[July 15, 2007]

CRIME RATE

            One of the oft repeated contentions by immigrant haters is that they are more likely to commit predatory crimes than native-born American citizens.  Although numerous studies have proven the opposite, restrictionists and media continue to propagate images of immigrant communities plagued by crime.  Now, finally, the nation¡¯s experts on immigration and crime are speaking out.

            130 sociologists, criminologists and legal scholars have signed an open letter to President Bush and members of Congress testifying that the ¡°problem immigrants¡± in every ethnic group in the U.S. have lower rates of crime and imprisonment than do the native-born.  And over the past decades, as immigration rates have soared, rates of crimes of violence and property crimes have declined sharply.

CODE OF CONDUCT OF JUDGES

            The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is proposing newly-formulated Codes of Conduct for Immigration Judges.

            The preamble to the regulations state:

                        ¡°In Order to Preserve the Integrity and Professionalism

of the Immigration Court System, an Immigration Judge

Shall Observe High Standards of Ethical Conduct, Act

in a Manner that Promotes Public Confidence in the

Impartiality of the Immigration Judge Corps, and Avoid

Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in All

Activities.¡±

MICROSOFT LOOKS ON CANADA

            Microsoft Corp. said Thursday that it would open a software development center in Vancouver, Canada, giving it a place to employ skilled workers barred by U.S. immigration quotas.

            It may signal the start of a new hiring trend, with other U.S. high-tech firms following in Microsoft¡¯s footsteps to Canada, where lawyers say it is easier for foreign nationals to obtain work credentials.

U.S. businesses want Congress to lift quotas on the number of visas the government issues to skilled professionals such as the software engineers that Redmond, WA - based Microsoft employs.  But as recently as last week, lawmakers rejected legislation that would have addressed their concerns.  Canada doesn¡¯t impose quotas on the number of visas it issues each year.

            Microsoft said it planned to open the Vancouver facility by the end of the year.  It initially will have about 200 employees, with the total rising to about 900 within a couple of years.

THE DEATH OF HOPE FOR AN IMMIGRATION REFORM ACT

            The following is a response to the failure to pass a Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  Everyone is upset about the Immigration Reform crashing in the Senate.

            The Center of Human Rights and Constitutional Law has published a lengthy opinion on the state of Immigration.  The following is another opinion expressed by those who favored a reform but did not think that the proposed compromise was the solution to the problem.

¡°This is NOT the end of immigration reform. The Senate bill's crash was a sad day for the country, for immigrants, for US workers, and for immigrants' sending communities. However, the Senate Grand Bargain was a horrible proposal and many elected officials who truly support immigration reform, like Congressman Xavier Bacerra and Senator Robert Menendez said that there was little chance of improving the bill in the House.

Just so that you remember what went down to defeat: over 300 miles of new border walls (more deaths), 20 new detention centers able to hold 25,000 new immigrants per day, massive new criminal penalties (5 years in prison for illegal reentry after deportation, which the vast majority of immigrants have done; 10 years in prison for "immigration fraud" such as using your cousin¡¯s green card to find work, something thousands of immigrants do), substantially increased worksite and community raids, local police involvement in immigration enforcement, no fix for the 1996 "bars" that prevent hundreds of thousands or millions of immigrants with US citizen and lawful resident family members through whom they could traditionally immigrate (pre-1996) from doing so because they previously violated the immigration laws, a massive new guest worker program with NO path to lawful permanent resident status, and a new immigration "point" system that effectively wiped out family-based immigration and replaced it with one that would reduce Latino lawful immigration by about 50% (points based on type of work, work history, education, etc.). In return for all of these regressive proposals, undocumented immigrants were offered a "non-immigrant" status (Z visas), forced employment or forfeit your visa, no family unification, no confidentiality (get denied, get deported), no effective judicial review of arbitrary denials, and no guaranteed path to lawful permanent resident status because Z visa holders were required to apply in 8 years under the new "point" system. In summary, it was a terrible legalization in return for a package of terrible enforcement measures.

It took us from 1980 to 1986 to get the IRCA passed with a real legalization program. It didn't happen in one or two years. The big push for immigration reform this time around, unfortunately, did not start five or ten years ago, when it should have. Instead it started just one and half-years ago in response to the House passage of the outrageous Sensenbrenner bill that sought to make all undocumented immigrants felons. That's what sparked the marches and then the wide scale organizing for comprehensive immigration reform.  

While we believe that organizations should continue pushing hard for comprehensive reform, we should also recognize that the current political environment may not be what's needed for a massive overhaul of the immigration laws. The divisions in and out of Congress are immense. A majority of the public supports legalization, but a large portion of the population also has been convinced that there is an "invasion," their very culture is at risk, terrorists are streaming across the US-Mexico border, and nothing short of a massive clamp-down on undocumented immigrants will work. We may be better off engaging in more organizing, public education, briefings of elected officials and candidates, etc., and looking towards comprehensive reform after the next election. That's a tough pill to swallow, but it may be the reality we have to face. Congress cannot enact comprehensive health care reform, a comprehensive solution to the war in Iraq, comprehensive social security reform, or comprehensive education reform, all of which have been recently proposed.  

Comprehensive immigration reform is one of many areas in which most people agree a major overhaul is needed, but there is virtually no consensus on how to do it.

            While continuing our support for a major overhaul of the immigration laws, it is probably prudent for us to also have an alternative plan. Issues like the escalating raids, vigilantism, border violence, anti-immigrant local initiatives, and massive backlogs for visa applicants can be challenged in the courts and through public education campaigns. At the same time, more limited proposals can be introduced--or supported if already introduced--in Congress, including, for example, (1) the DREAM Act, (2) AgJobs, (3) the Child Citizen Protection Act, (4) a bill to improve the labor protections of all workers, immigrant and US citizens, (5) a bill to eliminate all backlogs by prompt legalization of one million plus people, including those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), NACARA, pending family petitions, asylum, etc., and (6) a bill to restore due process rights and judicial review stripped away by Congress in 1996. Some in the beltway have been advocating this ¡°less-is-more¡± approach for some time ¡±what Rick Swartz, founder of the National Immigration Forum, calls a ¡°down-payment¡± on comprehensive reform. This approach makes sense in the wake of the crash of the Senate bill.

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