Legalization

Journalists Who Revealed Sheriff Arpaio's Activities Win Pulitzer Prize

Released on Sun, Apr 19, 2009

Today, reporters Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin of the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Arizona (Giblin is now with the Arizona Guardian) were awarded a Pulitzer Prize for their local reporting on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The award-winning series revealed the Sheriff's "focus on immigration enforcement and how it endangered investigation of violent crime and other aspects of public safety," says the Pulitzer website.

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As Immigrants Move In, Americans Move Up

Published on Mon, Aug 24, 2009

A perceived weakness of the liberal argument on immigration is over-reliance on the concept of compassion. The perception is reinforced in part by reality, as liberals commonly call upon people to remember the importance of basic human solidarity and concern for others in the debate over immigration.

Published in the WireTap Magazine

Issues in Immigration: A Debate

Issues in Immigration: A Debate explores conflicts, myths and facts about immigration and immigrants. This lesson plan increases student awareness about immigration issues through the art debate.

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Misguided Opposition to So-Called "Sanctuary Cities" Continues

Released on Wed, Jun 08, 2011

Washington D.C. - Texas Governor Rick Perry announced that he plans to resurrect his proposal to crack down on cities that provide "sanctuary" to unauthorized immigrants, even though the Department of Homeland Security and other government officials have found that so-called "sanctuary cities" do not exist. Local police agencies regularly cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and detain immigrants who commit crimes, so it's hard to imagine why the Governor is looking for a solution without a problem.

What Perry is calling "santuary cities" are cities that have implemented community policing policies that prevent police agencies from asking community residents who have not been arrested to prove their legal immigration status. Based on the tenets of community policing, these policies make it safe for immigrant crime victims and witnesses to report criminals to the police and help put them behind bars.These policies make it easier for the police to do their jobs and make communities safer.

Debunking the Myth of "Sanctuary Cities" Community Policing Policies Protect Americans, written by Lynn Tramonte, responds to those who claim some cities are providing "sanctuary" to unauthorized immigrants and seek to abolish their community policing policies. In it, police officials and others explain why community policing policies are so critical to their work and to keeping American communities safe.

To view the paper in its entirety see:Read more...

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Aiding and Abetting as an Aggravated Felony

Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U.S. 183 (2007)Read more...

In a January 17, 2007 decision written by Justice Breyer, the Supreme Court found that a person who aids or abets a theft falls within the scope of the generic definition of theft. The Attorney General had sought certiorari in this Ninth Circuit removal case. The respondent, a permanent resident, was convicted of violating section 10851(a) of the California Vehicle Code. He was placed in removal proceeding and charged with removability based on an aggravated felony conviction, to wit, a theft offense as defined in INA § 101(a)(43)(G). The Ninth Circuit, relying on Penuliar v. Gonzales, 435 F.3d 961 (9th Cir. 2005), which held that the California statute is broader than the generic definition of theft, reversed the finding of removal.

Advocates & Opponents Of Comprehensive Immigration Reform Criticize Obama

Published on Fri, Apr 15, 2011

SAN DIEGO — The Washington-based Immigration Policy Center advocates a centrist policy of enforcement coupled with a path to citizenship. It has released a report card on the Obama Administration.

The center cites tension between enforcement and reform priorities, and calls out Obama's failure to fulfill his promise of comprehensive reform.

"While the president on the one hand is saying that he understands that we need immigration reform, his focus has been deporting people," said Michele Waslin, a senior policy analyst with the center. "And in some cases, deporting those very people that he really hopes to legalize someday."

The center cites a record number of deportations under Obama and criticizes the lack of effort to find ways for longtime, productive undocumented immigrants and their children to remain in the country.

"The president has said several times that all he can do is enforce the law. When we think that the president certainly has other executive powers--there are things that can be done administratively within current law that would also help to reform the system from within," Waslin said.

She added the chances of an Obama-led immigration reform by the end of his first term are minimal.

On the other hand, summarizing the president's performance on immigration issues, the conservative Center for Immigration Studies believes it's been all for show.

Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, said that the Obama administration has increased deportations and security at the border. But it has not gone far enough given the reality of increasing violence in Mexico.

"The unspoken factor underlying much of the immigration debate is the ongoing, low-level civil war within Mexico," said Krikorian. "Every time another ditch full of 100 bodies is found, makes the cause of weakening enforcement that much more difficult."Read more...

Published in the KPBS

DHS: Prioritizing Enforcement and Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion

Experts Welcome New Guidance, But Agree the Devil is in the Details

Released on Mon, Aug 22, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the American Immigration Council hosted a briefing to discuss the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) announcement last week that it would issue agency-wide guidance to make certain that prosecutorial discretion is exercised in a manner that ensures the agency's enforcement resources are used to remove those who pose the greatest risk to public safety. DHS also announced the creation of a joint committee with the Department of Justice (DOJ) that will review nearly 300,000 cases currently in removal proceedings to determine which ones are low priority and can be administratively closed in order to begin unclogging immigration courts. While it is unclear how these proposals will play out in practice, the federal government must continue to assert its authority over immigration given the rise of state legislative initiatives that seek to impose different priorities on immigration enforcement.

Melissa Crow, Director of the Legal Action Center at the American Immigration Council discussed the practical implications of the use of greater prosecutorial discretion and had a warning for immigrants not in removal proceedings:

“Prosecutorial discretion is not a new concept, and is exercised on a daily basis by law enforcement agencies. It refers to the authority of a law enforcement agency or officer to decide whether – and to what extent – to enforce the law in a particular case. Prosecutorial discretion can take a variety of forms, depending on the nature of the case involved.Read more...

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Davy Brown Discovers His Roots

Published on Thu, May 14, 2009

"Velani Mynhardt Witthöft and Keely Alexander, authors of Davy Brown Discovers His Roots will be signing copies of their book in Las Vegas on Wednesday, June 3, during the opening of the AILA exhibit hall and on Saturday morning, June 6 at the AILF booth."

Published in the GLOBAL BUZZ SOUTHERN AFRICA

Should Schools Help Catch Illegal Immigrants?

Published on Tue, Oct 04, 2011

The long and winding road that is the challenges to Alabama’s Taxpayer H.B. 56 has begun. Federal Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn has issued various rulings, but they are early, preliminary and procedural skirmishes, so there are no winners and losers yet.

But I have to ask Alabama decisionmakers, why bother? Many of the politicians involved are restrictionists and nativists who insist that they do not want government overreaching in their lives. And yet, they do not seem to mind, in fact insist upon, reaching into the lives of undocumented families, even at the state level.

Surely it is not large numbers behind this overreaction that is H.B. 56. Immigration Policy Center and Census Bureau figures reveal that in 2010, only 5 percent of Alabamians are Latino (3.9 percent) or Asian (1.1 percent), and in 2009, 87.8 percent of children in Asian families in the state were U.S. citizens, and 85.1 percent of Latino children in the state’s families were U.S. Citizens. With these small communities, why the rush to symbolize intolerance by enacting the country’s most restrictionist and comprehensively anti-immigrant statute?

Such laws are mean-spirited and punitive. The schoolchildren are already not showing up for classes. In enacting bans on college enrollments and counting measures on schoolchildren allowed by law to attend schools since Plyler v. Doe in 1982, Alabamians reveal themselves not as strict constructionists or conservatives, but as ideologues who will use unnecessary legislation and the power of government to intervene in families to punish innocent children. Public shame on them.

Published in the The New York Times