Immigration Law
Alabama Governor Signs Costly Immigration Bill, ACLU to File Suit
Yesterday, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed a restrictive immigration bill (HB 56) into law, making Alabama the fourth state to sign “get tough” Arizona-style immigration legislation. Among the restrictive provisions, HB 56 requires local law enforcement, in some instances, to verify the immigration status of those stopped for traffic violations, public schools to determine the immigration status of students, employers to use E-Verify and makes it a crime to knowingly rent to, transport or harbor undocumented immigrants. Although Gov. Bentley touts the law as the nation’s toughest, he might also consider mounting a similarly tough legal defense as civil rights groups have declared their intention to file suit. Read More
Help Wanted: Latino Leaders and Presidential Leadership Needed on Immigration Reform
President Obama has convened a number of meetings on the issue of immigration lately. However, the one that got the most attention took place this week and included a notable group of Latino actors, journalists and radio personalities for what Politico called “Obama’s Celebrity Roundtable.” Read More
Are SSA No-Match Letters Putting American Jobs at Risk?
BY TYLER MORAN, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER The Social Security Administration (SSA) just announced it will resume its practice of notifying employers of discrepancies in employee paperwork through “no-match letters”—a mechanism which threatens countless American jobs. Despite the Administration’s clear assertion that the letter “makes no statement” about a worker’s immigration status, employer confusion over the letters has led to erroneous firings and lost wages in the past, and threatens to be the case now. It is anticipated that over 1 million workers will be the subject of these letters. Read More
Group Highlights Administrative Fixes to the Immigration System Absent Federal Reform
Virtually every time anyone proposes administrative reforms to the immigration system, someone in Congress calls it amnesty. The discussion at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) today, in which immigration policy experts discussed six administrative fixes that the Obama team could implement without legislation, shows just how much can be done with executive branch authority. The report, Executive Action on Immigration: Six Ways to Make the System Work Better, authored by Donald Kerwin, Doris Meissner, and Margie McHugh, suggests specific policy measures which could, during a period of congressional inaction, help “improve and strengthen the performance of the nation’s immigration system.” The MPI authors recommend that the Obama administration: Read More
House Subcommittee Tries to Propagate Myth that Immigrants Steal Jobs
Today’s House Subcommittee hearing on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, clumsily entitled “New Jobs in Recession and Recovery: Who Are Getting Them and Who Are Not,” was clearly intended to sow fear. In his opening statement, Subcommittee Chairman Elton Gallegly (R-24th/CA) wasted no time in sounding the alarm that unemployed native-born workers are being left to twist in the wind as immigrants gobble up the few new jobs which have become available since the end of the Great Recession. Yet the preponderance of the evidence presented during the hearing failed to support that conclusion. Read More
Senate Fails to Bring DREAM Act to Final Vote
Today, the Senate failed to achieve the 60 votes necessary to achieve cloture on the DREAM Act, a bill to grant hundreds of thousands of undocumented children a chance to gain legal status if they enroll in college or join the military. 55 Senators voted in favor of the motion to proceed to the final vote on DREAM and 41 against. The vote broke largely along partly lines with Senate Republicans citing procedural arguments to excuse themselves from voting yes. However, some Democrats abandoned their party and voted against it too, while some Republicans broke ranks and voted for cloture. Read More
DREAM Act Vote Imminent in House and Senate: Congressional Budget Office Says Both Bills Are Good for the Economy
Both the House and the Senate are schedule to take up the DREAM Act this evening, though both chambers are voting on slightly different bills under different procedures. The House is scheduled to vote shortly on H.R. 6497, while the Senate moves to a vote on whether to proceed to its own version of the DREAM Act, S. 3992. Read More
Mainstream Media Exposes Anti-Immigrant Movement in America
The mainstream media is finally exposing “the man behind the curtain” of America’s anti-immigrant movement. This week, Village Voice Media published a piece entitled, “FAIR-y Tales” by Terry Greene Sterling, an award winning journalist and Writer-in-Residence at Arizona State University. Sterling’s in-depth investigative journalism blows the lid of off the John Tanton network and its anti-immigrant organizations—CIS, FAIR, IRLI (drafters of SB1070), Social Contract Press and Numbers USA. It even includes an interview with John Tanton, the unapologetic architect of the anti-immigrant movement in America. Read More
Will Local Lawmakers Take the Immigration Enforcement Bait?
As local lawmakers begin to lay the groundwork for next year’s legislative agenda, some are attempting to prioritize immigration enforcement ahead of efforts to jump-start flagging economies. In Oklahoma, for example, an internal storm is brewing between a House Republican and the Speaker-elect about where the party’s “social agenda” (read: immigration enforcement) fits on the legislative priority list. Similar battles over whether to pursue Arizona-esque immigration enforcement legislation are abound in Virginia, Nevada, Florida, Colorado and California. While the actual enforcement legislation may differ from state to state, legislators are weighing the same questions—cost of implementation, lengthy court battles, divisiveness, public safety concerns and economic priorities. The question remains, however, given the federal challenge to Arizona’s SB1070 and economic loss due to boycotts, whether other state legislators will take the immigration enforcement bait? Read More
Kafka Revisited: Ninth Circuit Decision Protects Due Process Rights for Noncitizens
The basic tenet that you can’t be sued without knowing the charges against you and having a meaningful opportunity to defend yourself is a cornerstone of the U.S. judicial system. This concept of fundamental fairness ensures that people in courtrooms across the country have access to a discovery process that enables them to see the other side’s evidence. Plaintiffs and prosecutors are routinely required to produce documents that will be used to prove their cases so that defendants have a chance to respond. For too long, however, these kinds of procedures and protections have been denied to noncitizens in immigration court. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
