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‘Green card lottery’ blunder comes as program’s future is in question

Published on Fri, Jul 15, 2011

For Olivier Millogo, there was one last chance to hit this year’s jackpot.

He’d been lucky the first time in May, winning a prized slot in the State Department’s “green card lottery” and a chance to live and work legally in the United States.

But 12 days later, the 36-year-old from Burkina Faso was crushed when federal officials discovered a computer problem with the drawing and canceled the results. A second drawing on Friday brought no good news for him.

“I’m not selected,” said Millogo, who lives in Alexandria and is attending DeVry University on a student visa. “There is nothing to do.”

A class-action lawsuit was filed to block the new drawing, but a federal judge dismissed the case, clearing the way for it. The decision dashed the dreams of 22,000 would-be winners from around the world who had hoped the lottery’s initial results would be reinstated.

The program they had applied for, the Diversity Visa Lottery, attracts millions of applicants worldwide and each year provides about 50,000 immigrants a legal route to permanent residency in the United States. The mix-up over this year’s drawing comes as some lawmakers question whether it should continue.

Begun in 1995 with the backing of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the lottery is unknown to many Americans but has stood as a symbol of hope for millions seeking the opportunity to transform their lives. But it has been pulled into the larger debate over immigration, with critics saying it is rife with security risks and brings no benefits to the United States.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to discuss a bill to drop it.

“If you’re a terrorist organization and you can get a few hundred people to apply to this from several countries . . . odds are you’d get one or two of them picked,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who introduced the bill, said in an interview.Read more...

Published in the Washington Post

Particularly Serious Crime and Jurisdiction; Case Dismissed

Ali v. Achim, 551 U.S. 1188 (2007)

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether the Seventh Circuit erred 1) when it concluded that an offense does not need to be an aggravated felony to be classified as a “particularly serious crime,” and 2) when it construed the scope of the court’s jurisdiction to review the BIA’s particularly serious crime determinations under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) and (a)(2)(D). On December 21, 2007, the petitioner filed a motion for voluntary dismissal asking the Court to dismiss the writ of certiorari pursuant to a settlement agreement. The motion states that the petitioner and the government entered into a settlement agreement and petitioner has agreed not to pursue his claims for asylum and withholding of removal. The Court dismissed the case on December 27, 2007. Read more...

Tania Calvao Celebrates the J-1 AND J-2 Experience

November, 2008
Tania Calvao

Contrary to the visa title, the J-1 Exchange Visitor Program isn't all about the J1, but the J2s, too!

The Exchange Visitor Program is pleased to announce Tania Alves Calvao AND her son, Olivio, as November's Exchange Visitors of the Month. Each month, we select an exchange visitor who has made an effort to get involved in his/her community and explore American Culture. Read more...

State poised to restrict use of E-Verify database

Published on Fri, Sep 16, 2011

California is poised to nullify immigration enforcement ordinances in about a half dozen Inland Empire cities – and to continue to buck a national trend – by restricting the use of E-Verify, the national online database used to check the immigration status of workers.

Under the Employment Acceleration Act, passed by the state Senate last week and currently awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature, state and local governments could not require California businesses to use the database to ferret out undocumented employees.

California’s approach is an anomaly. States and cities across the country have passed laws that mandate use of the E-Verify system as part of a strategy to curb illegal immigration and ensure that scarce jobs go to U.S. citizens and legal residents.

The act conflicts with the Legal Workforce Act [PDF], a bill pending in the U.S. House of Representatives that would require the use of E-Verify by all American employers.

The California bill has been cited as a reason that the national legislation, which is being marked up this week in the House Judiciary Committee, is necessary.

“California has the second-highest unemployment rate in the U.S., yet elected officials in Sacramento just sent a bill to the Governor’s desk that will further diminish job opportunities,” bill sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said in a statement. “California’s E-Verify opt-out bill shows exactly why we need a federal E-Verify law.”

If the Employment Acceleration Act becomes law, it would create ripple effects at the local level, trumping city ordinances adopted in a number of Inland Empire cities – including Temecula, Lake Elsinore, and Lancaster – that currently mandate the use of the E-Verify system as a prerequisite to running a business.

Citing the importance of local control, state senators representing these communities have opposed the bill.Read more...

Published in the California Watch

Understanding the Final Rule for J-1 Trainee and Intern Programs

New final rules became effective Sept. 9, 2010 for J trainee and intern programs 22 C.F.R.§ 62 (2010). With few exceptions, the final rule will produce little change to the way J trainee and intern programs have been administered since the interim-final rule of 2007.

View our Practice Advisory

Photography by Sharon Panackal

January, 2013
Sharon Panackal, IEC Exchange Visitor of the Month, 2013

In November of last year, the International Exchange Center began publicizing our Annual Photo Contest. We received an email from Sharon Panackal:

“I am attaching the photograph with this email, and below is the caption I have written about the photograph...
Read more...

Dictionary's definition of 'anchor baby' draws fire

Published on Mon, Dec 05, 2011

The "anchor baby" entry in the American Heritage Dictionary is drawing charges from an immigrant advocacy group that it is offensive.

Updated at 4:29 p.m. ET:

The American Heritage Dictionary officially changed its definition of the phrase "anchor baby" on Monday, reflecting that it considers the phrase to be "offensive."

In an interview Monday, dictionary Executive Editor Steven Kleinedler said the phrase was one of the 10,000 new words and phrases added to the fifth edition – the first revision of the dictionary in a decade – and that the lack of an offensive disclaimer was an oversight.

Kleinedler said he immediately realized the error when he saw Friday's blog post by Immigration Impact.

"When we saw the post, we looked at (the definition) and said 'They are completely right, we should change it,'" Kleinedler said. "This is a change that needs to be made."

The new definition, which will be included in the online dictionary and the next printing of the print edition, says the phrase is used "as a disparaging term."

Original post:

An immigrant advocacy group says editors of the American Heritage Dictionary have agreed to revise a recently added entry "anchor baby" to note that it is a derogatory or offensive phrase.

Use of the term is highly sensitive in the politically charged debate over immigration.

Immigration opponents such as Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and others use the phrase to describe children born in the USA to illegal immigrant parents. Those children are granted automatic U.S. citizenship, and King has filed legislation that would stop the practice.

Civil rights groups have long derided the phrase, saying it dehumanizes those children and poisons the immigration debate.Read more...

Published in the USA Today

Community Education Center Resources

K-12 teachers, who are often pressed for time and lack adequate resources, need up-to-date, factual, teacher-written and classroom-tested teaching materials when discussing and teaching immigration-related topics in the classroom. The Community Education Center is committed to providing teachers with the tools and resources they need to prepare fair and informative lessons.

The Community Education Center strives to enhance classroom learning by providing a wide variety of accessible and creative educational teaching resources to fit the need of every modern classroom. Our annual Teachers' Resource Guide, created by teachers for teachers, provides new lesson plans, book reviews and other valuable educational tools. The center also provides additional K-12 teacher-written lesson plans, suggested reading lists and links to other educational resources.Read more...

Children of Immigrants Targeted by Tax Warfare in Congress

Published on Tue, Feb 07, 2012

 

The fundamental injustice of the tax system grows clearer as tax day looms ominously over working people and a few horde more and more of the nation’s wealth. Short of a total collapse of capitalism, the primary redistributive remedy for this would be progressive taxation. But our tax policy gets it exactly backward, and it's about to get a bit worse. And as with so many wars of attrition against the working class, this one begins by shafting disenfranchised communities, especially immigrants.

While the rich are rolling in tax giveaways, a few credits actually give poor folks a break. One of these, the refundable child tax credit (CTC), applies to middle-class and poor parents alike and was claimed by some 21 million taxpayers in 2011, “which averaged about $676 per child and totaled $26.1 billion,” according to Politico. For poor families, the CTC, together with its big sister the Earned Income Tax Credit, provides a lifeline to keep them from plunging below the poverty line.

Now some lawmakers advocate cutting off the child tax credit for tax filers who lack of Social Security number. The move is unabashedly aimed at making life harder for undocumented workers, even taxpaying ones, specifically by punishing their children.

Currently, the CTC is one federal tax benefit that people can claim using an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) instead of a social security number. This effectively makes it available to undocumented workers—those who lack formal authorization.Read more...

Published in the In These Times