Immigration Law
Pro-Immigrant Measures Make Gains At The State Level
As we reach the midpoint in state legislative sessions, 2013 is shaping up to be a year where most states are moving in a more positive direction when it comes to immigration policy. Lawmakers from both parties have become more inclined to support pro-immigrant measures, shifting away from the anti-immigrant policies that swept across states in previous years. Read More
Immigration Reform is an LGBT Issue
By Victoria Neilson, Legal Director, Immigration Equality. This week the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in two cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor, that will forever change the course of the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality. While we are hopeful that the Court will strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) thereby clearing the way for the federal government, including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of State, to honor our marriages, no one can predict with any certainty what the Court will do. Read More
How the Supreme Court Decision on DOMA Will Impact Immigration Law
Family unity is one of the driving forces in our immigration system. United States citizens and lawful permanent residents can obtain immigrant visas for their spouses. Many foreign nationals who come to the United States on employment-based visas bring their spouses and children with them. And some waivers and forms of relief from removal are available only to those with close relatives living in the United States. Read More
Hundreds of Detained Immigrants Held in Solitary Confinement
Every day, out of more than 30,000 detainees, roughly 300 immigrants are held in solitary confinement at the nation’s 50 largest detention centers overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, according to federal data. Solitary confinement is one of most expensive forms of detention, the New York Times reports, and nearly half of immigrant detainees held in solitary confinement are isolated for 15 days or more – “the point at which psychiatric experts say they are at risk for severe mental harm.” About 10 percent are held for more than 75 days. According to the New York Times, immigrants were regularly placed in isolation for breaking rules but also for protection: Read More
Immigration Watchdogs: Keep Calm and Press On
We’ve hit a point in the life cycle of the long awaited Senate immigration reform bill that a lot of parents will remember well. It’s those last few days before the baby is born, when anxiety and excitement are present in equal measure. Rather than speculating about the baby’s eye color or who the baby will resemble, however, speculation on the Senate immigration bill revolves around the bill’s substance. Will it carry through on the promise of a reasonable path to citizenship for the undocumented? How will it balance the interests of business and labor in a temporary worker program? Will there be additional STEM visas? Are there really going to be cuts to the family system in favor of some new mechanism for admitting employment and family based immigrants? There have been a host of media reports this past week fueling speculation on these questions and others, but the bottom line is that we simply won’t know until we see the text of the bill. Read More
Hearing and Report Highlight Lack of Due Process in Immigration System
This week, Senator Christopher Coons of Delaware presided over a public hearing to discuss what so many of us know: the immigration courts are failing to provide a fair, efficient, and effective system of justice. Many of the concerns raised by Senator Coons, as well as some of the witnesses, during Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “Building an Immigration System Worthy of American Values,” are discussed in more detail in a report issued by the American Immigration Council this week, Two Systems of Justice: How the Immigration System Falls Short of the Ideals of Justice. Read More
Supporting STEM Education Where It’s Most Needed
Geography is a topic often lost in national-level immigration policy and the ensuing conversations around comprehensive reform. We frequently hear statistics cited at the national level. However, all too often, data at the metropolitan and local level – where the challenges and opportunities of immigration policy play out – are overlooked in policy debates. Read More
The Promise and Challenges of Family-Based Immigration
Today the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary is hosting a hearing on “The Separation of Nuclear Families under U.S. Immigration Law”. The issue to be addressed relates specifically to the obstacles that many legal permanent residents (LPR) currently living in the United States face when they try to bring their immediate relatives to the country. While there are neither country nor yearly caps for immediate relatives (currently defined as opposite-sex spouses and minor children) of U.S. citizens who want to immigrate to the United States, there are only 87,900 immigrant visas available each year for immediate relatives of LPRs. In addition, no country can receive more than 7 percent of the visas available for all immigration categories in a fiscal year. In 2012, for example, the maximum number of visas available per country was 47,250. And because the demand for visas in some countries is much larger than the number of visas available, some LPRs have to wait several years to be able to bring their spouses and unmarried children. Read More
Cato Report Finds Poor Immigrants Use Fewer Public Benefits than Natives
Among the most contentious debates surrounding national immigration reform concerns immigrant use of welfare programs. Opponents of immigration routinely assert low-skilled immigrants consume more public resources than natives, thereby imposing an unfair fiscal burden on U.S. taxpayers. Read More
Recognizing Immigrant Women’s Needs in Immigration Reform
While the recent debate over reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act may have reminded the nation that there are “women’s issues” in immigration law, it doesn’t necessarily follow that most people regard immigration reform as a woman’s issue. Despite the fact that immigrant women make up a growing share of workers, entrepreneurs, single heads of households, and new voters—while remaining primary caregivers in families—the laws we craft to reform our broken immigration system have often been insensitive to the obstacles and challenges immigrant women face in applying for immigration status. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
