OC Immigration Attorney

The Department of Homeland Security is reviewing thousands of pending immigration cases and moving to dismiss those filed against suspected illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal records.

According to Richard Rocha, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, the review is part of the agency’s broader, nationwide strategy to prioritize the deportations of illegal immigrants who pose a threat to national security and public safety. Rocha declined to provide further details.

Critics assailed the plan as another sign that the Obama administration is trying to create a kind of backdoor “amnesty” program. An immigration attorney who was briefed on the effort by Homeland Security’s deputy chief counsel in Houston, said DHS confirmed that it’s reviewing cases nationwide, though not yet to the pace of the local office. However, they are following general guidelines that allow for the dismissal of cases for defendants who have been in the country for two or more years and have no felony convictions. In some instances, defendants can have one misdemeanor conviction, but it cannot involve a DWI, family violence or sexual crime.

Opponents of illegal immigration were critical of the dismissals. However, immigrants who have had their cases terminated are frequently left in limbo, and are not granted any form of legal status. These illegal immigrants still have no work permits and Social Security Numbers. ICE is not going to proceed with their removal from the United States. However, they are still here illegally.

In a June 30 memo, ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton outlined the agency’s priorities, saying it had the capacity to remove about 400,000 illegal immigrants annually. The memo outlines priorities for the detention and removal system, putting criminals and threats to national security at the top of the list. Recently, ICE officials provided a copy of a new policy memo from Morton dated Aug. 20 that instructs government attorneys to review the court cases of people with pending applications to adjust status based on their relation to a U.S. citizen. Morton estimates in the memo that the effort could affect up to 17,000 cases.

Ohio is one of 22 states that has immigration reform bills pending. Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, an organization focused on fighting against amnesty and illegal immigration, announced that 22 states now have lawmakers pushing versions of Arizona’s illegal immigration bill SB 1070. Activists from Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, or ALIPAC, supported passage of the new Arizona law and have helped pass other immigration enforcement measures in many states.

According to William Gheen, president of ALIPAC, activists have been working hard contacting state lawmakers in every state in the US asking them to stand up with Arizona. Additionally, Gheen stated that there are 22 states now following Arizona’s lead.

Aside from Ohio, the other states considering versions of the bill include: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Dave Isaacs, deputy director of communications for the Ohio House of Representatives, said there are three bills currently in committee that deal with immigration reform. One of the bills requires public and private employers to register with a federal electronic system to verify the identities and legal working status of new employees.

The other two bills have gone nowhere in the House since clearing the Senate in March. Both would give local law enforcement agencies authority to enforce violations of federal immigration law, which is similar to the Arizona immigration law SB 1070.

It’s not news in this poll that Congress receives poor marks for its overall performance, given the state of the national economy, but what is a surprise is the general population and majority of D.C. elites want some kind of comprehensive immigration legislation passed now.

The scarcity of jobs, the growth of the Latino vote and the legislation in Arizona have all contributed to creating an atmosphere in which the public says that progress on this issue is overdue.

59% of the general population and 76% of D.C. elites want to see action on immigration reform. More notable in today’s partisan climate is that 61% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans think Congress should pass comprehensive immigration law guidelines now.

The failure to get any major new legislation on immigration since 1996 is a sign of the breakdown of bipartisanship. When President Bill Clinton passed a balanced budget and welfare reform, he also passed limited immigration reform that allowed the building of the border fence and opened the doors to citizenship for some.

However, all attempts to get this done on a broader scale have quickly fallen apart. The Republican right wants extreme measures against the undocumented aliens already here and refuses to create a path to citizenship; the left opposes the kind of crackdowns favored by the right and wants a more automatic path to citizenship. So with both the left and the right dead set against a compromise, no president has been able to keep their promise on this topic.

This is an issue that can be solved only through a centrist effort that would bring together moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats into a grand bargain on all of the major issues. The left and the right would vote down any likely compromise, but there probably would be enough votes in the center to get it done in a common-sense, nonpartisan way.

However, there is no political mechanism in today’s polarized environment for bringing together the kind of cross-caucus coalition necessary to pass a bill. And perhaps this illustrates exactly why the voters are so upset with Congress, since now they perceive it as an institution that can’t overcome partisan divides to find solutions to today’s growing and intractable problems outside of the red/blue framework.

Records show that about 47,000 people have been removed or deported from the U.S. after the Homeland Security Department sifted through 3 million sets of fingerprints taken from bookings at local jails.

Additionally, according to government data obtained by immigration advocacy groups that have filed a lawsuit, about one quarter of those deported from the U.S. did not have criminal records. At issue is a fingerprint-sharing program known as Secure Communities that the government claims to be focused on getting rid of the “worst of the worst” criminal immigrants from the U.S.

However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who divides crimes into three categories, with Level 1 being the most serious, has mostly deported committed Level 2 or 3 crimes and non-criminals.

Peter Markowitz, director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, said that ICE has pulled a bait and switch, with local law enforcement spending more time and resources facilitating the deportations of bus boys and gardeners than murderers and rapist.

Furthermore, Markowitz’s clinic, the National Day Laborer Organizers Network and the Center for Constitutional Rights had requested and sued for the statistics. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released some of the documents late Monday.

Richard Rocha, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, said non-criminals still may be people who have failed to show up for deportation hearings, who recently crossed the border illegally or who re-entered the country after deportation. He also said it’s important to remember that more people commit crimes that are considered Level 2 and 3, and that Secure Communities is beneficial for ICE, state and local law enforcement; helping to identify and remove convicted criminal aliens not only from the communities, but also from the country.

The Obama administration wants Secure Communities operating nationwide by 2013.

As of Aug. 3rd, 494 counties and local and state agencies in 27 states were sharing fingerprints from jail bookings through the program.

From October 2008 through June of this year, 46,929 people identified through Secure Communities were removed from the U.S., the documents show. Of those, 12,293 were considered non-criminals.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that wants attention more for its complex customs and terrorism investigations than its immigration duties, has gone on a media blitz as of late.

ICE chief John Morton has popped up all over the place, from making public appearances around the country.  Along with Morton’s visibility, the agency has also tried to raise its profile in other ways, with an organizational shake-up and press releases on everything from child pornography busts to its efforts to crackdown on human rights violators seeking safe haven in the United States.

Under the Obama administration ICE officials have stated that one of their priorities is to reform how the agency detains immigrants. In late July, the agency unveiled a new online system to find detained immigrants after previous reports of detainees moved around the country.

Last week the agency posted on its web site a month-by-month report of deportations. ICE has also tweaked its site, with prominent displays of the statistics, the new detainee finder system and its list of reforms.

However, according to immigration advocates, the agency might take another look at some of the displays. The image used for the online detainee locator system of a little girl and an adult woman searching for someone in the computer screen.  According to Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a pro-immigration group that advocates for reform, the photo on the web site was a cruel joke rather than an image enhancer since ICE has separated more families than any other federal agency by far.

ICE replaced the image for the online detainee locator system with an image of a computer keyboard recently. Furthermore, an ICE spokesman said the agency would review the web site.

According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), Congress “ought to take a look at” changing the 14th Amendment, which give the children of illegal immigrants a right to U.S. citizenship. McConnell’s statement signals growing support within the GOP for the controversial idea, which has also recently been touted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

After McConnell stated in an interview that the 14th Amendment provision should be reconsidered in light of the country’s immigration problem. Kyl, then in a TV interview said that there is a constitutional provision in the 14th amendment that has been interpreted to provide that , if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen no matter what. However, according to Kyl, the question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for their illegal behavior?

Kyl added that he suggested to Graham that “we should hold some hearings and hear first from the constitutional experts to at least tell us what the state of the law on that proposition is.”

It is unclear when such hearings would occur. Democrats, who control the Senate, set the chamber’s hearing schedule.

Proponents of comprehensive immigration reform strongly oppose the Republican-led effort, which could play a major role in firing up both the left and right this election year.

The escalating debate on the 14th Amendment comes in the wake of the legal battle between Arizona and the federal government over the state’s immigration law. The idea of changing the nation’s policy on this issue has picked up steam among conservatives in recent weeks.

Graham, who had considered working with Democrats on immigration reform earlier this year, now claims that birthright citizenship is a mistake. Adding that we should change our Constitution and say if one comes illegally and has a child, that child is automatically not a citizen.

McConnell said the Obama administration needs to improve its ability to secure the country’s borders before tackling a change to the amendment. However, while Obama’s push for immigration reform is considered dead in the 111th Congress, some Democrats on Capitol Hill are pushing for a scaled-back bill to move this fall.

One such option is Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) Dream Act, which would give undocumented students the right to apply for permanent residence in the U.S. Durbin’s bill has attracted praise from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), but Durbin has publicly noted that some Democrats are not on board.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched its On-Line Detainee Locator System.  The system allows attorneys, family members, and other individuals to locate noncitizens who are in ICE custody.  ICE has stated that the system includes all facilities where it detains immigrants.  The system does not include individuals held in state or local custody under an ICE detainer, as they are not physically in ICE custody.  The system is updated within 8 hours of an apprehension or transfer within ICE custody.

The locator can be found here

BOGOTA, Colombia — The U.S. State Department has reversed its decision to deny a visa to a leading Colombian journalist whose reporting has been highly critical of the country’s U.S.-allied president.

Morris and his family picked up their visas at the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday and now can travel to Harvard for a yearlong Nieman Foundation fellowship for mid-career journalists.

According to a U.S. consular officer in Bogota, Morris was ruled permanently ineligible for a visa under the “terrorist activities” clause of the USA Patriot Act.

In addition, Morris said he was not given an explanation for the denial or the reversal. However he expressed deep gratitude for the support he has gotten from fellow journalists at home and abroad, lawmakers in the U.S. Congress and organizations including Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, The InterAmerican Press Association and the American Civil Liberties Union, who decried the visa denial as an attack on free speech.

U.S. Embassy spokeswoman stated they could not discuss the issue due to privacy rules.

Morris, who produces the TV news show, has reported on ties between illegal far-right militias and allies of Uribe, Washington’s closest ally in Latin America.

The 41-year-old Morris, one of 12 foreign journalists admitted to the Nieman program for the 2010-2011 academic year, is among the most controversial chroniclers of Colombia’s long-running conflict.

On various occasions, Uribe has accused him of collaborating with rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which killed Uribe’s father in a 1983 botched kidnapping.

Morris acknowledges having contacts with the FARC, because it is part of his work, however he denied aiding, abetting or advising the rebels in any way.

In addition to making public letters they’d written to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton protesting the visa denial, the U.S. rights groups that supported Morris privately lobbied State Department officials.

Colombian President-elect Juan Manuel Santos, who takes office on Aug. 7, was a Nieman fellow in 1988.

With Arizona’s new immigration law going into effect, there is fear that a little known problem will get worse: Americans getting deported.

According to a Northeastern School of Law researcher, there are many cases in which U.S. citizens have been deported. In addition, with Arizona’s new immigration law it just might get worse.

A federal appeals court ruling Monday created the possibility that Guatemalan women could qualify for political asylum in the U.S. because of the high female murder rate in the Central American country.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a strongly worded ruling reversing the deportation orders of two immigration courts that such a claim applies too broadly. The San Francisco-based court ordered the immigration judges, who work in the U.S. Department of Justice, to reconsider granting asylum to Lesly Yajayra Perdomo, an illegal immigrant in her mid-30s who settled in Reno, Nev.

Most important, the court ordered the Board of Immigration Appeals to determine whether all Guatemalan women can qualify, a decision which would open the door to similar claims from other countrieswith high female murder rate in Central America,  such as El Salvador, Honduras and others with history of widespread gender abuse.

This is the first such case to reach this high in the United States’ court system, which has grappled with determining gender-based claims for asylum.

Perdomo followed her mother to the U.S. in 1991 when she was 15 and settled in Reno, where she graduated high school and found work in the health care industry.

In 2003, the Immigration and Naturalization Service began deportation proceedings and she applied for asylum the next year citing Guatemala’s poor record of investigating and solving the hundreds of murders of women annually. The appeals court noted that the Board of Immigration, which rejected Perdomo’s asylum petition, has never addressed whether gender itself could be the basis for an asylum claim.

On Monday, the appeals court said past decisions suggest that women in Guatemala may qualify for asylum, which includes citizenship and is granted to those showing they were persecuted because of religion, political beliefs, race, nationality or membership in a particular social group.

Perdomo asked the court to include Guatemalan women as a “particular social group” eligible for asylum.

“While we have not held expressly that females, without other defining characteristics, constitute a particular social group, we have concluded that females, or young girls of a particular clan, met our definition of a particular social group,” Judge Richard Paez wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel.

Unless there is an appeal, the case goes back to the Board of Immigration Appeals to determine if Perdomo should be granted asylum.