Badmus

Department of Labor

Statement by US Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis

WASHINGTON — Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today issued the following statement regarding the unauthorized public dissemination of confidential information collected by state agencies in Utah:

“Recent news reports about the dissemination of confidential information about a worker’s legal status are highly disturbing. I am deeply concerned about these reports, and assure the public that the U.S.  Department of Labor will closely follow and work to support the investigation that has been launched by the state of Utah.  No one, regardless of race, gender or ethnic background, should fear that by applying for government benefits or programs, he or she is at risk of having personal information revealed. The unauthorized release of such information is against the law, and the perpetrators should be punished.”

Categories: Legislation and Policy, Employment Immigration, Blogroll, General |

From the Immigration Policy Center

June 23, 2010

Washington D.C. - The 2000 Census found that immigrants, while accounting for 12 percent of the population, made up nearly half of the all scientists and engineers with doctorate degrees in the United States. Nearly 70 percent of the men and women who entered the fields of science and engineering from 1995 to 2006 were immigrants. So it should come as no surprise that immigrants will help drive the green revolution. America’s young scientists and engineers, especially the ones drawn to emerging industries like alternative energy, tend to speak with an accent. Yet, the connection between immigration and the development and commercialization of alternative energy technology is rarely discussed.

In IPC’s lastest Perspective on Immigration piece, Why Immigrants Can Drive the Green Economy, Richard T. Herman and Robert L. Smith explain how policymakers envision millions of new jobs as the nation pursues renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power, and hightlight the voices that warn that much of the clean-technology talent lies overseas, in nations that began pursuing alternative energy sources decades ago. 
 
To read this Perspective see: 

• Why Immigrants Can Drive the Green Economy (IPC Perspectives, June 23, 2010) 

Categories: Legislation and Policy, Blogroll, General |

From the Immigration Policy Center

June 22, 2010

Categories: Legislation and Policy, Blogroll, General |

From the Immigration Policy Center

Washington D.C. - The legislator behind Arizona’s restrictive new immigration law, SB 1070, is continuing his crusade against immigrants with calls to restrict birthright citizenship. This is not the first time efforts have been made to diminish the Fourteenth Amendment. Several bills have been introduced over the years that would deny U.S. citizenship to children whose parents are in the U.S. illegally or on temporary visas.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution - the cornerstone of American civil rights - affirms that, with very few exceptions, all persons born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens, regardless of the immigration status of their parents. Following the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves, the Fourteenth Amendment restated the longstanding principle of birthright citizenship, which had been temporarily erased by the Supreme Court’s “Dred Scott” decision that denied birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of slaves. The Supreme Court has upheld birthright citizenship several times since then.  
 
In the past few years, renewed efforts to restrict birthright citizenship have surfaced in several states, including Texas, California, and now Arizona. While proponents understand that states cannot repeal birthright citizenship, it is their hope to advance the national debate and mount a challenge to the Fourteenth Amendment in the Supreme Court. To date, none of these proposals have advanced very far, but the divisiveness of the current immigration debate and Congress’ failure to reform the system is resulting in extreme laws being introduced in a great number of states.

To view the fact sheet and blog post on Birthright Citizenship, see: 

• Ending Birthright Citizenship: Unconstitutional, Impractical, Expensive, Complicated and Would Not Stop Illegal Immigration (IPC Fact Check, June 15, 2010)
   

• Ending Birthright Citizenship Won’t Solve Our Immigration Problems (ImmigrationImpact.com blog post, June 15, 2010)

Categories: Legislation and Policy, Blogroll, General |

From the Attorney General of Colorado

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers announced that an El Paso County District Court has issued orders barring a Colorado Springs business, the Immigration Center, and its owners and operators, Charles Doucette, Deborah Stilson and Alfred Boyce, from defrauding consumers in search of assistance in obtaining or completing federal immigration forms.

The Office of the Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Doucette and the Immigration Center in August 2009 and alleged that the business had engaged in deceptive trade practices, including posing as or claiming an affiliation with the federal government.

According to the complaint, Doucette’s business advertised itself as being able to help immigrants obtain and complete various immigration forms in exchange for fees ranging from $300 to $700. The Immigration Center’s non-refundable fees were identical to the fee the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would charge for filing the forms, which were available free of charge from the federal government.  The Immigration Center also did not provide consumers with assistance from attorneys or anyone with expertise in immigration law.

Under the court’s order against the Immigration Center, the business will be barred from engaging in immigration-assistance services and will be required to pay the state a total of $2.5 million in restitution and civil penalties.

The court also approved a settlement between the state and Doucette. Under the settlement Doucette and Stilson will pay $85,000 in fines and restitution and will not be allowed to engage in the business of selling government forms or assistance with those forms. Doucette and Stilson also will be required to desist any marketing associated with any immigration-assistance business, including taking down any Web sites associated with their businesses.

The Immigration Center also did business under the names U.S. Immigration Center, ImmigrationHelpLine.org, U.S. Government Help Line, Liberty Legal Services, Maydene Media, Immigration Forms & Services, and Immigration Forms & Documents.

Categories: Legislation and Policy, Blogroll, General |

From the Immigration Policy Center

Washington, D.C. - Following a meeting to discuss comprehensive immigration reform with Senate Republicans, President Obama announced that he would send 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and would request $500 million for additional border personnel and technology as part of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill.
 
As we have seen time and time again, efforts to overhaul the entire immigration system have taken a back seat to the political expediency of pouring more money into border enforcement.  While it is clear that border violence must be addressed, it is also clear that enforcement alone is not a solution to our country’s immigration problems.  
 
Over the last two decades, the United States has spent billions of dollars on border enforcement.  Since 1992, the annual budget of the U.S. Border Patrol has increased by 714 percent. At the same time, the number of Border Patrol agents stationed along the southwest border has grown by 390 percent.  Interior enforcement has expanded as well, and detentions and deportations are at record levels.  However, during the same time period, the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States has roughly tripled from 3.5 million in 1990 to 11.9 million in 2008, close family members of American families continue to wait in visa backlogs that routinely last 5 to 7 years, and Americas competitiveness in the global market place is challenged by difficulties recruiting and retaining exceptional foreign workers.  
 
The President stated that the goal of the additional resources is to quell the violence along the border. While many are frustrated by the continued funding of border enforcement activity to the exclusion of other issues, the only bright side is that this approach seems to acknowledge that the real sources of violence and crime along the border are not immigrants but drug cartels and gun trafficking.
 
“Those Members of Congress who have insisted on ‘border enforcement first’ for years must now acknowledge that we are pouring ample resources into enforcement and must be prepared to move on to step two-comprehensive immigration reform,” stated  Benjamin Johnson, Executive Director of the American Immigration Council. “We need to address the root causes of illegal immigration and create a functional legal immigration system for the 21st century. The American people are hungry for real reform. We can no longer wait for politicians to squeeze every last political point out of this issue; we need real leadership that is focused on solutions, not headlines.”

Categories: Legislation and Policy, Blogroll |

From the Immigration Policy Center, American Immigration Council

As the constitutional and civil rights consequences of Arizona’s punitive new immigration law become ever more apparent, proponents and opponents of the law seem to share only one area of agreement: America’s immigration laws are broken and must be repaired. The proposed solutions however, are as different as night and day. Supporters of the law champion federal and state enforcement-only solutions premised on the belief that we must secure the borders before taking any other action to reform the system. Opponents of the law know that a border-first strategy is short-sighted, has failed in the past, and cannot provide a solution to the larger immigration problem. As these two forces mobilize for yet another immigration debate, the stakes grow ever higher and the need for accurate information grows more acute.

Although it may be politically popular to call for additional border and interior enforcement, the real solutions and the facts call for a comprehensive approach. In order to truly solve the problem we must address the root causes of illegal immigration: inadequate legal means for working and immigrating to the United States, a deportation-driven strategy that focuses on numbers rather than genuine threats to national security, and a failure to enact a consistent and balanced federal plan for regulating immigration.

Pouring billions of dollars more into border enforcement alone or venting frustration through questionable state laws will not solve the problem. Turning off the jobs magnet, expanding effective worker verification programs, providing a legal and regulated flow of workers, and getting millions of workers right with the law - paying taxes and contributing to our nation’s recovery - is a recipe for reform. Throwing billions at enforcement-only has been the modus operandi in Washington for nearly two decades, and the results have been an increasingly dysfunctional system.

The Immigration Policy Center has developed fact sheets and reports that breakdown the problems and solutions to our broken immigration system, and provide a summary of the most recent proposal for immigration reform. These publications provide readers with a comprehensive overview of what’s wrong with our immigration system and the steps we need to take in order to fix it. The Senate proposal is an important first step, but much work still must be done to turn these concepts and various other legislative proposals into a truly bi-partisan bill ready for debate.

For further information see: 

• Breaking Down the Problems, What’s Wrong with Our Immigration System? (IPC Special Report)

• Focusing on the Solutions: Key Principles of Immigration Reform (IPC Special Report)

• Real Enforcement with Practical Answers for Immigration Reform (REPAIR) Proposal Summary (IPC Fact Check)

Categories: Legislation and Policy, Blogroll, General |

On March 31, 2010, the Supreme Court issued a decision on the right to counsel for noncitizens charged with committing a crime. The Court held that criminal defense lawyers must advise their noncitizen clients about the risk of deportation if they accept a guilty plea. The Court recognized that current immigration laws impose harsh and mandatory deportation consequences onto criminal convictions, and that Congress eliminated from these laws the Attorney General’s discretionary authority to cancel removal in meritorious cases. The Court said, “These changes to our immigration law have dramatically raised the stakes of a noncitizen’s criminal conviction. The importance of accurate legal advice for noncitizens accused of crimes has never been more important.”

The case, Padilla v. Kentucky, involved a Vietnam War veteran who has resided lawfully in the U.S. for over 40 years. His criminal defense lawyer told him not to worry about the immigration consequences of pleading guilty to a crime, but that advice was wrong. In fact, the guilty plea made Mr. Padilla subject to mandatory deportation from the United States. The state of Kentucky said that Mr. Padilla had no right to withdraw his plea when he learned of the deportation consequence. The decision reverses the Kentucky court. It also rejected the federal government’s position (which had been adopted by several courts) that a noncitizen is protected only from “affirmative misadvice” and not from a lawyer’s failure to provide any advice about the immigration consequences of a plea.

 ”The right to counsel is at the very core of our criminal justice system. The Court affirms that immigrants should not be held accountable when they rely on incorrect advice from their lawyers or where counsel fails to provide any immigration advice at all,” said Beth Werlin, an attorney at the American Immigration Council’s Legal Action Center. “Today’s decision also reminds us that ultimately, the increased criminalization of immigration law and lack of flexibility has resulted in harsh results. Congress should do its part to restore immigration judges’ discretion to consider the particular circumstances in a person’s case, thus affording each person facing deportation an individualized and fair opportunity to be heard.”

Categories: Legislation and Policy, Immigration Litigation and Removal, General |

“It is the federal government’s responsibility to enforce the law and secure our borders, as well as to set clear rules and priorities for future immigration. The continued failure of the federal government to fix the broken immigration system will leave the door open to a patchwork of actions at the state and local level that are inconsistent and as we have seen recently, often misguided.

The proposal outlined today in the Senate is a very important step in the process of fixing our nation’s broken immigration system. I am especially pleased to see that this detailed outline is consistent with the bipartisan framework presented by Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham last month, and is grounded in the principles of responsibility and accountability.

What has become increasingly clear is that we can no longer wait to fix our broken immigration system, which Democrats and Republicans alike agree doesn’t work. It’s unacceptable to have 11 million people in the United States who are living here illegally and outside of the system. I have repeatedly said that there are some essential components that must be in immigration legislation. It must call for stronger border security measures, tougher penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants and clearer rules for controlling future immigration. And it must require those who are here illegally to get right with the law, pay penalties and taxes,learn English, pass criminal background checks and admit responsibility before they are allowed to get in line and eventually earn citizenship. The outline presented today includes many of these elements. The next critical step is to iron out the details of a bill. We welcome that discussion, and my Administration will play an active role in engaging partners on both sides of the aisle to work toward a bipartisan solution that is based on the fundamental concept of accountability that the American people expect and deserve.”

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary

Categories: Legislation and Policy, Blogroll, General |

From the Immigration Policy Center
Touting a $10 million investment into local law enforcement from discretionary federal stimulus money the state received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Governor Brewer is gambling with Arizona’s economy. The costs associated with SB 1070 have not been quantified by the Arizona legislature but it is safe to assume that $10 million dollars is only a drop in the bucket towards what it would actually cost to enforce this law.
 
In Arizona, when a bill is introduced in the state legislature, a “fiscal note” is attached which lays out the cost of implementation. In the case of SB 1070, the accompanying fiscal note is shockingly lacking in detail, concluding that “the fiscal impact of this bill cannot be determined with certainty. We do not have a means to quantify the number of individuals arrested under the bill’s provisions or the impact on the level of illegal immigration.” At a time when Arizona is facing a multi-billion dollar deficit, however, enacting an enforcement program that will surely run into the hundreds of millions of dollars is fiscally irresponsible at best.
In the absence of any current fiscal data on the cost of SB 1070’s implementation, some Arizonans are pointing to a fact sheet produced by Yuma County Sheriff Ralph E. Ogden in response to similar legislation proposed in 2006. Yuma County is one of Arizona’s 15 counties, with a population of about 200,000.

The 2006 fact sheet estimates the costs of a bill which would have authorized the police to arrest illegal immigrants on trespassing charges if they were simply present in the state (the bill was eventually vetoed by then Governor Janet Napolitano).  The Yuma County Sherriff’s fact sheet shows a staggering potential cost to Yuma County law-enforcement agencies. The Sherriff estimated:

• Law-enforcement agencies would spend between $775,880 and $1,163,820 in processing expenses;
• Jail costs would be between $21,195,600 and $96,086,720;
• Attorney and staff fees would be $810,067-$1,620,134;
• Additional detention facilities would have to be built at unknown costs.

Furthermore, in an email between Yuma County Attorney Jon Smith and Arizona lawmakers, Smith added that there would be even more costs to implementing SB 1070 than just what Ogden had outlined, and noted that his county was already struggling with a budget deficit by furloughing employees and forcing days off without pay. He wrote:
“It was also noted that the Superior Court, Justice Courts and Municipal Courts would also realize increased costs if that legislation passed. Although such increases were not calculated, it was and should be noted that such would include additional court staff, interpreters, administrative staff and pre-trial services. In a percentage of those cases, Juvenile Court and the juvenile detention facility would have also recognized cost increases…An increase of this proportion would stifle all areas of the system, from the moment of arrest to the point of conviction, sentencing and incarceration.  Already LEA (law enforcement agencies) are fighting to stay afloat through the use of furloughs, and mandated days off with pay.  I really doubt the fines and fees assessed will be able to match the need and cost associated.”
The Yuma county snapshot of enforcement costs is a sobering reminder of the overwhelming financial harm that SB 1070 could cause the state of Arizona.  Ultimately, those costs are only part of the story and don’t even account for lost revenue such as tax contributions and consumer purchasing, as well as the potentially expensive lawsuits that will likely ensue if this law if it is signed by the Governor.

Categories: Legislation and Policy, General |