OC Immigration Attorney

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.

In case after case where immigrant students were identified by federal agents as being in the country illegally, the students were released from detention and their deportations were suspended or canceled. Officials have even declined to deport students who openly declared their illegal status in public protests.

The students who have been allowed to remain are among more than 700,000 illegal immigrants who would be eligible for legal status under a bill before Congress specifically for high school graduates who came to the United States before they were 16. Department of Homeland Security officials said they had made no formal change of policy to permit those students to stay. But they said they had other, more pressing deportation priorities.

The issue of illegal immigrant students has become pressing because young immigrants have staged increasingly frequent and defiant protests to demand passage this year of the piece of the overhaul that would benefit them.

Lawmakers who support that legislation have asked the administration to halt student deportations until Congress takes it up. But most Republicans are opposed to any action that would weaken enforcement against illegal immigration.

An internal Homeland Security memorandum, released last month by Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, set off a furor among his fellow Republicans because it showed immigration officials weighing steps they could take without Congressional approval to give legal status to some illegal immigrants, including suspending deportations of students.

The moratorium had been requested by Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, the leading sponsors of the student legislation, called the Dream Act.

But a White House official said that the administration had decided against the moratorium, preferring to push for the student bill, which could grant legal status to more than 700,000 young immigrants here illegally.

“Legislation does far more for Dream Act students than deferring deportations would, in that it puts them on a path to citizenship,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal policy debate.

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.

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.

Capitol police arrested Antonia Rivera, a UC Irvine graduate, of Santa Ana, and 11 other young people for disorderly conduct as they sat in a circle in the middle of the Hart Senate Office Building. Nine more activists were arrested later Tuesday for unlawful entry at the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

The actions were intended to convince lawmakers to support the DREAM Act. The bill would give a chance at legal status to people brought illegally to the United States at a young age and who were educated here.

However, opponents say passing such a measure would reward illegal behavior and that people who crossed the border illegally or who overstayed their visas should not be allowed to remain.

DREAM Act supporters planned a vigil outside the jail Tuesday night to show support for the arrested activists.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who authored the DREAM Act, said the sit-in “crossed the line from passionate advocacy to inappropriate behavior.”
The sit-in came as hundreds of other activists from around the country – including a half dozen from Orange County – marched around the Capitol chanting “DREAM Act now” and “Education, not deportation.” The group also staged a “mock graduation” nearby to highlight the fact that many illegal immigrants have university degrees but are unable to work in their field.

But the most dramatic protest of the day came on the floor of the Hart building, as Rivera and the others, all dressed in graduation cap and gowns, sat silently in a circle surrounding banners which read “Undocumented and Unafraid” and “DREAM Act Now.”

Moments later, about 10 police officers arrived and told Rivera and the others that they were violating the law, warning the activists to leave or they would be arrested. Since the activists didn’t’ budge, they were handcuffed and taken to jail.

DREAM Act supporters have acknowledged it is highly unlikely that the plan will be considered before the November elections. Other activists who traveled from Orange County for the protest said they were proud of the arrested students and they would continue fighting.

If you want Congress to pass The DREAM Act, which would allow undocumented aliens that were raised in the United States through no choice of their own and have not committed any crimes, write the following letter to your congressperson. You can find out who your congressperson is at this website.

Representative ———-
(Address)

Dear Representative ———:

As your constituent, I write to ask you to co-sponsor the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act.

The DREAM Act is a bipartisan proposal, which would create a pathway to citizenship for thousands of young students who were brought to the United States years ago as children.  These children have grown up in our communities and include honor roll students, star athletes, talented artists, homecoming queens, and aspiring teachers, doctors, and U.S. soldiers.

Even though they were brought to the U.S. years ago as children, they face unique barriers to higher education, are unable to work legally in the U.S., and often live in constant fear of detection by immigration authorities.  Our immigration law currently has no mechanism to consider the special equities and circumstances of such students. The DREAM Act would eliminate this flaw.

I have family members and friends that are in this position, and they deserve to have legal status in the United States so that they can attend college or join the military.

I urge you to cosponsor the DREAM Act by contacting Senators Richard Durbin or Richard Lugar in the Senate or Representatives Howard Berman or Lincoln Diaz-Balart in the House of Representatives.

Thank you,

The Justice Department has decided to file suit against Arizona on the grounds that the state’s new immigration law illegally intrudes on federal prerogatives.

The lawsuit, which three sources said could be filed as early as Tuesday, will invoke for its main argument the legal doctrine of “preemption,” which is based on the Constitution’s supremacy clause and says that federal law trumps state statutes. Justice Department officials believe that enforcing immigration laws is a federal responsibility, the sources said.

A federal lawsuit will dramatically escalate the legal and political battle over the Arizona law, which gives police the power to question anyone if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the person is an illegal immigrant. The measure has drawn words of condemnation from President Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and opposition from civil rights groups. It also has prompted at least five other lawsuits. Arizona officials have urged the Obama administration not to sue.

The preemption doctrine has been established in Supreme Court decisions, and some legal experts have said such a federal argument likely would persuade a judge to declare the law unconstitutional.

But lawyers who helped draft the Arizona legislation have expressed doubt that a preemption argument would prevail. The law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer (R) in April, is scheduled to take effect on July 29, 2010.

Leaders of the immigration reform movement, who so far have insisted on pushing for an omnibus package of bills, should heed the young people in their ranks calling for a stand-alone effort to pass the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors legislation, or the DREAM Act.

The bill would give undocumented young people the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency , which can lead to legal permanent residency and then citizenship,  if: they graduate from U.S. high schools; have been in the country continuously at least five years before the legislation’s enactment; and meet certain post-secondary educational or military service requirements. This is the only aspect of immigration reform — other than those related to enforcement — with any steam behind it.

Until now, reform advocates have been reluctant to separate the DREAM Act from the broader immigration reform package, for fear they were removing the most politically palatable piece. But that may be a miscalculation. Most of those who would be affected by the legislation were brought to the United States by their parents. Such is the case of Eric Balderas, the 19-year-old Harvard University student whose status became the subject of national attention when federal authorities learned he is undocumented. Balderas was brought to the country at age 4 and grew up thinking he was a U.S. citizen. Not until his mother refused to let him get a driver’s license did he learn the truth. Still, he became valedictorian at his Texas high school and is now studying molecular and cellular biology. His deportation has been indefinitely deferred.

Opponents of the DREAM Act say the parents of such students are to blame. However the fact remains that the children did not trap themselves. And permitting them to go to college is a smart investment, since students like Balderas will become successful professionals and gainfully employed taxpayers. Sacrificing the future of talented students does not serve the greater good; it is time to pass the DREAM Act.

When President Obama announced last month that he would ask Congress for $500 million and deploy the National Guard to strengthen security on the border with Mexico, several advocacy groups in the region that had campaigned for a different approach were forced to confront a disappointing reality: Washington still wasn’t listening to them.

So, members of groups from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California were among the roughly 45 delegates who came together in San Diego. At the top of the agenda was how to counter Obama’s message that further security measures are needed. The delegates acknowledged that their goal, comprehensive immigration reform, is unlikely to be taken up by Congress this year.

According to Louie Gilot of the Border Network for Human Rights based in El Paso, we were promised change by the administration, however we’re not only getting the same enforcement-only policy, we’re getting even more of it.

Homeland Security Department officials disputed that, citing a speech by Secretary Janet Napolitano this week in which she argued that the administration has backed calls for comprehensive immigration reform and has adopted a “smarter” approach than its predecessor.

The border groups had hoped to convince administration officials that, with arrests of illegal immigrants on the border at the lowest levels since the early 1970s, the current enforcement strategy is working. They noted that the number of border agents has already risen from about 11,000 in 2004 to 20,000 today.

According to Andrea Guerrero, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego, some of the advocates had been meeting over the past year and a half with Customs and Border Protection officials to encourage more humane policies, including cell phone towers to help border crossers who find themselves endangered in the desert. The groups had also encouraged a better relationship between the agency and local communities.

The groups pledged to combine their efforts. According to Fernando Garcia, director of the Border Network for Human Rights, enforcement is needed and they recognize that. But it has to be infused with our American values, such as accountability, fiscal responsibility, respect to human rights and community security.