Bush toughens immigration stance
Via Yahoo News
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President George W. Bush is adopting a tougher line in the contentious debate on overhauling US immigration laws, putting an emphasis on border control and strict enforcement measures favored by his conservative base.
The new approach was evident as the US leader made an appearance Wednesday at a coffee shop in Alexandria, Virginia, touting enforcement measures meant to catch illegal immigrants when they try to apply for work.
“Part of a comprehensive immigration plan is to give employers the tools necessary to determine whether or not the workers they’re looking for are here legally in America,” the US president said, flanked by immigrant workers from Iran, Guatemala and El Salvador.
“Part of a comprehensive immigration plan is to make sure … that we uphold our laws and say to employers, ‘It’s against the law for you to hire somebody here illegally. We intend to find you when we catch you doing it,'” the president said.
But Bush also stressed the importance of making it easier for employers to legally hire foreign-born workers “for jobs Americans aren’t doing.”
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US immigration hearings to begin
Via BBC News
Republicans are set to open a series of public hearings around the US on the controversial issue of immigration.
Republicans in the House of Representatives are seeking approval for the House’s tough immigration bill in a hearing in San Diego.
But Republican senators have set up their own session in Philadelphia to back a more liberal Senate proposal.
The issue has divided the party, with President George Bush’s vision initially closer to that of the Senate.
However, reports suggest the president is now moving closer to the conservative line.
The decision by Republican House leaders to call public hearings on the issue was seen by many as a serious setback for the president, who has been trying to see a bill passed ahead of mid-term elections in November.
The House and Senate have passed their own contrasting immigration bills, but work to reconcile the two bills is now delayed until the hearings are over.
Both bills seek to tighten border security, but while the Senate bill includes a guest-worker programme and offers illegal immigrants a “path to citizenship”, the House’s “enforcement-only” bill seeks to deport illegal immigrants and make it a felony to remain in the US illegally.
Democrats have dismissed the hearings as political theatre.
Terrorism
Wednesday’s first hearing will take place at a San Diego Border Patrol station.
Reports suggest Republicans will use the hearing to highlight the dangers of terrorists getting across the border and to assess improvements in border security since 11 September 2001.
“My mission is to investigate our border security shortcomings post-9/11,” said Ed Royce, a California Republican and chairman of the House’s International Relations subcommittee on International Terrorism and Non-proliferation which is behind the hearings.
“The problem is that border security has become national security.”
Another hearing will take place in Laredo, Texas on Friday, and reports suggest Arizona will also host one of the hearings.
Meanwhile, senators have organised their own hearing in Philadelphia on Wednesday to defend the broad scope of the Senate immigration bill.
The hearing will “develop a broader, factual, evidentiary record on the need for the comprehensive bill, which is challenged by quite a number of House members”, said the host of the meeting, Sen Arlen Specter – himself a Pennsylvania Republican.
But the New York Times newspaper reports that President Bush, whose stance on immigration initially appeared to correspond more closely with the Senate bill, is moving closer to a compromise with conservatives on immigration.
It quotes Candi Wolff, White House director of legislative affairs, as saying Mr Bush is considering “triggers” on the immigration bill.
This refers to the idea that the guest-worker and “path to citizenship” schemes which Mr Bush has publicly backed could be introduced only once border-security targets have been met.
This “enforcement-first” approach would bring Mr Bush much closer to the “enforcement-only” measures demanded by his Republican colleagues in the House.
Bloomberg: Economy relies on illegal immigrants
Via CNN.com
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) — The economy of the country’s largest city and the entire nation would collapse if illegal immigrants were deported en masse, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a Senate committee hearing Wednesday.
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Border agents under investigation vanish
Via Yahoo News
SAN DIEGO – Two U.S. Border Patrol agents under investigation for smuggling migrants and drugs into the United States have disappeared, a federal law enforcement official said Friday.
Authorities fear the agents, who are brothers, were tipped off to the probe and fled, perhaps to Mexico, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
The investigation was led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Homeland Security Department’s Office of the Inspector General.
The Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site late Friday that Border Patrol spokesman Damon Foreman identified the agents as Raul and Fidel Villarreal. Foreman said they were under investigation for suspected smuggling activity and resigned.
Border Patrol spokesman Richard Kite said he could not discuss criminal probes when he was asked if the Villarreals were under investigation. Michael Unzueta, special agent in charge of ICE investigations in San Diego, confirmed the investigation and said no arrests have been made.
The agents were suspected of working for Mexican-based organizations to smuggle Mexicans and Brazilians into the United States, the source said. They allegedly picked up migrants who crossed the border on their own while they were on patrol and took them to a driver.
The brothers didn’t show up for work Monday and later told supervisors they were quitting because of a family illness, the source said.
The Times said the Villarreals did not respond to a request for comment. A woman who identified herself as their mother at their home in National City said she did not know when they would return.
The investigation comes less than a month after two customs officers at San Diego border crossings were charged with waiving cars loaded with illegal immigrants in exchange for cash.
The GOP’s immigration shame
Republicans choose divisive campaign politics over urgently needed policy.
HOW CAN YOU TELL WHEN a governing party is running out of steam? When
it controls all branches of government yet abandons even the pretense
of addressing an issue most members claim is a “crisis.”
That’s what the GOP-led House did Tuesday in announcing that
discussions over reconciling its enforcement-centric immigration bill
with the Senate’s legalization-focused version will be pushed back to
September at the earliest, and only after completing more hearings.
Instead of naming negotiators and attempting in good faith to bridge
the chasm between the bills, House leaders are busy naming locations
for “field meetings” that can deliver maximum demagogic effect in the
run-up to the November election.
These meetings are nonsense. Congress held more than a dozen hearings
on immigration last year before passing HR 4437. That punitive bill
filled the streets with millions of protesters angry that it did little
to address the nation’s need for a legal supply of labor or the
estimated 11 million-plus illegal residents of this country, besides
turning them into felons.
The
Senate version, a flawed piece of work in its own right after too many
compromises, at least offered a system (however torturous) by which
millions of underground workers could finally come into the open
without fear of immediate incarceration or deportation. Most of the
last-minute amendments to the Senate bill brought the legislation
closer to the version passed by the House. But Republicans there prefer
clinging to the dangerous fantasy that a massive, militarized wall must
be approved before discussions can even begin over what to do with the
millions of indispensable, but vilified, workers already here.
House
GOP leaders can barely conceal their preference for divisive politics
over sound policy. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois has reportedly
conveyed to President Bush that hard-line enforcement politics is
polling particularly well this season. One Republican congressional
aide told the Associated Press: “The discussion is how to put the
Democrats in a box without attacking the president.” This is what
passes for Republican leadership nowadays.
Summer and fall will
be gut-check time not just for Bush, who has tried in his vague though
periodically eloquent way to make immigration reform his signature
domestic accomplishment this year, or for pro-reform GOP senators such
as John McCain of Arizona, but for the American people. When the
vulnerable party in power chooses to adopt a campaign strategy that
demonizes a class of people, how it fares will say much about who we
are.
Twelve years ago, Republicans were swept into Congress on
a platform bursting with energy and ideas, with many measures enacted
within the GOP’s first 100 days in power. If inaction and xenophobia
are all the party has left, this could be its last 100 days.
Skilled immigrants wait on Congress
Via Yahoo.com
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The latest fights over immigration have focused on
who should get a place in line for a legal life in the United States.
But the real agony, says Tien Bui, comes when you finally get in line.
Bui, who came to the U.S. as a Vietnamese refugee and is now an
engineer for Boeing Co., can’t take the career-boosting position he’s
been offered because his citizenship application is lodged somewhere
inside the Department of
Homeland Security.
With green card in hand, Bui has waited patiently since 2003 for his
fingerprints to clear background checks, a process that’s become more
involved since Sept. 11.
But if Congress approves a new guest worker program, the overall
waiting period for Bui and the millions of legal immigrants like him
could grow even longer, says a report by the
Government Accountability Office.
President Bush
mandated that by September of this year, the immigration backlog should
be eliminated and DHS should start processing all cases in six months
or less, a deadline the agency is optimistic it can meet.
But a spider web of agencies — including the
Department of Labor,
the Department of State and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — is
also involved in evaluating and approving legal immigration
applications.
If there are more petitions to process, the overall delays could
increase, experts say. At DHS alone, some skilled foreign workers must
wait five years to apply for a green card, something American
engineering companies say is harming their competitive edge.
“I truly think if Albert Einstein were in my office in 2006, he
would be saying ‘I’m going to Canada rather than wait any longer,'”
said Judy Bourdeau, a Kansas City immigration attorney who is filing
employment petitions for several Fortune 500 companies.
‘H-1B Only’ Job Ad Posters Accused of Discrimination
Via eWeek.com
June 20, 2006
The Programmers Guild, an IT worker interest group, has filed 300
discrimination complaints so far this year against companies alleged to
have posted “H-1B visa holders only” ads on job boards.
“Abuse of the H-1B program has become so widespread that
companies apparently feel free to engage openly in the practice. And we
are only reviewing ads for computer programmers,” Programmers Guild
founder John Miano said in a statement June 19.
The actions have been filed with the U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Special Council for Immigration-Related
discrimination, contending that specific employers have created
“Americans need not apply” job postings on both Monster.com and
Dice.com.
These job ads are accused of disregarding the Immigration and
Nationality Act, which makes it illegal to discriminate against U.S.
workers on the basis of immigration status.
Miano cites examples from postings on Dice.com and Monster.com
in a release, with lines such as “We require candidates for H1B from
India” and “We sponsor GC [green card] and we do prefer H1B holders.”
Several of the ads included free training and interview preparation,
according to the complaint, while others included more flagrantly
illegal maneuvers.
“We have postings for arrangements where the ’employee’ finds
his own work and the ’employer’ takes a cut of the earnings. Many
‘high-tech companies’ obtaining H-1B visas operate out of apartments
and Mailboxes Etc.,” said Miano.
Miano said he considers the offers to teach foreigners particularly offensive in light of the fact that nearly half the money collected from H-1B visa fees is given to training programs to bring U.S. workers’ skills up to speed.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service announced June 1 that the 65,000 H-1B visa supply has been exhausted for the 2007 fiscal year, four months before new ones would be made available.
This news came on the heels of the U.S. Senate passing the immigration reform bill May 25, which included a provision to raise the H-1B visa cap to 115,000 from 65,000.
H-1B Cap Count as of 6/20/2006
|
Cap |
Beneficiaries Approved |
Beneficiaries Pending |
Beneficiary Target 1 |
Total |
Date of Last Count |
|
|
H-1B |
58,200 2 |
—— |
—— |
—— |
Cap Reached |
5/26/2006 |
|
H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption |
20,000 |
3,311 |
6,950 |
21,000 |
10,261 |
6/20/20063 |
|
H-1B (FY 06) |
58,200 |
—— |
—— |
—— |
Cap Reached |
8/10/2005 |
|
H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption (FY 06) |
20,000 |
—— |
—— |
—— |
Cap Reached |
1/17/2006 |
1
Refers to the estimated numbers of beneficiary applications needed to
reach the cap, with an allowance for denials and revocations. Each
target is subject to revision later in the cap cycle as more petitions
are processed.
2 6,800
visas are set aside during the fiscal year for the H-1B1 program under
the terms of the legislation implementing the U.S.-Chile and
U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreements. Unused numbers in this pool can
be made available for H-1B use with start dates beginning on October 1,
2006, the start of FY 2007. USCIS has added the projected number of
unused H-1B1 Chile/Singapore visas to the FY 2007 H-1B cap as announced
in the H-1B Press Release, dated June 1, 2006.
3
The numbers on the chart for H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption include
only receipted petitions. As of 6/20/06, USCIS has identified 500 I-129
H-1B petitions seeking the Advanced Degree exemption and another 1,800
I-129 petitions yet to be sorted.
Jeff City girl wins reprieve
Immigrant student facing deportation
WASHINGTON (AP) – A Missouri college student who waged a highly
publicized campaign to fight her deportation to Costa Rica has received
another extension of her stay in the United States.
Marie Gonzalez can remain in the country for one more year under the
decision reached by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, agency
spokesman Dean Boyd said yesterday.
The 20-year-old student won a similar reprieve last year, but that would have expired on July 1.
“It’s been a crazy day,” Gonzalez said in a telephone interview. “I haven’t really had a chance to let it sink in.”
Gonzalez said she called her parents in Costa Rica immediately after hearing the news yesterday morning.
“Dad and I both cried on the phone together,” she said. “We were both overwhelmed. This is what they wanted to hear.”
Gonzalez was born in Costa Rica but has lived in Jefferson City since
she was 5. Her parents, who entered the country in 1991 on six-month
visitor visas, say they misunderstood legal advice and missed their
chance to apply for permanent status.
Gonzalez’s father, Marvin, was working in Gov. Bob Holden’s office as a
courier and mail opener when he was fired in 2002 after an anonymous
tip about his status. Gonzalez’s parents were both deported to Costa
Rica in 2005.
After a nationwide publicity campaign last year – and personal appeals
for her from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., and
other high-profile lawmakers – immigration officials granted Marie
Gonzalez a one-year deferment.
U.S. immigration crackdown could drain fire crews
Latinos on lines: Contractors rely on immigrants
AUMSVILLE, Ore. – Rosario Franco
and many in his family have fought wildfires across the West for years.
His brother and cousin are both firefighters. His father is a
contractor for fire crews.
Across the country, a growing number of Hispanics are taking on
the hot, dangerous and dirty work because the demand is high in season
and it usually pays better than farm work.
Many – nobody knows how many – are undocumented, a problem Franco claims does not concern him.
”I think our crews are legal,” he said at his home in this
Willamette Valley town. ”My job is to do my job and that’s what I
do.”
Nevertheless, it is clear Hispanics dominate many wildland fire crews.
Debby Miley, executive director of the National Wildfire
Suppression Association, an umbrella organization for fire crew
contractors, said 75 percent of the contract crews in the United States
come from the Pacific Northwest.
And Oregon Department of Forestry spokesman Rod Nichols said
about 85 percent of the crews in Washington and Oregon are Hispanic.
His office administers firefighting contracts with private companies
for the two states.
It is not the same everywhere. The South Dakota-based
International Association of Wildland Fires says the Hispanic
percentage in Northwest crews is generally considered to be well above
the national average; the Forest Service region covering California and
Hawaii is under a federal consent decree to bring its Hispanic
participation in fire crews up to about 31.5 percent, from about 10
percent now.
Celebs bend visa lines like Beckham
Via Miami Herald.com
Accommodating U.S. State Department officials bend over backward to grant visas to elite figures in sports, science, arts, education and business.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – International soccer star David Beckham and wife Victoria, formerly Posh Spice of the Spice Girls, don’t wait months or years to enter the United States legally.
Beckham’s status, bankroll and his attorney see to that. He receives approval for his visa within two weeks. Accommodating U.S. State Department officials grant him after-hours appointments and have asked him to pose for photos.
As an ”alien of extraordinary ability,” Beckham is eligible for an O-1 work visa reserved for elite figures in sports, science, arts, education and business.
These and companion visas for family and support personnel have no caps on the number who can arrive. Their numbers have more than doubled over the past decade.
Meanwhile, specialty workers with four-year degrees can’t always bend the bureaucracy like Beckham. Demand for visas from these workers, with professions such as computer programming, engineering and
accounting, has surged. But the cap, briefly raised a few years ago, remains at 65,000 — what it was in 1992. The 2007 cap was filled May 26, a record four months before the fiscal year begins.
Currently, Congress is debating whether to increase these visas to help relieve the backlog, as well as granting legal status to some of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
Immigration ”law is really geared toward helping the rich and famous,” says David Whitlock, a partner who heads immigration practice at Fisher & Phillips in Atlanta.
Most industrialized countries have an immigrant pecking order, notes Alan Gordon, a Charlotte, N.C., immigration lawyer who recently helped a Canadian racing phenom enter the country.
DEPP SKIPPED LOTTERY
”How did Johnny Depp get to live in France? Did he go through a lottery system?” asks Gordon. “No. It’s because he’s spending money.”
Indeed, countries have always welcomed the elite.
”And maybe rightly so,” says Steve Hader, a lawyer with the Charlotte office of Moore & Van Allen who helped set up Beckham’s upcoming visit to the United States. “Maybe you want the best and the brightest.”
The Beckhams stand to make money on their upcoming summer trip, so they are required to secure work visas, not tourist credentials. He launched a youth soccer academy in Los Angeles last year, with the hope
of identifying talent to compete for U.S. teams on the world stage. Victoria has a fragrance and clothing line ”and still performs,” Hader says.
Some 11,960 esteemed scientists, doctors, musicians, professors, athletes and captains of industry and their family and support personnel arrived in 2005, up more than 145 percent since 1995, according to the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs.
Hader has prepared O-1 visas for A-list singers, actors, actresses, scientists and even a celebrity chef. Client confidentiality precludes him from revealing names. Beckham gave the OK because he wants the
press for his academy.
O-1 applicants must be international superstars in their professions. The State Department recognizes Academy Awards, peer adulation, press coverage in ”major newspapers,” and/or ”a high salary . . . in relation to others in the field,” among other factors.
Beckham plays for the Spanish club Real Madrid and is captain of England’s national team in this year’s World Cup. Beckham was memorialized in the 2002 movie Bend It Like Beckham for his signature long kick, with the ball curving in flight. The fact Beckham is married to one of the Spice Girls is an added bonus, or curse, depending on which side of the paparazzi you’re standing.
The U.S. Immigration Law Blog by Ashwin Sharma 
New US law could cripple Indian hospitals
Via Rediff.com
- There are 1,800 nursing vacancies in public health centres across Tamil Nadu; but in the last two years the state government has been unable to fill them up because of a shortage of qualified nurses.
- There are 118,000 nursing vacancies across United States hospitals, and the deficit could reach as high as 800,000 in the next decade.
July 05, 2006
The irony is that Tamil Nadu is running short of nurses because nursing graduates from the state — and from across India — are bound for greener pastures in the US.
In the last few years, nursing has become the easiest route to the US Green Card as American hospitals are frantically scouting for nurses from developing countries, especially India and the Philippines.
Every year, India produces more than 30,000 nursing graduates. Nursing school authorities say almost all of these nursing graduates are also training to take the CGFNS (Commission of Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools), TOEFL (Test of English as Foreign Language), TWE (Test of Written English) and TSE (Test of Spoken English) examinations.
To be considered for nursing assignments, Indian nurses have to take the above mentioned four tests, and must have valid nursing licences from recognised institutes.
In the last one year, scores of American hospitals have put in requests with manpower consulting agencies and nursing schools across India for recruiting nurses.
A number of nursing colleges in India are also tying up with hospital groups in America for supplying nurses.
As a result, the quality of health services across Indian hospitals is suffering because of shortage of nurses.
“Every nursing graduate wants to go abroad. They do not want to serve the country. The rush of Indian nurses to countries like the US is putting our healthcare system in malady,” says Annamma Mathew, a nursing superintendent who earlier worked with St John’s Medical College, Bangalore.
Mathew, who now works in a private hospital in Coimbatore, says Tamil Nadu is one of the worst hit by the shortage of nurses.
“Last year the Tamil Nadu government advertised for some 1,500 nurses in the primary health centres. But the Health Department did not get enough applications,” says Mathew.
“Indian nurses want to go abroad, especially to Europe, the Gulf and the US because the pay packets there are very good compared to the pitiable salaries that Indian hospitals offer to nurses,” Mathew adds.
A nurse in an Indian hospital earns a starting salary of less than $2,000 a year. In the US, that figure is at least $36,000.
Vineeta Ramachandran, director of Kochi-based nursing recruitment agency Nurses Abroad, says the sad state of Indian hospitals and poor pay are the main reasons for the exodus of Indian nurses abroad.
“Added to this, the new Immigration Bill in the US would open throw open the gates to Indian nurses. I am getting 15 applications every day from nurses who want to go abroad,” Ramachandran says.
Last month, Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback sponsored a proposal in the US Senate that aims to remove the limit on the numbers of nurses who can immigrate to America.
Moving the new provision in the Immigration Bill, Brownback said it was needed to help America cope with a growing nursing shortage.
Health experts in India say the new, relaxed US immigration provisions for nurses would have an impact on countries like India and the Philippines, which are already sending thousands of nurses to America every year.
Says Dr Paul Abraham, who heads a Bangalore-based non-governmental healthcare organisation called Centre for Health and Social Action: “The exodus of nurses from countries like India to the US will surely strain the health systems (in those countries).”
“In India, already many hospitals are reeling under severe shortage of nurses. Now I think every Indian nurse would try to go to the US if the new immigration rule comes into force,” Dr Abraham says.
He says international standards prescribe the nurse-patient ratio per shift to be 1:5 in a general ward and 1:1 in the intensive care unit. “But in India, the nurse-patient ratio is pitiable. For instance, the J J Hospital in Mumbai has a 1:70 nurse-patient ratio. That is, one nurse is forced to take care of an average of 70 patients who visit the hospital daily,” he says.
What is the way out?
“(There are) no short cuts,” says Dr Abraham. “The government has to sanction more nursing colleges. And a condition has to be laid down that a nurse should work compulsorily five years in India before she goes abroad,” he says.
Agrees Madhu Devan, member, Trained Nurses Association of India: “The pay scales of nurses in India also have to go up. The government should also increase the number of nursing institutes across the country.”
Some states are waking up to the crisis. Kerala — that has produced more nurses than any other state in India — now has 85 nursing schools. In 1991, it had only 45. The Maharashtra Nursing Council has granted official recognition to 70 more nursing colleges in the last two years.
More and more young men are also opting for a nursing career because of the bright job prospects abroad.
Suju Mathew, son of a Kerala school teacher, opted for nursing studies. “I have joined for the three year nursing degree course in a Mangalore college. In my class, there are 10 boys and 30 girls,” he says.
Does Suju like to work as a nurse? “Yes, but not in India,” says the 19 year old. “I want to go to America. And nursing is the only solution.”