Legalization

2012 Winter Holiday Closing Announcement: December 24th - January 1st

November 28, 2012-- The American Immigration Council's offices will be closed from 12/24/12 - 1/1/13

The International Exchange Center will be closed during the week from Christmas Eve through New Years Day.

All applications that we receive in our office after December 18th will not be reviewed until January 2nd at the earliest. Applications received on or before December 18th will be reviewed by December 21st, but our staff will not be conducting webcam interviews or issuing DS 2019 forms during the period of December 24th - January 1st. Read more...

Why immigrant, GLBT and good-government groups were behind the defense bill

Published on Tue, Sep 21, 2010

Here's a question for you: Why are immigration advocates, GLBT groups and good-government types crestfallen that the defense-spending authorization bill failed to beat a Republican filibuster? "The political gridlock that has immobilized the Senate has resulted once again in a lost opportunity for the American people," said Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center. Why did she even care?

Published in the Washington Post

On the Eve of an EEVS Hearing: What Should We Be Listening For?

Released on Sun, May 04, 2008

This week, the House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on electronic employment verification systems (EEVS) -- Washington's latest magic potion for dealing with the nation's broken immigration system. As more hearings are expected in the coming weeks in other committees, including Homeland Security and Judiciary, what questions should the American public want to hear be thoroughly asked and answered?

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"Virtual" fence ditched, GOP immigration rift?

Published on Wed, Jan 19, 2011

(While the federal government doesn’t seem likely to take up a broad discussion of immigration during this Congress, state governments continue to push their own laws. The left-leaning American Immigration Council has a guide on state immigration laws.)

Published in the Center for Investigative Reporting

Quick Fact: Unauthorized immigrants 5.2% of the workforce

At last count, unauthorized immigrants comprised 5.2% of the U.S. workforce.

DHS Extends Temporary Protected Status to Haitians

Released on Tue, May 17, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) took an important step on behalf of Haitians affected by last year’s devastating earthquake, demonstrating the humanitarian side of its immigration responsibilities. Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that DHS would extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for an additional eighteen months for Haitians currently residing in the United States. She also announced that she would permit Haitians who arrived up to one year after the earthquake, many of whom came in on visitor visas and other authorized measures, to apply for TPS. The following is a statement from Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center.

“We applaud DHS’s decision both to extend the timing of TPS and to broaden the scope of people who qualify for it. In the chaotic days following the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the men and women of DHS worked hard to provide relief to survivors, admitting many people temporarily to save them from devastation, disease, and starvation. While DHS quickly designated TPS status for those Haitians residing in the U.S. at the time of the earthquake, many others who came to the U.S. within days or weeks of the disaster were ineligible for TPS, but were also unable to return home. Today’s announcement addresses these problems and recognizes the extraordinary need for a compassionate and humane response to the devastation in Haiti.Read more...

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VAWA

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Working with partner non-profits, the LAC convinced USCIS to adopt a policy that allows VAWA applicants to apply for adjustment of status under INA § 245(a) even if the applicant is present in the U.S. without inspection and admission or parole. This policy favorably impacts thousands of battered immigrants.

Arizona demonstrates the lunacy of mass deportations

Published on Wed, Mar 30, 2011

WHEN ARIZONA lawmakers enacted legislation last year inflating the power of police officers to check immigration status when they make even routine stops, they staked out a reputation for the state as a citadel of intolerance. That was by design, for their explicit purpose was to drive away the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who, lured by jobs and a booming economy, had arrived in the state in the preceding 10 or 15 years.

The law, hung up by constitutional challenges, has never taken full effect. But it has had an important unintended consequence — as a wake-up call to the nation’s business community, for which a policy aimed at deporting millions of undocumented workers is economic lunacy.

Thanks largely to a backlash from business, state legislatures elsewhere have balked at adopting Arizona-style laws, though a few, particularly in the South, have passed bills designed to deny opportunities to illegal immigrants and keep them in the shadows. The business backlash is motivated partly by fears that other states could suffer Arizona’s fate: boycotts and cancellations that have meant tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue for hotels, restaurants and other businesses that rely on visitors. But businesses also fear the potential economic damage from mass deportation. A new report by the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center, groups that are sympathetic to illegal immigrants but intellectually serious, examines those costs in detail and concludes that they would be staggering.Read more...

Published in the Washington Post

Litigation Clearinghouse Newsletter Vol. 1, No. 19

This issue covers "arriving alien" and parolee adjustments, court review of denied continuances, and in absentia motions to reopen from outside the United States.

Published On: Monday, October 30, 2006 | Download File

America's red-blue divide widens on illegal immigrants

Published on Tue, Jun 21, 2011

America's red and blue states are increasingly going in exactly opposite directions on the issue of illegal immigration – a testament to how difficult finding middle ground has become on the federal level.

Earlier this month, Alabama followed Georgia and, most famously, Arizona in passing sweeping anti-illegal-immigration legislation. In many respects, Alabama's is the most comprehensive bill of the three, forcing schools to report how much they're spending to educate kids of illegal immigrants, for example.

That same week, however, New York State followed the lead of Illinois and opted out of the federal Secure Communities program, which is designed to identify and deport illegal immigrants in US jails who are convicted of certain felonies. They have criticized the program as casting too broad a net, deporting even "busboys and nannies." Several days later, Massachusetts also opted out, and California could be next.

As Washington has punted on federal immigration reform, states have become the laboratories to test new approaches. The picture that is emerging, though, is one of a nation divided against itself on the issue.

In the broadest terms, states with a long history of assimilating foreign-born migrants are largely defending the ideal of the United States as a "nation of immigrants," legal or illegal. Meanwhile, states that have before been largely isolated from immigration patterns are now taking a "the law is the law" approach.

The result is a pattern that roughly fits the red-blue divide with the South and inner West opposed by the Northeast and West Coast. But the patchwork of immigration policy could have a silver lining: As states struggle with the issue, their efforts could provide starting points for more meaningful federal reform.Read more...

Published in the Christian Science Monitor