Legalization

DACA Practice Advisory

Submitted by seth on Tue, Sep 25, 2012

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This advisory provides detailed analysis about deferred action for young immigrants.

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State likely to address more immigration issues in '12

Published on Tue, Jun 21, 2011

A Georgia federal judge heard arguments this week over whether Georgia's new Arizona-style immigration law should stand or fall. The judge heard arguments on both the constitutionality and the practicality of enforcing the law.

The law closely mirrors Mississippi's 2011 Senate Bill 2179 - which, like the Georgia law, would have required county and municipal law enforcement officers to investigate the immigration status of certain suspects and to arrest and jail illegal immigrants. The bill failed in Mississippi when House and Senate negotiators could not agree on the law.

Those disagreements were heightened when the Mississippi Municipal League raised legitimate concerns that the bill was an "unfunded mandate" from the Legislature that would increase costs on county and municipal governments and could raise taxes.

The Mississippi bill required housing illegal immigrants in county jails and transporting them to the nearest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana. But the bill provided only $20 a day for local governments to pay the costs of incarceration and no funds for transportation, medical expense and host of other potential costs.

Texas state legislators are voting this week on similar legislation. With almost 9.5 million Hispanic residents comprising nearly 38 percent of the state's population, the outcome of this law in Texas will be closely watched nationally.

If adopted, Texans would join citizens in Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Indiana, Alabama and South Carolina as states that have adopted broadly scaled state laws addressing the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Clearly, immigration is not a problem in Mississippi of the size and scope that it is in Texas and Arizona.Read more...

Published in the Clarion Ledger

American Immigration Council v. DHS and CBP

Cover letter dated 10/12/12 from Shari Suzuki, Chief, FOIA Appeals, Policy and Litigation Branch, CBP, describing renewed searches by Office of Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations, which were asked to search “every division, port, sector and station,” and indicating that 60 pages of responsive records were being released.

Key Documents:

Pages 1-2: CBP memo (7/30/03) re: attorney representation during the inspection process. 8 CFR 292.5(b) governs primary and secondary inspections at ports of entry, as well as deferred inspections, “which are the continuation of a secondary inspection conducted at an onward office.” Supervisory inspector may allow an attorney to attend a deferred inspection interview if he or she acts as “an observer and consultant to the applicant.”

Pages 8-9: Memo re: access to counsel in St. Albans Area Port in response to AIC/AILA letter alleging denial of access to counsel (at pages 10-18). Confirms that 7/30/03 CBP memo (at pages 1-2) is still in effect. No official policy to bar counsel from L and TN adjudications or from deferred inspection. Sets forth guidelines for legal professionals at ports of entry.Read more...

Costa Rica

Slideshow:

The pilot program to launch the first outbound exchange of American Immigration Council affiliates occurred January 16 & 17, 2007 in Costa Rica. The group met with Costa Rican attorneys to discuss recent changes to the Costa Rican immigration laws, including employer sanctions on the hiring of undocumented aliens to perform low-skilled labor. It was remarkable how many similar the Costa Rican and broader Central American immigration debate currently raging in the United States. Such similarities were further emphasized during visits the group made to the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights and the Nonimmigrant Visa Section of the US Consulate in San Jose. The expatriate Costa Rica Resident’s Association added an interested perspective on retiree and permanent legal resident issues.

Breaking away from discussions focused on immigration and emigration, the group visited Volcan Paos, an active volcano at the edge of Costa Rica’s central valley. Another cultural excursion introduced participants to the last remaining water-powered traditional ox cart factory in the country. The factory is a relic of Costa Rican tradition and has been operated for many generations by the Alfaro family in Sarchi. No visit to Costa Rica could be complete without a lot excellent Central American food and a bit of rain. We packed a lot into two days and came away wishing we had more time in this incredibly beautiful and hospitable country. Read more...

Noncitizens won’t be informed of their rights before questioning, says Obama administration

Published on Mon, Aug 15, 2011

Under a new decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals made on Thursday, immigrants arrested without a warrant will not be read their rights until they are placed in formal deportation proceedings. The Board argued that its decision (PDF) was based on changes to regulations stating that immigrants arrested without a warrant need not be informed of their rights before being questioned.

Melissa Crow, director of the Legal Action Center at the American Immigration Council, said in a press release, “The Board’s ruling renders the advisals practically meaningless and makes immigrants less likely to remain silent when questioned and less likely to assert their right to counsel.”

The new decision makes it harder for immigration attorneys to successfully file motions to suppress evidence acquired while violating an immigrant’s rights. Such motions are being used more often in deportation cases, which are themselves occurring at record levels.

Although people arrested for immigration violations don’t have “Miranda rights” per se, arresting immigration officers were required to inform immigrants of their right to an attorney and that anything they say can be used against them. Now, Crow told TAI, that protection is rendered less effective because officials can inform immigrants of their rights after they given incriminating testimony while under warrantless arrest.

Technically, the decision only affects arrests by federal immigration officials. However, Secure Communities, the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement program in which local law enforcement give the fingerprints of people they arrest to federal immigration officials, could reinforce the effects of the decision.

That’s because immigrants can potentially give incriminating testimony well before federal officials place them in deportation proceedings but after they have been flagged by Secure Communities.Read more...

Published in the American Independent

Court Holds that Padilla v. Kentucky Does Not Apply Retroactively to Certain Convictions

Chaidez v. United States, 568 U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1103 (2013)

In a 7-2 decision written by Justice Kagan, the Court held that Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010), does not apply retroactively to collateral review of convictions final at the time of that decision. Padilla found that a noncitizen could raise a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment if his criminal defense attorney failed to advise him of the immigration consequences of a guilty plea. In Chaidez, the Court found that its previous decision went beyond applying the existing standards for ineffective assistance of counsel claims in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Because the preliminary question answered by the Padilla Court – whether the Sixth Amendment right to counsel encompassed advice about collateral consequences of convictions – was not settled at the time of its decision in 2010, it held that Padilla created a new rule of criminal procedure and thus did not apply in collateral challenges to past convictions under the principles set forth in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989).

The case left many issues and arguments unresolved.

Justices Sotomayor and Ginsberg dissented.

A Conversation with Johnathan Ben Dor

May, 2011

Congratulations to Johnathan Ben Dor, our Exchange Visitor of the Month! Johnathan came here from Israel to study game cinematics at Blur Studio, Inc. in California. I recently sat down with Johnathan to chat about his exchange experience so far.

Read more...

Immigration activists slam Gingrich on ‘Red Card Solution’

Published on Wed, Nov 23, 2011

Newt Gingrich is trying to carve out a middle way on illegal immigration, pushing a “Red Card Solution” that would essentially expand the guest-worker program without giving those immigrants a pathway to citizenship.

But Gingrich’s compromise isn’t eliciting much praise within the immigration community: Activists on both on left and right say that Red Carding fails to address fundamental problems with the U.S. immigration system.

On the right, advocates who want greater restrictions on immigration say the Red Card Solution simply gives businesses a pool of cheap labor at the expense of native-born workers. The Kriebel Foundation, which developed the idea, “has an interest in a modern-day form of slavery while wages have atrophied for less-skilled American workers,” says Dan Stein, president of the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform. “This is effort to create a stratified labor force that provides wealthy employers with a way to get employees at below-market rates.” What’s more, he warns, guest workers with Red Cards might simply overstay their visit when their work permits expire.

Pro-immigration advocates argue that the Red Card plan would undermine the rights of immigrants and would be massively difficult to put in place. “It virtually guarantees that we create second-class status for workers and their families — lawful but with no real rights,” says Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center. She described plan’s the elimination of birthright citizenship for Red Card workers as “eradicating rights.” She also says the proposal ignores the need to reform the legal immigration system.Read more...

Published in the The Washington Post