she was not a lawyer and was not authorized to offer immigration consultant services. She also told clients she was a former employee of the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Click here to read the full story
Click here to view Perez’ deceptive business card
Click here to view the lawsuit
When dreams turn to dust
The government plans on setting up a
gender cell that will address the problems of girls who are abandoned
or abused by their NRI grooms, reports Bishakha De Sarkar in The
Telegraph.
Ranjana Kumari, director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Social
Research (CSR), led a session on gender issues at the fourth Pravasi
Bharatiya Divas in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.
“When the session started, the hall was overflowing with people,”
Ranjana Kumari recalls days later, sitting in her Delhi office. “For
two years, we have been trying to persuade the government to discuss
issues relating to Non-Resident Indian (NRI) women. We had suggested
that there be three sessions. Finally, there was just one — but it was
such a success.”
Quite possibly, Smriti was at the back of Ranjana Kumari’s mind
when, as the president of WomenPowerConnect (WPC), an umbrella body of
groups seeking to lobby on gender issues, she approached the government
to include the problems of NRI women in its annual Pravasi Divas
meetings. “A lot of women come as delegates or spouses — but all that
the government organises for them are bazaars,” says Kumari. “We wanted
it to address the many serious issues that concern women.”
Issues, for instance, that confronted Smriti, a Delhi-based
journalist who had worked with CSR for a while. Daughter of a colonel,
she had been married to an NRI groom 10 years ago. Her father paid for
all the wedding expenses, including the travel costs of the groom and
his family. The groom spent one night with his wife and left for home
in the United States the day after. He took her jewellery as well,
stressing that it would be safer with him. She was supposed to have
joined him a month later.
But once the groom was gone, he never got back to her. Smriti and
her family made frantic enquiries. They got in touch with the place
where he said he was employed — but were told he had never worked
there. The home address didn’t lead to the groom or his family either.
“Smriti was in a curious position. She had spent a night with her
husband and believed that she was married to him and had to find him
somehow,” says Kumari.
Her family did all that it could do to trace him. Finally, Smriti
left for the United States some years ago in search of her elusive
husband. Kumari hasn’t heard of her since then.
At the Hyderabad conference, though, there were several women who
had similar stories to tell. Abandonment by NRI husbands was a common
complaint. Some men did it for money, some because they felt their
wives wouldn’t be able to adjust to the West, and some because they had
been forced into marriage by their parents.
The Indian Government responds
But the government — aided by the WPC and the National Commission
for Women (NCW) — now hopes to put an end to this trend. Plans are
afoot to set up an NRI gender cell which will deal with issues such as
marriages and abandonment. “The government is very serious about going
ahead with this,” says Malay Mishra, joint secretary, ministry of
overseas Indian affairs, the organisers of the Pravasi meets.
Married life for NRI women in the West, the activists seem to
stress, is not necessarily an El Dorado. “There are some genuine
problems that Indian women living abroad face,” says Girija Vyas,
chairperson of the New Delhi-based NCW. “There are three major problems
— that of married women being abandoned, trafficking and the plight of
domestic workers,” she says.
The problem of wives being abandoned by their NRI husbands is
rampant in the north and in cities such as Hyderabad — regions from
where men migrate to the West, or the Gulf, in large numbers. According
to one estimate, some 70,000 Indians migrated to the United States in
2001 alone.
“There are many cases of men demanding a dowry from the bride’s
family in India,” says Vyas. “And these are some of the reasons we need
a regular gender cell which people can approach when they face
problems,” she says.
Domestic violence is another problem among NRIs. Recent studies
conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom highlight the
fact that south Asians living there are subject to domestic violence.
Women’s groups have questioned a particular study — the National
Violence against Women (NVAW) survey — which, after contacting some
16,000 people on the telephone, said only 12.8 per cent of south Asian
women faced physical assault.
“Some doubt is cast on the NVAW survey by two in-depth studies of
domestic violence among south Asian women in the US, both of which
found high levels of abuse,” says the CSR. One of the studies —
conducted in 2000 — found a lifetime prevalence of violence in 77 per
cent south Asian women. The other — carried out in 2002 — said 41 per
cent of south Asian women it had interviewed in Boston had faced
violence from their partners, leading to physical or sexual injury.
The cell — once it does come up — may ultimately look at issues
such as domestic violence. Right now, though, the three subjects it
seeks to take up are marriage, adoption and employment — issues that
were discussed in Hyderabad.
The government is planning to start a national consultation from
next month on the role of a gender cell. “The cell is very much on our
agenda,” stresses Sandhya Shukla, director, social services of the
ministry of overseas Indian affairs. “We are going to look at different
views and then conceptualise the cell,” she says.
WPC believes that a booklet — listing all the dos and don’ts of a
marriage — would help both men and women. One of the complaints heard
in Hyderabad, for instance, was from a middle-class girl who had been
married abroad and had found, much to her dismay, that she was expected
to clean the house and wash dishes. “We had to tell her that this was
the way of the West. A booklet would also explain that is not just a
woman’s chore, but is shared by men,” says Ranjana.
The cell, the group hopes, would make people aware of their rights
and the laws that are applicable to them. WPC also hopes that the US
government would bring about a change in some visa rules. The spouse of
a person working in the US on an H1B visa, for instance, does not have
the protection that the Violence against Women Act gives to other
immigrant women.
There is a plan to rope in the Indian missions abroad as well.
“For every marriage, there should be a system under which a potential
groom would have to submit his social security number to the mission,”
says Ranjana. “Marriages would have to be registered. And all this
would curb fraudulent marriages,” she says.
Smriti, wherever she may be, would be pleased.
Foreign citizens held as they go to court
Via the Miami Herald – 02/02/2006 – Federal immigration agents deployed at the immigration court in
downtown Miami have begun to systematically detain foreign nationals
who show up for hearings — particularly those who are ordered deported
or have criminal convictions.
Detentions at immigration court have always occurred but until
recently were sporadic. Now, immigration lawyers who litigate cases say
detentions are taking place every day. One lawyer, however, said
detainees with no criminal records are held for hours or a few days and
then released under supervision while they await deportation or the
outcome of pending asylum cases.
Immigration officials this week confirmed the detentions and noted
that foreign nationals in proceedings who qualify for supervised
release are picked up at the court building, 333 S. Miami Ave., and
then placed under a system dubbed Intensive Supervision Program. One of
its features is electronic-monitoring ankle bracelets. Those who
qualify for supervised release include foreign nationals who have no
criminal record and are seeking asylum.
Court detentions mark yet another example of toughened enforcement
of immigration laws and regulations. The goal is to ensure that foreign
nationals in immigration court proceedings comply with appearances and
not flee.
More than 400,000 foreign nationals ordered deported nationwide have
been classified as fugitives over the years. They allegedly would go
underground when an immigration judge ordered expulsion, although in
some cases, court-hearing notifications were sent to the wrong address.
Detentions at the Miami court are part of a nationwide program.
Court detentions stem from pilot programs begun three years ago in
Hartford, Conn.
The first indication that systematic detentions were occurring at
the downtown court in Miami came during a Dec. 22 meeting between local
representatives of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and
Michael Rozos, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Florida field
office director for detention and removal operations.
Immigration attorney Mary Kramer, who attended that meeting, said
the lawyers group was concerned about the detentions and had asked
Rozos about the possibility of “limiting the number of arrests at
court to ensure due process of law.”
Kramer noted in an e-mail to The Miami Herald that attorneys for the
lawyers group told Rozos that their organization was “strongly opposed
to arresting people in the courthouse halls at their hearings, because
it is upsetting to the family members, raises security concerns, and in
some cases may be neither legally required nor justified.”
Kramer said that not all foreign nationals in immigration court
proceedings are detained. ”Percentagewise, the majority of individuals
appearing in court are not arrested,” she said.
Steve Forester, senior policy advocate for Haitian Women of Miami
Inc., an immigrant rights group, said his sources knew of almost 50
foreign nationals picked up at the court over a two-day period in late
January.
Some immigrants detained at court are taken to a site where they are
placed on supervised release, immigration attorneys said. At the site,
detainees are asked to identify a sponsor, watch a video on supervision
requirements, and then get a monitoring bracelet placed on an ankle —
prior to release.
Barbara Gonzalez, a Miami spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, confirmed that court detentions were taking place.
She said no figures on detentions were immediately available.
”We have always been present at the court,” Gonzalez said. “Every
case is evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and among the criteria
looked at is whether someone is a mandatory detention case, flight
risk, and obviously a top priority is expeditiously removing
criminals.”
Eduardo Soto, a Coral Gables immigration attorney, said that a
Colombian was placed in detention at the court last month after a judge
denied his asylum petition. Soto said the Colombian had arrived at
Miami International Airport with an allegedly false passport. He was
detained, then released because an asylum officer concluded that he had
a credible fear of persecution if returned home.
But when the Colombian went to immigration court, the judge found
that he did not qualify for asylum, and immigration officers detained
him. Soto said the Colombian is still detained.
Matthew Archambeault, an immigration attorney, said that last Aug.
31, one of his clients, a Sudanese seeking protection from deportation,
was detained after showing up late for a hearing, at which the judge
ordered deportation.
Press Gaggle by Scott McClellan, John Marburger, Director of Office of Science & Technology Policy and Claude Allen, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy
Excerpts from Press Gaggle Aboard Air Force One
En route Maplewood, Minnesota
11:01 A.M. EST
…
Claude Allen, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy: “The last piece of
the puzzle is in immigration. The President’s proposal calls for being
able to recruit the world’s best and brightest to come to America to
work alongside America’s best and brightest in terms of science,
engineering and high skilled laborers to come in under this proposal.
And so we will be working to work with Congress the H1B program, which
is the high skilled labor visas, which right now is about 65,000 visas
a year. They are consumed very quickly at the first of the year, and we
need to look at increasing that to do that. We’re looking also at other
visa initiatives, working with Congress to address that, as well, for
skilled laborers, high skilled laborers to come into the country.”
…
“Q On the immigration initiative, how many — you said 65,000 visas, H1B visas are issued?
MR. ALLEN: That’s the current number.
Q Okay. And what do you want to increase it to?
MR.
ALLEN: Well, we’ll let the President talk about that today; you’ll hear
him talk about that. But, again, we have not looked at a specific
number as yet. I know the President may have one that he’s spoken about
that we’ve looked at. But, historically, we have had — between 2001
and 2003 there was about 119,000 — let me make sure of that number —
195,000, I’m sorry — 195,000 H1B visas between ’01 and ’03.
We anticipate that the 65,000 clearly is too low. You would want to bump that up.
Q
Wasn’t that that huge number difference during that time — wasn’t that
during the bubble of Silicon Valley, a lot of third world —
MR. ALLEN: That’s correct. That’s correct — that many —
DR. MARBURGER: — and you need significantly more than we have.
MR.
ALLEN: Some of reports have called for increases of 10,000; others
between 20,000 and 40,000. So there is a number of options on the table
to be considered. But we’ll work with Congress on that.”
Writer Yiyun Li’s Petition for Residency Denied on Appeal
Chinese-born
fiction writer Yiyun Li’s petition for permanent residency in the
United States on the grounds of “extraordinary ability in the arts” has
been denied on appeal, most likely because a substantial portion of her literary achievements occurred after she filed the petition for permanent residency. She intends to re-file her case.
Bush calls for lifting cap on special H-1B visas
MAPLEWOOD, Minn., Feb 2 (Via Reuters) – President George W. Bush on
Thursday called on Congress to raise the cap on the so-called H-1B
visas that allow companies to fill high tech jobs with foreign workers.
“The problem is, is that Congress has limited the number of H-1B visas,” Bush said in a speech.
“I think it’s a mistake not to encourage more really bright folks who
can fill the jobs that are having trouble being filled in America, to
limit their number. So I call upon Congress to be realistic and
reasonable to raise that cap,” he said.
U.S. Envoy Praises Bush State of the Union Remarks on Immigration
Via the Washington File
01 February 2006
Washington
-– The United States wants a secure border with Mexico, “with open
doors,” that is capable of allowing for trade between the two countries
at legal entry points, says Antonio Garza, the U.S. ambassador to
Mexico.
In a January 31 statement, Garza praised the comments
President Bush made that evening during his State of the Union speech
on immigration reform. Garza said Bush’s comments showcased the U.S.
desire for a border that allows Mexican workers to legally enter and
work in the United States.
Garza said that “as recent weeks
have demonstrated, border security and immigration are two of the most
complicated and difficult issues in the great diversity of questions
that arise in the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United
States.” Garza was referring to violence in the border region that has
increased “markedly” in the last several weeks. (See related article.)
The envoy said the Bush speech offered ways to improve the lives of citizens in both the United States and Mexico.
Bush
said in his speech that the United States hears “claims that immigrants
are somehow bad for the economy — even though this economy could not
function without them.” He added that the United States needs “orderly
and secure borders” and can achieve them through stronger immigration
enforcement and border protection and “a rational, humane guest worker
program that rejects amnesty, allows temporary jobs for people who seek
them legally, and reduces smuggling and crime at the border.” (See related article.)
Garza
said that he has had several “very positive and what I think have been
constructive discussions this week with members” of Mexican President
Vicente Fox’s administration “about ways our two countries can
cooperate to achieve what is important to us both.”
Regarding
U.S.-Mexican relations, Garza said that in “any long-term and
meaningful friendship, difficult discussions are inevitable. I have
tried to speak openly and honestly these past few weeks about America’s
need for a secure border and legal immigration. It is important to
remember in our discussions on immigration that efforts by the United
States to stop illegal immigration do not amount to an attack on
immigration as a whole.”
Garza said “there is a common
misconception that Americans are only thinking about security, and
Mexicans are only thinking about immigration reform.”
The
truth, he said, is that the United States “derives much of its
greatness from its tradition of welcoming foreigners to our shores —
and Americans continue to welcome those who come to work in compliance
with our laws. President Bush has so often said ‘family values do not
stop at the U.S.-Mexico border’ — and we are eager to facilitate the
entry of those Mexican laborers who come to the United States, with
visas, to earn money to support their families.”
Garza said
Mexicans, just like Americans, “want to live in a peaceful and secure
society where they do not have to fear for their safety or the safety
of their children. Indeed, in recent months, Mexicans have taken to
the streets to protest ever-increasing violence in its cities and along
the border, and they want to see more done to fight criminals and break
the chokehold that narcotraffickers and human-smugglers have on our
border region.”
The envoy said he was offering “any and all
cooperation” the U.S. government can provide in combating
narco-violence and “making our border region safe for our citizens, and
I look forward to working closely with the Mexican people to achieve
our common goals.”
Garza’s statement is available on the Web site of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.
For more information on U.S. policy toward Mexico, see Mexico.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
The U.S. Immigration Law Blog by Ashwin Sharma 