American Immigration Council

Published on Wed, May 18, 2011

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Tuesday that the department would extend temporary immigration protections for an additional eighteen months for Haitians currently residing in the United States.

In a press release Napolitano announced the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti beneficiaries effective July 23, 2011 and for an additional 18 months.

The protections were offered in January 2010, in response to the tragic earthquake that the struck the country. Thousands of Hatians who fled the disaster sought refuge in the United States, and many of them settled in South Florida. According to the release, there are now 48,000 Hatians living in the U.S. under the temporary protections.

The release also notes that the department is actively turning away Hatians who try to enter the country illegally, and that the protections will not apply to people who arrive in the country after that time.

The Immigration Policy Center stated that the extension of TPS decision by the Secretary is evidence of the power of the Executive branch to shape the implementation of existing immigration law.

The IPC contends that Napolitano could have declined to extend TPS or make more people eligible, because the law did not require her to do so. But because she had the discretion to revisit the original determination, and ultimately used it to expand the range of people eligible for this protection, the U.S. will be able to help thousands of people who might otherwise have faced deportation to Haiti and enormous suffering.

According the 2009 American Community Survey (pdf.) at least 376,000 people of Haitian ancestry live in Florida; an estimated 830,000 live in the U.S. The survey adds that 59 percent are foreign born.

Published in the Florida Independent

Published on Wed, May 18, 2011

The Department of Homeland Security has decided to show some reason and compassion in its dealings with Haitians who might have been headed for deportation as soon as their Temporary Protected Status was set to expire this summer. On Tuesday, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that her department would be extending TPS for Haitian nationals another 18 months, through January 2013.

Under the new extension, Haitians who have been in the country since January 12 of this year will be eligible to stay in the U.S. and be legally allowed to work in the country. The Obama administration originally announced that it would grant TPS to Haitians as a result of the devastating earthquake last year. TPS is typically granted on a limited basis to folks from countries mired in war or natural disaster, where returning would be too dangerous. According to the Department of Homeland Security, 48,000 Haitians are in the country under Temporary Protected Status. Around 60,000 or so initially applied for TPS—far fewer than the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 undocumented Haitian-Americans in the country at the time.

“In the extended aftermath of the devastating earthquakes in Haiti, the United States has remained fully committed to upholding our responsibility to assist individuals affected by this tragedy by using tools available under the law,” Napolitano said.

“Providing a temporary refuge for Haitian nationals who are currently in the United States and whose personal safety would be endangered by returning to Haiti is part of this administration’s continuing efforts to support Haiti’s recovery.”

Immigration policy experts and advocates applauded the announcement, and Napolitano’s use of her discretionary powers to help ease the suffering of folks who would be sent back to a country that is still in dangerous disarray.Read more...

Published in the Colorlines Magazine

Published on Fri, May 13, 2011

Will the Peach State now become the Prison State?

When Gov. Nathan Deal signed his state’s punitive HB 87 immigration law at noon today, Georgia took Arizona’s place on the nation’s fast track to penal profiteering from immigration crackdowns.

So much for colonial Georgia founder James Oglethorpe’s legacy, who railed against the British prisons, and launched the Great Seal of Georgia in 1733 with the motto: “Not for ourselves, but for others.”

Georgia’s new motto: “Not less than three nor more than 15 years.”

All civil rights violations aside, Georgia’s Arizona copycat “show me your papers” law not only grants widely denounced authority for unprecedented police investigations, but also calls for unabashed long-term prison sentences for numerous violations.

For starters, read this section of HB 87:

SECTION 5.

Said article of said title is further amended by revising Code Section 16-9-126, relating to penalties for violations, as follows: “16-9-126.

(a) A violation of this article, other than a violation of Code Section 16-9-121.1 or 16-9-122, shall be punishable by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than ten years or a fine not to exceed $100,000.00, or both. Any person who commits such a violation for the second or any subsequent offense shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than three nor more than 15 years, a fine not to exceed $250,000.00, or both.

(a.1) A violation of Code Section 16-9-121.1 shall be punishable by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than 15 years, a fine not to exceed $250,000.00, or both, and such sentence shall run consecutively to any other sentence which the person has received.Read more...

Published in the AlterNet

Published on Thu, May 12, 2011

The reaction from different pro-immigrant organizations to President Obama’s speech this week on immigration was mixed, but all tend to agree the administration needs to lead with action.

In his speech President Obama spelled out on his administrations increases on border security, adding that they have gone above and beyond what was requested by the people supported broader reform as long as there was more enforcement, but now are calling even more enforcement to ensure the border is secure before talking about comprehensive immigration reform. At the same time, immigrant advocacy groups are calling on the president to put a stop to detentions and deportations – other words, to scale back enforcement until lawmakers can fix the system as a whole.

Jonathan Fried of Homestead-based We Count said that president Obama made this speech to boost his ratings with Latino and other immigrant voters, adding that Obama has failed to move immigration reform while his enforcement policies have separated immigrant families.

“It is fine for him to say he’s starting another dialog in immigration but their isn’t anything new,” Fried said, “I think it is an effort to save face and get votes.”

“It is not accompanied by a legislative proposal, if he really wants to send a message he needs to look at what his administration is doing,”Fried added.

The National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities press release said that despite Democratic Party majorities in the House and Senate over the last two years no immigration policy reform was enacted, and called on the Obama Administration to change its current enforcement approach.Read more...

Published in the Florida Independent

Published on Wed, May 11, 2011

Since 1857, when a man named Dred Scott fought for his constitutional right to remain free after standing on free soil, the question of the Fourteenth Amendment and its citizenship provision has been brought to the table many times by others who also question when exactly they are free and citizens of the United States.

Even in the 21st century, this is not a decided issue.

Current public debate and even some pieces of proposed legislation in various states and in Congress are questioning whether the U.S. Constitution should be altered to deprive U.S. citizenship of those who are born on U.S. soil to undocumented parents. The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in the wake of the Civil War, grants U.S. citizenship to anyone born in the United States and forbids states from depriving U.S. citizens of “privileges and immunities.”

The Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a non-profit citizens’ organization centralized in Washington, D.C., whose mission statement declares it dedicated to the cause of reforming immigration politics to serve a national interest. They said the only way to fix this issue is to start over.

“What we have said for a long, long time is that our current immigration policy doesn’t make any sense,” said Ira Mehlman, media director for FAIR. “It’s not serving the interest of the country. We keep trying to apply all kinds of different types of patches and add-ons. What we need to do is shut down the policy that exists and design one from scratch that actually serves the interest of the country.”

This includes changing the Fourteenth Amendment, or at least its current interpretation, especially with respect to the Citizenship Clause that overruled the Dred Scott decision. It declares, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”Read more...

Published in the BYU Daily News

Published on Tue, May 17, 2011

IPC: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Could Generate "750,000 To 900,000 Jobs" And Increase GDP By $1.5 Trillion. In a report prepared for the American Immigration Council's Immigration Policy Center and the Center for American Progress, UCLA's Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda concluded that comprehensive immigration reform could add .84 percent to GDP each year, amounting to "at least $1.5 trillion in added GDP" over a ten-year period. He also concluded that comprehensive immigration reform could "generate $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue" over a three-year period. According to Hinojosa-Ojeda:

[A]n increase in personal income of this scale would generate consumer spending sufficient to support 750,000 to 900,000 jobs. [Raising The Floor For American Workers: The Economic Benefits Of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, January 2010]

Economist Cowen: "Allowing In More Immigrants, Skilled And Unskilled" Would "Create Jobs." In a New York Times opinion piece titled "How Immigrants Create More Jobs," George Mason economist Tyler Cowen wrote that "it turns out that the continuing arrival of immigrants to American shores is encouraging business activity here, thereby producing more jobs, according to a new study." Cowen cited the research of economists at the University of California, Davis and at Bocconi Uniersity in Italy. According to Cowen:Read more...

Published in the Media Matters

Published on Sat, Apr 09, 2011

Annnd... Arizona's anti-immigration campaign hurtles still further into red-state ridiculousness.

This morning, Governor Jan Brewer announced her latest, greatest battle plan in the war against illegal border-crossers: collect Internet donations to build a massive fence across the Arizona-Mexico line. (And what'll donors get in return? Why, an "I Helped Build the Arizona Wall" keepsake T-shirt, of course!)

In support, State Senator Russell Pearce squeezed in a few words of pro-fence propaganda on L.A.'s KNX news radio this morning. Here's the pile of steaming misinformation he dumped from his politickin' piehole:

Pearce claimed that illegal immigrants commit 2.5 times more violent crime than any other demographic.

He also used a Sin City analogy as a fear tactic to garner out-of-state support ("Unlike Vegas, what goes into Arizona doesn't stay in Arizona") and called the immigrant influx from Mexico an "invasion," but we'll let all that slide in the interest of clearing up this crime thing once and for all.

In response to Pearce's theory, we can almost see Wendy Sefsaf of the Immigration Policy Center roll her eyes over the phone.

She recommends we speak to the Department of Homeland Security about the fence idea (which, amusingly, cites prisoners as the perfect candidates for erecting the thing), but guesses it's "unprecedented, and probably illegal" for a state to evade federal strategy and take something so controversial into its own hands.

A Homeland Security rep will only say, "My apologies, DHS does not comment on state legislation." Ironically, President Obama is headed to the South tomorrow to push a more progressive (read: fenceless) U.S. immigration policy.

But as for the violent-crime statistic: The Immigration Policy Center released a March 2008 report that showed just the opposite, and Sefsaf says the trend has stayed consistent. An excerpt:Read more...

Published in the LA Weekly

Published on Mon, May 09, 2011

Hi Eva, I hope it’s okay that I address you by your first name.

We’re big fans of you over here at Colorlines. There are some very committed Desperate Housewives fans on staff, but I think I started following your political work after I heard you were going back to school to get your master’s in Chicano Studies at CSU Northridge. (Yay, public education!) And you won me over when you came out in support of the DREAM Act. You use your celebrity for good, and are community-minded, too.

But, okay, enough gushing. The real reason I’m writing is to let you know you’re being lied to. Well, you and the dozen other Latina and Latino celebrities including America Ferrera, Emilio Estefan and Rosario Dawson who were at the recent White House meeting to discuss, according to the White House, “the importance of fixing the broken immigration system … so that America can win the future.”

President Obama’s been getting a bunch of heat recently from immigrant rights groups, and even members of Congress, who are demanding that he use his executive authority to halt the deportation of certain groups, including DREAM Act-eligible youth. The DREAM Act would allow undocumented youth who’ve grown up in the country to eventually become eligible for citizenship if they cleared a long list of hurdles and committed two years to the military or education. Obama’s administration heartily supported it; his education, labor, homeland security and defense secretaries—even his agriculture secretary!—all made strong public statements announcing their unequivocal support of the bill when it was being debated in Congress last December. But after it failed, Obama’s kept on deporting would-be beneficiaries anyway.Read more...

Published in the Colorlines Magazine

Published on Thu, May 05, 2011

Nobody should question the importance of the Navy SEAL assault that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, nor President Barack Obama's authority to order the raid.

Undocumented immigrants in the U.S. question something else: an authority Obama says he does not have. He says he cannot by executive order modify the implementation of the laws under which a record number of undocumented immigrants have been deported in his first two years in office.

Obama has held countless meetings with Latino leaders to bring Hispanic voters to his side. Yet he always says that it is not his fault; that he has to obey the law; that Republicans are to blame. Some of this is true, but according to a legal memo from an American Immigration Council study, there are many things the president could and should do.

"The President and his cabinet have a wide range of choices available that can ameliorate some of the worst excesses of current law," the memo's cover letter said.

The memo mentions several options the administration has if the president is really serious. It says the Department of Homeland Security already has memos saying its agents should differentiate between deporting known criminals and those with no felonious criminal records. It should make sure the agents understand and apply the instructions given.

It also mentions that Homeland Security has the authority to grant "deferred action" to an otherwise "deportable" immigrant when it sees the presence of "sympathetic or compelling factors.'' This is already in use to grant exemptions for those who fall under the Violence Against Women Act.

The memo talks about temporary protected status granted to those after a determination is made that it is unsafe for foreign nationals to return home due to armed conflict, natural disasters or extraordinary conditions.

There is also the option of the issuing "humanitarian parole."Read more...

Published in the Sun Sentinel

Published on Sun, May 01, 2011

Through two recessions, the number of Hispanics in South Carolina spiked more rapidly than anywhere else in the country in a boom that’s remaking sections of the Upstate and could soon put more Latinos into public life.

Business leaders say Hispanic small business owners now make up a key economic driver and that the growth is a likely prelude to more entering politics as the population finds its voice.

All told, the 2010 census counted nearly 236,000 Hispanics in the state, a 148 percent jump from 2000 that accounts for a quarter of the state’s total growth, though that’s partly due to a more rigorous count.

The number of Hispanic children in the state increased by 192 percent, an increase that also led the nation, according to census calculations by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Greenville County has the state’s largest Hispanic population, and it has increased by 156 percent since 2000 to 36,495 or 8 percent of the total population.

Longtime Greenville entrepreneur Ruben Montalvo believes the official census numbers are still “way, way under” the actual Hispanic population, which be believes is closer to the national average of 14 percent of the total Greenville population.

Perhaps 4 percent can vote, however, and when you add the communication challenge for many Hispanics and the national debate over immigration, he said it’s “naïve” to believe the population will be fully represented politically.

The demographic is still nowhere near the size and concentration to trigger minority voting districts under federal civil rights law, but the next likely step is more Hispanics moving into public leadership, said Dean Hybl, executive director of the regional collaborative nonprofit Ten at the Top.

It’s now the interim phase, said Wifredo Leon, publisher of Latino Newspaper, in which the population size has become substantial but hasn’t yet developed politically.Read more...

Published in the Greenville News