Welcome to our Immigration News and Opinions detail page from myUSAi.org. http://myusai.org 2010-09-02T19:38:30+01:00 http://myusai.org http://myusai.org/images/myusai_logo_small.jpg text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2010/08/26/anti-immigrant-hysteria-in-arizona-won%E2%80%99t-end-with-the-primaries/ Immigration Impact, August 26. The Republican Party primaries in Arizona may be over, but the anti-immigrant demagoguery upon which the winning candidates built their campaigns is unlikely to fade away anytime soon. Governor Jan Brewer and Senator John McCain both managed to reverse their declining political fortunes in large part by raising the phantom specter of immigrant violence—a cynical tactic they are likely to repeat in the midterm elections. For instance, both trumpeted the discredited claim that Phoenix is the number two kidnapping capital of the world after Mexico City, and portrayed their various and sundry proposals to “get tough” on unauthorized immigrants as sincere efforts to save Arizonans from kidnappers and other violent criminals. text/html http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20014853-503544.html CBS News, August 26. CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto. Concerns about illegal immigration have spurred some Republicans to call for a debate over the 14th Amendment, which provides a constitutional guarantee of citizenship for anyone born in the United States. The American public is almost evenly divided as to whether current law should be changed so that children of illegal immigrants born in the United States do not automatically become citizens, a new CBS News poll finds. Forty-nine percent say the law should be kept as is, while 47 percent say it should be changed. text/html http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5imQdPuHk2A4JfOc3MiJV_Lp21UMAD9HRG3H01 Associated Press, August 26. Gov. Jan Brewer's lawyers have filed the first brief in their appeal of a ruling that put the most controversial elements of Arizona's new immigration law on hold. Brewer on Thursday asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to reverse the ruling U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton made last month. The governor's lawyers say the federal government hasn't effectively enforced immigration law at the border and in the state's interior and that the state's intent in passing the law was to assist federal authorities, as Congress has encouraged. They also say Bolton erred by accepting the federal government's speculation that the law might burden legal immigrants. text/html http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6440292.cms Indo Asian News Agency, August 26. The hike in the US visa fee for foreign skilled workers could impact the wide-ranging bilateral economic relationship with India, parliament was informed on Thursday. 'The government has expressed its strong concerns at the legislation, stating that such steps by the US government adversely affect the Indian software industry's interest in the USA and impact the broader bilateral economic relationship,' external affairs minister S.M. Krishna told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply. He admitted that while the provision is not country-specific, it would disproportionately 'affect Indian software companies adversely as a large number of H1B and L visas are availed by them'. text/html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-novick/post_746_b_694093.html Huffington Post, August 25. Congress after congress, president after president, and year after year, the immigration status quo has continued to persist, and a broken, inhuman and often irrational immigration system has been allowed to fester. And every time an opponent of immigration reform engages in a campaign of fear and misinformation, that's just another win for the dangerous status quo. We at Immigrants' List -- a bipartisan political action committee dedicated to electing lawmakers who are pro-immigration -- decided to shine a light on those individuals who have presented the greatest obstacles to repairing our country's immigration system. We unveiled this week our Hall of Shame, ten of the biggest obstructionists to immigration reform who are running or have run for office this year. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2010/08/24/staggering-right-on-immigration-in-arizona/ Immigration Impact, August 24. Today, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) faces former Rep. J.D. Hayworth in what has been a hard-fought primary battle for the Republican nomination for Senate. Perhaps the central issue in the campaign has been immigration, with both candidates staggering as far to the right as possible. So far to the right, in fact, that David Catanese of Politico called the campaign “likely to leave a lasting and unsightly stain” on McCain’s legacy. As Catanese narrates: Once the sponsor of comprehensive immigration reform with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy — a stance that hurt him with conservatives — McCain moved in a different direction this year. He switched his emphasis this summer to border security, embraced Arizona’s controversial hard-line immigration law and, in an ad, called on the federal government to “complete the danged fence” — three years after dismissing the notion of a border fence in a Vanity Fair article titled “Prisoner of Conscience.” text/html http://tinyurl.com/29effhk Beginning July 1, 2010 entrants in the annual diversity visa lottery sponsored by the U.S. State Department can check on-line to see if they won. The Electronic Status Check (ESC) web address is: http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ESC. Just like last year, you need three pieces of information from your 2009 registration: 1) Your CONFIRMATION NUMBER, 2) your FAMILY NAME (Last Name), and 3) your BIRTH YEAR. text/html http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/article_35ff180c-1f7d-5a6b-ac02-33483d8be545.html Capitol Media Services, August 20. Arizona National Guard troops will arrive at the border by the end of the month. Lt. Valentine Castillo said the first batch of soldiers started training Monday with Customs and Border Protection to be members of 'entry identification teams,' watching the border area for unusual activity and reporting what they find to federal agents. He figures the first group going through the training being conducted by Customs and Border Protection will be ready to take their posts by Aug. 31. Castillo would not provide specific numbers, but he said a new group will start training Monday, with successive multiday classes each week until everyone within the program is ready, which he estimated will be by Oct. 1. text/html http://mediamatters.org/research/201001150042 Media Matters, January 15, OPINION. There's nothing like a little self-congratulation to kick off your show, and Rush caves to the urge by telling us that he called it: Just as he predicted, the Associated Press has put out an analysis contrasting Obama's response to the earthquake in Haiti to Bush's response to Katrina. This is foreshadowing of Rush's defensive obsession with the media's coverage of Haiti that will persist throughout the first hour of his show. Briefly, Rush turns to the Massachusetts Senate race, gleefully noting a Washington Examiner column by Byron York that reports Martha Coakley trailing Scott Brown in the polls. Returning to the topic of Haiti, Rush responds to the allegation that he discouraged donations to the stricken country, saying that he only meant to discourage people from donating through the government. However, the White House website is providing links to organizations like the Red Cross, not taking donations itself. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2010/05/28/question-do-we-really-have-to-explore-dora%e2%80%99s-immigration-status/ Immigration Impact, May 28. Absurdity takes many forms in the immigration debate. For example, restrictionists have blamed immigrants for everything from global warming and our mortgage crisis to the swine flu epidemic and leprosy. (Where did my other sock go? Immigrants!) But this week, we reach a new level of absurdity—the exploitation of a bi-lingual cartoon character. In a news article published last week, America tackles the age old question, “Is Dora the Explorer an Illegal Immigrant?” Insert. Eye roll. Here. To be fair, the article examines how both sides of the debate use Dora’s ubiquitous image to make political points about the state of our broken immigration system—even quoting a sociologist who concludes that since Dora is a cartoon, she’s an easy target for people to project their feelings about Latinos—both good and bad. But what does this say about the state of our immigration debate? Answer: Nothing good. text/html http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2010/01/15/changing-the-pillow-for-the-headache/ The Sunday Leader, January 16, OPINION. Power, greed, avarice have all conspired to make Sri Lanka what it is today. To put it simply, it’s hard work being a Sri Lankan. The rot though began way back in time. DS Senanayaka, was the master of all manoeuverers. Forging links between himself and the British Governor, he ensured that his son succeeded him to the exclusion of Sir John Kotelawala, who had every right to expect to be the Prime Minister in succession to DS. Since then, the country has gone downhill politically, with little resurgence. The quest for power and fame, over and above one’s own station in life, has led to an appalling dereliction of public service on the part of elected and appointed officers. Persons entrusted by elected leaders to carry out public duties are, either, routinely corrupt or become corrupted once in office. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2010/06/01/tens-of-thousands-march-in-protest-of-arizona%e2%80%99s-sb-1070/ Immigration Impact, June 1. Tens of thousands of protesters from across the country gathered in Phoenix over the weekend to protest Arizona’s SB 1070. According to some reports, as many as 20,000 protesters carried flags, banners and signs reading “Do I Look Illegal?” and “Where’s the change? Mr. President, how can we trust you for re-election?” across a five mile stretch to the state Capitol to demand that the “federal government refuse to cooperate with Arizona authorities trying to enforce the law.” Meanwhile, supporters of the law gathered in a nearby stadium to defend their position and deny claims of profiling and racism. Both sides, ironically enough, acknowledged the need for a federal overhaul of our immigration system—albeit with different messages. text/html http://tinyurl.com/yjj59n2 Albuquerque Immigration Examiner, January 18. In my last op-ed I discussed one of several recent articles that portray the annual diversity visa lottery in a negative light, and wrongly associate green card lottery winners as welfare recipients, with fraud, terrorism, and take jobs away from Americans. This part will debunk these myths and offer a possible solution to the possible jobs issue. First, everyone supports planned changes to visa screening procedures. This will likely include increased cooperation between countries, streamlined communication between agencies, better integrated data, body scanning, and possibly profiling, but of course nothing as elaborate as Israel's system because of the sheer numbers here in the U.S. text/html http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/02/MN2E1DO8QC.DTL San Francisco Chronicle, June 2. In a preview of the legal clash over Arizona's broad new immigration law, the Obama administration has asked the Supreme Court to rule that only the federal government can punish employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. A separate Arizona law penalizing employers of undocumented workers would 'disrupt a careful balance that Congress struck' in the 1986 federal immigration act, the Justice Department told the court in a filing Friday. The Arizona law, passed in 2007, subjects employers to stiffer penalties than federal law and lacks safeguards that Congress provided against employment discrimination, government lawyers said. text/html http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/haitians-granted-protected-protected-status-face-tough-job-190269.html Palm Beach Post, January 21. Undocumented Haitians granted temporary protected status under the federal government's new immigration program will emerge from the fringes of society into an already strained Florida job market, state officials said. Even so, Haitian activists who spent years fighting for temporary protected status were optimistic Thursday. It was the first day Haitians could apply for the new government program, launched after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastated parts of Haiti, killed an estimated 200,000 people and left as many as 1.5 million homeless. text/html http://www.latimes.com/news/local/immigration/la-me-border-rancher-20100602,0,5564917.story Los Angeles Times, June 2. Reporting from Tierra del Sol, Calif. — Back in the late 1990s, when illegal immigrants tramped across his ranch every day, Robert Maupin fortified his rickety fence with additional strands of wire. Then he added chain link fencing and ringed his 250-acre property with cameras. But every night he would encounter jagged holes in the fence and litter-strewn trails through his clusters of live oak trees. These days, the 70-year-old rancher still walks the fence every day with his three dogs, but there are no longer any holes to patch. Since the U.S. Border Patrol erected an 18-foot barrier nearby and boosted staffing in this backcountry 60 miles east of San Diego, relative tranquility has returned, at least for now. text/html http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_W_bilingual22.4626171.html Press-Enterprise (Riverside, January 21. The Census Bureau this year for the first time is mailing out forms with questions in Spanish and English. Thirteen million U.S. households will receive the questionnaires, said census spokeswoman Sandra Alvarado. Census tracts in which at least 20 percent of people 5 and older speak Spanish at home will receive the bilingual questionnaires, Alvarado said. She did not know how many Inland homes would receive the forms. One in three Riverside and San Bernardino counties residents speak Spanish at home, according to 2006-08 census estimates. The census has long provided foreign-language forms to people who request them. This year, questionnaires are available in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian and Vietnamese, with guides in 59 languages to help recipients fill out the 10-question form in English. text/html http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/06/02/judge_lets_pakistani_fight_his_expulsion/ Boston Globe Staff, June 2. One of three Pakistani men arrested in New England last month as part of the investigation into the attempted bombing in Times Square entered the country illegally through Mexico, which makes him subject to deportation, an immigration judge ruled yesterday. But a lawyer for Pir D. Khan, a 43-year-old taxi driver from Watertown, said his client should be allowed to stay because he has been an upstanding citizen since his arrival in the United States in summer 1991 and his American wife will face “extreme personal hardship’’ if he is returned to Pakistan. US Immigration Judge Matthew J. D’Angelo said he will give Khan a chance to call witnesses and challenge his deportation during an Aug. 10 hearing in US Immigration Court in Boston. Until then, Khan will continue to be held at the Plymouth County House of Correction. text/html http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/northwest/story/856190.html News Tribune , August 26. Ricardo Sanchez knows some hard-working students who might not be able to use the college degrees they're earning because they aren't U.S. citizens. He brought a few of them to the Tri-Cities on Monday to help illustrate why he believes federal legislators should approve the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for certain young people. 'We're trying to get people to acknowledge (that addressing the issue) should be a top priority,' said Sanchez, board chairman of the Latino/a Educational Achievement Project in the Seattle area. He was in town for a forum on the act -- known as the DREAM Act -- at Columbia Basin College in Pasco. He and several students who would be able to take advantage of the new law if it passed spoke with the Herald's editorial board beforehand. text/html http://www.ojornal.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20404858&BRD=2677&PAG=461&dept_id=543384&rfi=6 O Journal, January 22. Unlike health care reform, Republican Scott Brown's upset win in the Senate special election is not expected to have significant impact on immigration reform. With Brown's victory Republicans gained the 41st vote they needed in the Senate to sustain a filibuster in the health reform bill. But as far as immigration reform, his vote is just one of many votes that still need to be conquered, say local officials and immigrant advocates. 'I don't think this has any negative impact on immigration,' said Cong. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). 'It's a tough issue, maybe one more vote would be better. But this does not make it harder. We're still working hard to get it on the agenda.' text/html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/02/AR2010060200196.html Associated Press, June 2. The city of Tucson has joined a lawsuit by one of its police officers to block Arizona's immigration enforcement law. The suit was filed in late April in U.S. District Court in Tucson on behalf of Tucson police officer Martin Escobar. It alleges the new law violates numerous constitutional rights, could hinder some police investigations, and violates federal law because Tucson police and the city have no authority to perform immigration duties. KGUN-TV reports that Tucson's filing asks the federal court to intervene to stop the scheduled July 29 implementation of the law. Meanwhile, a satirical music video about immigration called 'Come to the USA,' by singer Ray Stevens, is gaining attention online. text/html http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/26/get-ready-another-uproar/?columnists/ruben-navarrette&zIndex=155334 San Diego Union Tribune, August 26. A few months ago, I was talking to a group of political strategists who insisted that — given the Obama administration's desire to pursue both immigration reform and health care reform — immigration should go first. Otherwise, they said, health care would fail because of public fears that illegal immigrants would get free medical services. Make those immigrants legal, they said, and it would defuse the issue. text/html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/22recruit.html New York Times, January 22. A highly successful program by the armed forces to recruit skilled immigrants who live in this country temporarily has run into a roadblock, leaving thousands of potential recruits in limbo. The Army stopped accepting applications for the program last week, officials said Thursday, because the Pentagon had not completed a review required to keep the recruitment going. The program, which started as a pilot in February, allowed recruiters to enlist immigrants, most of them in the Army, with special language or medical skills who are in this country on temporary visas. Successful recruits are offered the chance to become United States citizens within a few months. text/html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/nyregion/03immig.html New York Times, June 2. With the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island as a backdrop, more than 40 people, including several New York politicians and clergy members, gathered in Battery Park on Wednesday to start a three-day fast to press for a comprehensive immigration overhaul. The protest is the latest in a wave of demonstrations by immigrants and their advocates in the New York region and around the country that have included rallies, vigils, marches and acts of civil disobedience. Most of them have been meant to express impatience with the Obama administration and Congress for postponing long-discussed change to the nation’s immigration system. text/html http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-08-26-immigration_N.htm USA Today, August 26. Sen. Edward Kennedy's first major legislative victory helped change the face of the country and shaped his own political career. In 1965, Kennedy had been in the Senate less than three years. His party's leaders gave him the job of pushing a bill to eliminate the quota system that had made it virtually impossible for anyone from anywhere but western Europe to immigrate to the USA. Eliminating national quotas for immigration had been the goal of every U.S. president since Harry Truman— including Kennedy's brother John F. Kennedy. That was probably one reason that 'Ted seized the cause,' in the words of his biographer, Adam Clymer. Passage marked 'the first of many times Ted Kennedy fulfilled an unfinished dream of one of his brothers,' Clymer wrote. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2010/01/21/supreme-court-protects-immigrants-access-to-court-review/ Immigration Impact, January 21. Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision ensuring that immigrants facing deportation have fair process in the review of their cases. The Court ruled that individuals who seek to reopen their deportation orders have the right to appeal to the federal courts if the immigration court refuses to reopen the case. The Court’s decision protects immigrants’ access to federal court review and affirms the role of the courts in our system of checks and balances on government power. text/html http://burnafterreading.nationaljournal.com/2010/06/immigration-uncertainty-drives.php National Journal, June 3. A ballot option to make English the official state language of Oklahoma is the latest example of regional laws driven by frustrations with the federal response to illegal immigration. Recent history shows that legislation to make English an official state language has greater popularity in times of frustrated immigration debate. In 1986, 1996 and 2006, immigration bills came before Congress, and in each of these years support emerged for laws to make English the official language at the state or federal level, said Tim Schultz, government relations director for advocacy group U.S. English. Such state ballot initiatives have never lost and Schultz expects Oklahoma to become the thirty-first state to make English the official language of government and business. text/html http://www.al.com/business/birminghamnews/news.ssf?/base/business/125136094321780.xml&coll=2 Birmingham News, August 27. Commissioner Constance Barker of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission brought her campaign against sexual assaults on female Hispanic migrant farm workers to Birmingham on Wednesday. Barker, a Florence native and one of five commissioners who set policy for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, discussed with Birmingham District Director Delner Franklin-Thomas and regional attorney Emanuel Smith a strategy on how to prevent the problem faced by workers. In an interview, she talked about the role of the EEOC and how the Birmingham district office, which oversees Alabama and Mississippi, has become a leader in getting labor lawyers and businesses to work together to resolve cases. text/html http://immigrationimpact.com/2010/01/22/senator-graham-ready-to-tackle-tough-issues-immigration-included/ Immigration Impact, January 22. In response to the election of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate—which many Republicans are spinning as a loss of political momentum for President Obama and as a victory over health care reform—South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham today expressed a willingness to tackle tough issues, including immigration. In a Congress Daily article this morning, Graham confronted partisan politics: Is the message that Democrats shouldn’t take on anything controversial and is the message that we should not work with them on anything controversial? text/html http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/06/03/20100603Montini0603.html Arizona Republic, June 3. With Senate Bill 1070, state Sen. Russell Pearce and his supporters went after illegal immigrants. Next, they're going after babies. Pearce plans to introduce legislation in Arizona that would deny birth certificates to children born here to non-citizen parents. This has long been the goal of Pearce and national organizations like FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Pearce worked with a lawyer affiliated with FAIR to craft SB 1070 and most likely will do the same thing when he attempts to withhold citizenship from newborns of non-citizen parents.