Justices Accept Arizona's Appeal over Controversial Immigration Law

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Arizona can enforce its controvercial immigration law, over the strong objections of the Obama administration.

The Arizona appeal could set important precedent on similar laws pending across the country.

For more, see here.

USCIS Redesigns Employment Authorization Document and Certificate of Citizenship

USCIS Redesigns Employment Authorization Document and Certificate of Citizenship

More Deportations of "Criminals," and Fewer of "Undocumented People Who Are Merely Living Their Lives in the United States"

That's how the Huffington Post summarizes statements made by Department of Homeland Security head, Janet Napolitano, last week about the new Obama Administration policy that reevaluates pending deportation cases to focus on aliens convicted of crimes. Of course, when immigration law sets the bar so low for defining an "aggravated felony" (including some actual misdemeanors with no active jail time) it begs the question who the government will consider a true "criminal" who is a danger to society.

Read more about Napolitano's comments here.

The Common Denominator Behind the Constant Opposition to Immigration Reform? The U.S. Congress.

It is no secret -- everyone knows that our U.S. Immigration system is broken. It takes too long to get a green card through work. It is too hard to find a job -- it seems that employers are too eager to say "no visa sponsorship." STEM students are too under-served and forgotten: they need EVEN MORE help -- 17 extra months of OPT is ok, but it is not enough. It is a world-wide embarrassment that we have over 11 million undocumented workers in the United States, living in the shadows in the underground economy; suffering with each whim of unscrupulous employers. With so many millions of people classified as "illegal," it begs the question -- are these people really law breakers, or is the U.S. Immigration law itself broken?

MY VOTE: The U.S. Immigration law itself is broken.

It is also no secret that President Obama wants comprehensive immigration reform. Likewise, former President George W. Bush was equally eager to obtain comprehensive immigration reform. AND WHAT HAPPENED TO BOTH OF THESE WOULD-BE IMMIGRATION REFORMERS? The U.S. Congress blocked immigration reform under BOTH George W. Bush and Barack Obama. But Obama's heart, like Bush's, is in the right place on immigration.

The American Immigration Council has recently published an analysis which details the many ways that the Obama Administration can use, and is using, the existing laws -- already on the books and waiting for implementation by the executive branch -- to fix some parts of the broken immigration system. Other presidents in the recent past (when faced with a do-nothing Congress) have done this and have improved the lot of immigrants through the use of the many powers available at the executive level. And it appears that President Obama is doing likewise.

To read more about the American Immigration Council policy analysis, click here now!

Anti-Immigrant Sentiment Not Limited to U.S.

The New York Times today highlights the case of an Angolan teenager named Antonio Bravo who is fighting to stay in Britain after his father committed suicide to give his son a better chance at asylum. The article shows the extent to which anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.K. has led to absurd, counterproductive rules for deportation and the inhumane treatment of many aliens. Let's hope it gets better here and in the U.K.

Read the full article here.

GREAT NEWS! Obama Administration Announces New Policy to Halt Deportation of Young Immigrants

The New York Times reports that the "Obama administration announced [today] that it would generally not deport or expel illegal immigrants who had come to the United States as young children and graduated from high school or served in the armed forces." Immigration officials said they would exercise “prosecutorial discretion” to allow these people to stay in the country while the government focused its enforcement efforts on higher-priority cases involving criminals and people who had flagrantly violated immigration laws.

The new policy puts into practice many of the goals of the proposed Dream Act that Congress failed to pass last year.

Read the full Times article here.

Homeland Security Sued over Immigrant Detention

The National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago has filed a class-action suit challenging the use of immigration "detainers" -- requests by federal immigration authorities for local police to hold immigrants in jail while their status in investigated.

Read the Los Angeles Times for this news.