New Proposed Rule Would Decrease Time Abroad for Many Consular Processing Cases

On Friday, Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, announced a proposed rule which could help thousands of families seeking to legalize the immigration status of one of their members.

Currently, if a person present in the United States entered the country without being inspected, she must leave the country in order to gain lawful permanent resident status based on the petition of a spouse or other immediate family member. As soon as they leave the United States, their previous unlawful presence triggers a 3 or 10 year bar to their return. So when they are abroad in their home country, they must file for and obtain a waiver of their unlawful presence bars before they can return. In order to obtain the waiver, they must establish that their absence from the United States is causing "extreme hardship" to their qualifying family members in the United States who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.

The problem is that the adjudication process for these waivers can sometimes take a year or longer. So at a minimum, the families face a long period of separation while trying to become legal. And of course, there is no guarantee that the waiver will be approved after the long adjudication.

If implemented, the new proposed process would allow those seeking to legalize their status through consular processing to submit their waiver applications for pre-approval before leaving the United States. While such applicants would still have to leave the United States to receive their status, the new process would have the potential to drastically decrease the time that they are abroad away from their citizen spouses and families.

As of now, the new rule is just a proposal and has not been implemented. There is no date certain for implementation. Also, it appears that the new pre-approval process would only be available for the waiver of unlawful presence bars. Those who also need waivers for bars triggered by criminal convictions or past fraud would have to continue to follow the old process where their waivers are submitted and adjudicated abroad.

Click Here to see the New York Times Editorial

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Call for "Humane" Immigration Policy in GOP Presidential Debate

Last night, the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination gathered for their eleventh debate (still thirteen to go). This debate focused on national security issues. Late in the debate, the topic turned to immigration policy and specifically on what to do with the 11 million people in the United States without immigration status.

While most of the candidates only spoke about the need to secure the border, Newt Gingrich, who is currently at the top or near the top of national GOP polling, set himself apart from the crowd by actually addressing the 11 million people who are already here and calling for a "humane" solution. Gingrich indicated that deporting someone who has been living, working, paying taxes, and attending church in the United States for 25 years is not practical and not humane.

"I do believe if you've come here recently and you have no ties to the U.S., we should deport you," Gingrich said, but he stated, "I don't see any reason to punish someone who came here at 3 years of age and wants to serve the United States of America," in apparent support of DREAM Act-type legislation.

Gingrich indicated that for those who have been here for a long period of time with deep roots in our community and have not committed crimes, there should be some way to legalize their status without separating families. He added that if Republicans want to be the party of families, they cannot support ripping these types of families apart. Gingrich recognized the potential political problems his stance could make for him in the GOP, saying, "I'm prepared to take the heat for saying, 'Let's be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship but by finding a way to create legality so they are not separated from their families.'"

Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House with unquestioned conservative credentials, deserves credit for standing apart from the crowd and trying to shift the conversation toward realistic solutions in the midst of a GOP primary.

Mitt Romney's response to Gingrich during the debate was with unflinching opposition to anything that smelled of amnesty. Romney, though, has in the past taken a very similar position to Gingrich regarding those already in the country. As recently as 2007, Romney was quoted in the Lowell Sun newspaper saying, "I don't believe in rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at gunpoint from our country. With these 11 million people, let's have them registered, know who they are. Those who've been arrested or convicted of crimes shouldn't be here; those that are paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process toward application for citizenship, as they would from their home country."

While it would be an overstatement to suggest that there is broad support for any type of immigration reform in the Republican party, the fact that two top candidates for the nomination are (or recently have been before becoming staunchly anti-amnesty) supportive of a humane and realistic approach to dealing with those already in the country without status is the first hint in a long time that there may be some daylight for future immigration reform.

Read the RealClearPolitics article on the immigration exchange in last night's debate here.

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Decline in Unauthorized Aliens Residing in US

Whether it is the economy or an increase in worksite enforcement, the number of unauthorized aliens in the United States has declined since 2008. According to the Congressional Research Service report published September 22, 2001, an estimated 10-11 million unauthorized aliens lived in the U.S. as of 2010, compared to over 12 million in 2007. The report surveyed the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Surveys (CPS) published since 1986, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) reports based on the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) since 2000.

The report analyzed data collected not only on the number of unauthorized aliens in the U.S., but also countries of origin, residence in the United States, and year of arrival. The majority of unauthorized aliens residing in the U.S. as of 2010, approximately 30% of the total population, entered between 2000 and 2004. Only 9% of the current unauthorized alien population entered the U.S. between 2005 and 2009 according to a 2010 CPS report. Unauthorized aliens migrating from Mexico have declined since 1986, from 69% to 57% in 2010, while aliens originating from Asia have increased by 6%. The greatest number of unauthorized aliens continue to reside in California and Texas. According to the report, Colorado is not even in the top ten states "with unauthorized resident aliens" with a 2010 headcount between 140,000 to 325,000.

Contributing factors to the rise and fall of the unauthorized alien population in the U.S. since 1986 included economics, legislation, and enforcement. Some analysts attributed the rise of unauthorized aliens to "lax enforcement of employer sanctions," introduced in 1986 (Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986). These analysts point to the decrease in unauthorized aliens since work site enforcement increased in 2007-2008. However, the decrease in population since 2007 may also be attributed to the 2008 housing downturn and the subsequent recession.

In addition, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) "may have inadvertently increased the population of unauthorized resident aliens." Among other penalties, the act introduced the three and ten year bars to admission for aliens unlawfully present in the US for 180 days or more. These provisions "coupled with incrased resources for border enforcement" in the wak of the 911 terrorist attacks, according to the report, have created a "caging effect" that has "stymied what had been a rather fluid movement of migratory workers along the southern border." The result of IIRIRA "raised the stakes" and "created an incentive for those who succeed in entering the United States to stay."

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Obama's Amnesty? Not so Fast

The Obama Administration announced on Thursday that it will make a case-by-case review of some 300,000 immigrants facing possible deportation in immigration courts around the country. The stated goal of the review is to focus on removing convicted criminals who might pose a threat to national security or public safety.

The Thursday announcement follows a June memo from the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton, outlining when and how ICE agents could use prosecutorial discretion in immigration cases.

Administration officials, to this point speaking anonymously, have indicated that those whose deportations are put on hold may be eligible for work authorization. Whether this would come in the form of an order of deferred action or some other way is unclear.

In fact, much of how this new policy will play out on the ground remains unclear. We know that it does not give anyone a new path to lawful permanent resident status. As of yet, there is no known way to affirmatively apply to have one's case put on hold or to apply for work authorization based on the new policy.

How this new policy unfolds will depend on how DHS officers and attorneys implement it. Which immigrants actually end up benefiting from this new policy is still far from clear.

Read the Washington Post Article.

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ABC News Journalist Outs Self as Undocumented in Support of Dream Act

In the wake of Congress failing to pass the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) last year, Jose Antonio Vargas decided to reveal his status as an illegal immigrant.

Vargas is an ABC News Journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007. He arrived in the United States at the age of twelve from the Philippines and did not learn that he did not have immigration status until years later.

Vargas' story is one of many that should put a human face on the potential beneficiaries of the DREAM Act who ended up in the U.S. without immigration status through no fault of their own. Hopefully Congress considers his story and so many others like it and gets DREAM back on the table.

For more, click on the links:

-The short Denver Post article on Vargas speaking out

-Video of Vargas talking about being undocumented

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Denver Immigration Court Overloaded

An article in Sunday's Denver Post documents the overwhelming caseload at the Immigration Court in Denver, Colorado. According to the article, two of Denver's immigration judges have as many as 2,400 pending cases each at any given time.

Judge Dana Leigh Marks, president of the National Associate of Immigration Judges, is quoted as saying that the necessarily rushed nature of the proceedings with such an inundation of cases is akin to trying death penalty cases in a traffic court setting.

With the enactment of Secure Communities and other programs designed to sweep more and more people into removal proceedings, the court's caseload seems likely to get worse. In the midst of the current budget struggles, it is difficult to envision Congress passing funding for more immigration judges and court staff to ensure due process and meaningful hearings in immigration court.

To read the article in the Denver Post, click here.

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Denver Post Editorial: Denver is No Sanctuary City

The Denver Post released an editorial on September 13, 2010 refuting the assertion that Denver is a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants. As pointed out in the Post's editorial, the notion that the undocumented are safe from deportation simply because they are with the Denver city limits is demonstrably false.

The Post cites Denver's efforts to join the Secure Communities program and a city ordinance requiring contstruction contrators to verify the immigration status of empoyees in order to gain city contracts as evidence that Denver is not turning a blind eye to illegal immigration.

Read the full Denver Post editorial here.

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Dream Act

 Recent poll indicates that 70% of Americans are in favor of DREAM Act.  The DREAM (Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act would allow certain qualifying undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States when they were young children to become lawful permanent residents. Under the DREAM Act, students who have lived in the United States for at least five years could become lawful permanent residents, so long as they stay out of trouble, earn a high school diploma or G.E.D., and complete at least two years of college or military service. First Focus, a family-advocacy organization, recently conducted a poll that indicates that 70% of Americans are in favor of the DREAM Act, despite strong anti-immigrant rhetoric and a strong push for comprehensive immigration reform. First Focus’ president, Bruce Lesley, believes that the poll shows that most Americans are concerned that not allowing undocumented immigrant students to continue their educations beyond high school could spell harmful economic consequences for American society.  For more information on the DREAM Act, please visit: http://dreamact.info/
For more information on the First Focus poll, please visit: http://firstfocus.net/library/polling-and-opinion-research/public-support-for-the-dream-act

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Crime Rates in Arizona Unrelated to Immigration

Neil Conan, of NPR’s Talk of the Nation, recently interviewed James Alan Fox, crime expert and Northeastern University law professor regarding recent FBI statistics showing that crime rates dropped significantly in Arizona since 2000, despite the perception that undocumented immigrants are responsible for increased criminal activity. Debate swirled around the statistics as evidenced by blogger Tim McGuire’s statement that crime had increased in the rural counties along the Mexican border. James Fox debunked Tim McGuire’s arguments, stating “the fact is that crime has not increased in Arizona. In fact, it’s gone down mostly. And trying to blame illegal immigrants for rising crime just isn’t fair." Read Neal Conan’s interview with James Fox in its entirety:

 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128058773

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