Interior Enforcement
Despite Lamar Smith’s Claims, E-Verify Is Not a Jobs Bill
BY TYLER MORAN, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER While Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) promises that his mandatory E-Verify legislation (HR 2885) is a jobs creation bill, the mark-up of the bill in the House Judiciary Committee last week proved that it is anything but. Though the bill passed the committee by a 22-13 party line vote, the debate in committee and amendments offered make it crystal clear the bill would actually yield job losses. The debate leading up to the committee mark up also shows just how fractured conservatives have become on this issue—and much of it focuses on concerns over jobs. In fact, an unlikely coalition of progressive and conservative organizations joined together to oppose the bill, turning a host of job arguments upside down. Read More
Next Stop, Napolitano: DHS Committee Approves Task Force Recommendations on Secure Communities
Last week, a task force created to study DHS’ controversial “Secure Communities” initiative issued a report listing a series of recommendations to improve the program. Among other proposals, the task force recommended that federal authorities standardize the use of prosecutorial discretion around the country, make the program more transparent, and decline to initiate deportation proceedings against immigrants who have not been convicted of serious crimes or otherwise pose a threat to public safety. As of yesterday, those recommendations are one step closer actual implementation as the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) voted to approve the task force’s findings and submit them for further consideration to DHS leadership, including Secretary Janet Napolitano. While HSAC agreed (almost) unanimously to submit the recommendations to DHS, the committee was careful to characterize the findings as a good first step rather than a cure to problems with Secure Communities. Read More
Mandatory E-Verify: An Enforcement Proposal Even Conservatives Don’t Like
Rep. Lamar Smith may find himself whistling in the wind this week as members of his own party continue to blast his E-Verify proposal. Smith’s bill, The “Legal Workforce Act” H.R. 2885, which continues to get marked up this week by the House Judiciary Committee, would make E-Verify mandatory nationwide. Conservative lawmakers, Tea Partiers, and Libertarians, however, fear that E-Verify—a electronic system that allows employers to verify work eligibility by checking employee data against Social Security Administration records—will violate civil liberties, hurt small businesses, and destroy the agriculture industry which relies heavily on undocumented labor. Read More
Task Force Submits Recommendations on DHS’s Flawed Secure Communities Program
Anyone following the saga surrounding Secure Communities—DHS’s flawed enforcement program that runs fingerprints through federal databases—can tell you that the program has been rife with controversy since its inception in 2008. As DHS began to stray from the program’s original focus on criminal aliens—state and city leaders, police chiefs, immigration advocates, and congressional members blasted the agency for casting too broad a net and for its dubious implementation process. After tensions reached a boiling point in June, ICE Director John Morton created a 20-member task force to address growing concerns. This week, that task force submitted its final recommendations in a report to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC)—recommendations that some former task force members say don’t go far enough. Read More
Lamar Smith’s E-Verify Arguments Defy Logic and Lack Evidence
Facing opposition from the left and the right, Rep. Lamar Smith appears to be willing to do and say just about anything to pass his “Legal Workforce Act,” (H.R. 2885), which would make E-Verify mandatory for all U.S. businesses. Smith continues to tout E-Verify as a magic bullet that will create jobs for millions of American workers despite all evidence to the contrary. Read More
Illinois County “Just Says No” to Costly Immigration Detainers
As public debate over Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) controversial enforcement policies continues, a county in Illinois recently voted against using one tool in ICE’s enforcement arsenal—immigration detainers. Detainers are requests (not commands) from ICE to local law enforcement agencies that ask local agencies to notify ICE prior to releasing an individual from custody. ICE issues detainers—which allow local agencies to retain individuals for 48 hours after scheduled release—so that they can determine whether individuals are subject to deportation and take them into federal custody. Last week, however, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted 10-5 against honoring the voluntary immigration detainers, citing the prohibitive cost of detaining individuals. Read More
Lamar Smith Introduces New Agricultural Twist to His Anti-Immigrant Agenda
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has added a novel new twist to his anti-immigrant agenda: letting more immigrant workers into the country. In defiance of logic, the man who believes that immigrants merely steal jobs from U.S. citizens now wants to import migrant agricultural workers. At a hearing today of the House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, Rep. Smith rolled out his latest legislative proposal, called the “American Specialty Agriculture Act” (H.R. 2847). The bill would create a new “H-2C” visa for temporary agricultural workers to replace the existing H-2A program, and would allow growers to bring in up to 500,000 of these workers each year. Read More
Local Law Enforcement Not Trained to Enforce Alabama’s Immigration Law
As Alabamans continue to brace themselves for what the New York Times recently described as the “nation’s cruelest immigration law,” state law enforcement agencies said they have not yet been trained to enforce provisions of the controversial law. Signed in June by Gov. Robert Bentley, HB 56 requires local law enforcement to verify the immigration status of those stopped for traffic violations, public schools to determine the immigration status of students, and make it a crime to knowingly rent to, transport or harbor undocumented immigrants. Several parties—including civil rights and religious groups and the U.S. Department of Justice—filed suit against the law, hoping to enjoin key provisions. Today, U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn temporarily blocked the law until September 29, 2011 or until the court issues a ruling, whichever happens first. Read More
DHS: Prioritizing Enforcement and Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion
Washington D.C. – Today, the American Immigration Council hosted a briefing to discuss the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) announcement last week that it would issue agency-wide guidance to make certain that prosecutorial discretion is exercised in a manner that ensures the agency’s enforcement resources are used to remove those… Read More
DHS Terminates Secure Communities Agreements with States, Continues to Implement Program
Late Friday afternoon, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provoked outrage from immigration groups when it announced the termination of Secure Communities Memorandum of Agreements (MOAs) with state and local governments. DHS initially entered into MOAs with state officials as a way to encourage voluntary participation in Secure Communities, an enforcement program which runs the fingerprints of individuals booked in local jails through federal databases. Last October, however, following attempts by local jurisdictions to terminate their MOAs, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that Secure Communities was not a voluntary program after all. DHS’s latest about-face this week has only further angered immigration activists, many of whom are calling on DHS to end the program. Read More
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