The State of California won and lost bigly last July 4th. But what if the state’s biggest loss could be salvaged because the primary federal immigration enforcement agency performing worksite visits – the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) – has never been lawfully authorized to conduct such investigations?
Three Clear Victories … Continue Reading
Two hundred days ago President Obama stoked the hopes of immigration advocates with his announcement of wide-ranging executive actions to try — as far as his authority would carry him — to change America’s broken immigration system for the better.
Generating most of the media fanfare and Republican outrage were his plans to expand eligibility for the DACA program and … Continue Reading
[Blogger’s Note: Today we have a dandy guest post from the ever insightful, prolific and droll, Nici Kersey. Don’t be put off by her introductory paragraphs. There’s an immigration gem awaiting — one that employers, and the lawyers who counsel them, will not want to miss.]
Gambling on Immigration at a Dangerous Intersection(Merry Christmas, Ninja Squirrel!) By Nicole (Nici) Kersey… Continue Reading“Politics at bottom is not all that complicated. It’s all about timing.”
Facing a recalcitrant House of Representatives controlled by Republicans, President Obama made an historic announcement on November 20th outlining an array of executive actions he would take to fix as much as he could of our broken immigration system.
Understandably, public and media attention since then … Continue Reading
[Blogger’s Note: In light of President Obama’s announcement of executive actions on immigration last Thursday, this post, first published on May 7, 2010, is worth a second read. I enjoyed the President’s address to the nation, especially his mention of Astrid Silva, the student carrying a three-degree university course-load. Still, he should have given Tinker Bell her due.]… Continue Reading
In the 1997 film, Liar Liar, Jim Carrey starred as Fletcher Reede, a scruples-free lawyer whose young son, Max, wishes that, for just one day, his dad would tell the truth. Max’s wish is granted. Fletcher flips from mendacity to veracity. He tries persistently to lie; his Silly-Putty® face contorts wildly, but he can only blurt out truths. Hilarity … Continue Reading
The usual voices said trite things when a sliver of Richmond, Virginia Republican primary voters last Tuesday rejected Eric Cantor’s bid to continue as Majority Leader in the House of Representatives. With a margin of just over 7,200 votes out of roughly 62,000 cast, David Brat, a college economics professor and Johnny-one-note who beat the anti-amnesty drum with gusto, eked … Continue Reading
The dysfunctional immigration world continues to spin dangerously out of control.
Do-nothing House Republicans (and five pusillanimous Democrats) commit political seppuku with the passage of the ENFORCE Act — a going-nowhere bill which would authorize civil suits against the President to dissuade him from doing something to husband scarce prosecutorial resources and ameliorate the harsh consequences of deportation for noncriminal … Continue Reading
[Blogger’s note: Once again the prolific and ever lucid Careen Shannon offers fresh insights on another facet of our dysfunctional immigration system. Today, she shows why gender bias taints America’s immigration system, and what should be done to eliminate structural bias as part of comprehensive immigration reform.]
Immigration Reform Must Redress the Current Law’s Gender Biases by Careen … Continue ReadingFrugality, something second nature to our colonial forebears, is a trait we Americans seem to have forgotten. We are profligate in our material acquisitions and in their disposition. (Witness the growing mountains of toxic electronic waste that are almost as hard to be rid of as spent nuclear fuel.) Saving for a rainy day is not the meme it … Continue Reading
The purpose of the [Immigration and Nationality Act is] to prevent an influx of aliens which the economy of individual localities [cannot] absorb. . . . Entrepreneurs do not compete as skilled laborers. The activities of each entrepreneur are generally unique to his own enterprise, often requiring a special balance of skill, courage, intuition and knowledge. . . . The … Continue Reading
“U.S. immigration law is like stratified rock, revealing layer on layer of Congressional accretions laid down over many years, with the superstructure upended in tectonic shifts triggered by the baffling and contradictory interpretations of multiple agencies and courts.”
Nothing of substance has changed since I offered that post last August, save for a groundbreaking election that reversed years of Republican opposition … Continue Reading
Steadfastly opposing a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants, the anti-immigration crowd has long trumpeted an array of related memes:
Why don’t they just get into line like everyone else? Why don’t they wait their turn? Why don’t they just follow the law? Why should we reward lawbreakers who disrespect our laws? Why should those here illegally be treated as… Continue Reading[Blogger’s note: Today’s guest blog is by my friend and scholarly colleague, Nathan Waxman. Nathan revisits an issue he first considered eight years ago in this space when he bemoaned the increasingly poor quality of ethnically authentic food in New York City, and laid the blame upon our immigration laws. Having suffered through several more years of culinary displeasure, … Continue Reading
Bipartisan outrage erupted in the House last week, with usually loyal Republicans among the most furious and outspoken in the GOP-controlled chamber. Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican, chastised House leaders for conduct that is “absolutely inexcusable . . . absolutely indefensible.” Declaiming that “we cannot just walk away from our responsibilities,” King said that “anyone . . … Continue Reading
As Republicans join Democrats in contemplating reform of the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system, the final line of the Pledge of Allegiance (“with liberty and justice for all”) is the best place to start.
Revitalizing our broken and outdated 20th Century immigration laws to respond to the needs of 21st Century America will turn in large part on how we face … Continue Reading
The caramelizing of the American electorate manifested itself last Tuesday in sweet, polychromatic splendor. Clearly, American voters — especially the youth, and ethnic communities of Hispanic and Asian-Pacific origin — chose “leaders who are likely to welcome rather than reject our nation’s courageous and deserving immigrants.”
With the elasticity of a yoga master, former stalwarts for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) … Continue Reading
Congress has spread a table laden with reheated immigration delicacies, while still engaging in the usual posturing, pretend friendships and verbal fisticuffs.
In a spirit of convivial bipartisanship, the House on September 13 passed by a vote of 402-3 legislation the Senate had approved in August, S.3245 (“A bill to extend by 3 years the authorization of the EB-5 Regional … Continue Reading
“[A] riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” ~ Winston Churchill
The most quotable of British Prime Ministers could well have been talking about the American immigration system rather than describing Russia in 1939. U.S. immigration law is like stratified rock, revealing layer on layer of Congressional accretions laid down over many years, with the superstructure upended in … Continue Reading
With the dog days of an election year producing little more than frothy pundits regurgitating banal analyses of the day’s non-events, and seeing no near-term prospect of comprehensive immigration reform, I temporarily turned aside my wonkish ways.
While publishing two posts by guest authors, I time-shifted back to the supposedly halcyon years of my youth, the late 50s and early … Continue Reading
[Bloggers note: Today’s guest column is co-authored by two shining stars in the immigration firmament, Roxana Bacon and Esther Olavarria, who offer four innovative proposals for immigration reform conceived by their law students at the University of Miami Law School. The post is longer than usual but well worth your time.
The melding of insights from the immigration … Continue Reading
The federal government regularly auctions airwaves and drilling leases. Should it also auction humans? This is the startling question posed recently at a May 15, 2012 Hamilton Project conference in a paper, a slide presentation and the transcript of remarks offered by Giovanni Peri, an economics professor at the University of California (Davis). Prof. Peri provides an intriguing, … Continue Reading
“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer” ~ Alexander Pope, poet, satirist, and translator, “Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot”
I hesitate to criticize the Obama Administration’s immigration reform measures, having urged long ago that half a loaf, at least for now, will perforce suffice.
Hastily announced but untimely in … Continue Reading
“Youth! There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The old are in Life’s lumber-room. But youth is the Lord of Life. Youth has a kingdom waiting for it.”
Oscar Wilde, British author.
“Violence among young people … is an aspect of their desire to create. They don’t know how to use their energy creatively so they … Continue Reading
