I thought I learned about how a bill becomes law in high school Civics. It all seemed simple and straightforward then. A bill is passed by both houses of Congress, the President signs it, and that’s the end of the story: The law is the law. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – the unit within the Department of Homeland Security charged with implementing the new H-1B visa law – has added a new page, however, to the standard high school Civics text. A law apparently is not a law if the administrative agency assigned by Congress to implement it refuses to do so.

What’s this all about? It’s about the H-1B Visa Reform Act, Pub. L. No. 108-447, passed late last year to help American employers in the global race to secure the top talent for 21st Century jobs. Congress said in essence that it makes no sense investing in the graduate education of foreign nationals if they have no opportunity to work for U.S. employers after they receive their degrees. Continue Reading The Effrontery of USCIS: “Don’t File for H-1B Visas until We Say We’re Ready, No Matter What Congress Says.”

To this astonished blogger, Lou Dobbs’ profession of love for immigrants came as a welcome surprise. Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN (March 3, 2005). http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0503/03/ldt.01.html

In a debate on New York driver’s licenses for the undocumented with Cesar Perales of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, Lou repeatedly declared his heartfelt affection for migrants and seemed offended and surprised that anyone could ever suspect that he might harbor anti-immigrant sentiments. While besmitten with amore for immigrants, Lou allowed, however, that he brooked no sympathy for illegal immigration and insisted that he, as all of us should, will cherish forever the rights, privileges and duties of American citizenship. Continue Reading Lou Dobbs to the World: “I love Immigrants!”

On January 10, 2005, the US Department of Homeland Security announced temporary relief measure for nationals of countries affected by the Asian tsunami, including:

  • Burma (Myanmar)
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Malaysia
  • Maldives
  • Somalia
  • Sri Lanka
  • Thailand

DHS has announced “temporary relief measures” that are now available to those individuals who (as a result of the destruction and humanitarian crisis in Southeast Asia):

  1. Are unable to return to their home country or
  2. Are currently traveling in the United States.

Continue Reading 10 Practice Pointers On Tsunami-Related Immigration Relief

Well it’s about time. Although it took 17 years, Congress finally heeded the cry of employers and enacted legislation that authorizes the use of electronic signatures and the electronic retention of the ubiquitous “Employment Eligibility Verification” known as the Form I-9.

One month shy of the 17-year anniversary of IRCA (The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986), our national legislature enacted and President Bush signed Public Law 108-390.1 While the new law was never officially trumpeted as environmental legislation, tree-huggers around the country (and beleaguered Human Resources professionals as well) are reportedly celebrating the paper-saving features of this new law. The new legislation is clearly a welcome development, but the transition to digital signatures and storage, as the present article will show, cannot occur until many unanswered questions are first resolved. Continue Reading Driving in the Fast Lane on the Digital I-9 Superhighway

Hon. Prakash Khatri Ombudsman Office of the Ombudsman U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services Department of Homeland Security Washington, DC 20528

Re: End the Government’s Immigration Bias against America’s Small Businesses

Dear Mr. Khatri:

This is the third in a series of open letters outlining suggested changes in the practices of United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS). My letters to you are intended to put a flashlight on the behavior of USCIS – an agency that all too often remains mired in the worst practices of legacy INS. I write this time to ask that you examine and remedy several practices at the USCIS Regional Service Centers (RSCs) that hurt America’s entrepreneurs and small businesses.

This third letter asks you to intervene and cause USCIS to halt its unannounced practice of applying different, more-demanding, and wholly unlawful standards of eligibility for immigration benefits to America’s small businesses than the agency applies to large companies.

(To view this letter in its entirety click here)

The list grows longer – Bernard Kerik, Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood, Linda Chavez – all were felled in their political ascendancy by the revelation that a household employee or member lacked valid immigration papers. Just as Superman learned that the base metal, lead, could protect him from Kryptonite’s debilitating rays, politicians must recognize that immigration toxicity needs an immediate antidote.

If the immigration law supposes that we should disqualify worthy candidates for government service because they solved their pressing childcare needs by hiring or housing an undocumented nanny, then paraphrasing Charles Dickens, the law is “a ass, a idiot.”

Ironically, the subject came up in Los Angeles this week in a debate on talk radio (KNX-AM 1070’s The Business Hour), two days before Mr. Kerik’s disclosure of probable immigration violations and his resignation as President Bush’s nominee as the nation’s top immigration cop, the Secretary of the Homeland Security Department. Continue Reading Immigration – The New Kryptonite

As if people of the world today don’t have enough concerns to keep them from smiling, the U.S. State Department has issued new guidelines (www.travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotos/composition_checklist.html) discouraging smiling in photographs for American travel documents. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, has also adopted the new requirements for U.S. green cards and work permits. The dour new rules specify that when being photographed, people are to have a “natural expression.” In sample “acceptable” photos depicting “natural” expressions, a man and woman exhibit serious, Stepford-like stares, with mouths closed. For those so bold as to risk rejection of their photos, a wan smile with closed jaw (no teeth showing) may be allowed but not preferred.

This new requirement is no laughing matter. USCIS has been enforcing the photo-specs rule and rejecting pictures in which individuals are smiling and showing their apparently well-flossed teeth. Reports indicate that the Cleveland USCIS office is a non-smiling jurisdiction. Therefore, if you’re in Cleveland, definitely avoid smiling. Perhaps, Cleveland-area dentists may wish to protest this stealth attack on their profession.

The no-smiling policy seems to make holistic sense, however, in that few can smile at our dysfunctional immigration system. So all you photographers, rather than asking your subjects to say “cheese,” suggest instead that they think “immigration”.

Just days after the election, President Bush announced a major immigration initiative. The ‘high priority’ initiative would grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants as part of a migrant worker program. Wasting no time, President Bush met with Senator McCain of Arizona while Secretary of State Powell was in Mexico meeting with President Fox. As the debate begins on immigration policy, it’s important to keep several things in perspective.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats have all the right answers on our country’s broken immigration system. America needs an enlightened immigration policy that transcends political parties and the right/left partisan spectrum. A wise immigration policy would promote our country’s economic self-interest and our traditional values as a nation of immigrants (i.e., family unity, free enterprise, cultural and ethnic diversity, and a haven for those fleeing persecution). Continue Reading Immigration, Post Election ‘High Priority’

This is the first posting to a new public-policy blog with a name that must be a typo: www.nationofimmigrators.com.

Surely this blogger means to write “Nation of Immigrants,” not “Immigrators”. No; there’s no mistake.

We are all Immigrators. We, the inhabitants of America, whether citizen or foreigner, are all Immigrators.

In the post-9/11 America of 2004, Immigrators include: Continue Reading Why “Nation of Immigrators”?