The Council on Foreign Relations has published this article titled “Parsing U.S. Immigration Reform,” which provides an excellent overview of current events affecting US immigration policy. Pay attention to the embedded links for more detailed information.
USCIS has updated their study materials for the naturalization English and civics tests. You can access the new materials here.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44981872/ns/us_news-life/
Not to be sardonic about it, but isn’t this exactly what everyone thought would happen in the beginning? No surprises here…
Today has seen the largest number of immigration-related news posts in recent memory, mainly due to President Obama’s focused address today in El Paso, Texas. CNN, MSBNC, CSM, all the TV networks, and even the BBC have weighed in on the import of his speech. In summary, all sides agree that the current system is “broken” but disagree on the effectiveness of border security. I’m not weighing in at all until I something actually happens. No offense to the President, who I agree with on some points but disagree with on others, but nothing said really matters until it is reduced to legislation and enacted into law. Until then, there are 12+ million residents in limbo.
President Obama addressed a number of immigration-related issues at his recent townhall meeting at the Facebook headquarters in Silicon Valley. Here are some excerpts.
On the DREAM Act:
For those of you who aren’t familiar, the DREAM Act is — deals with a particular portion of the population, kids who were brought here when they were young by their parents; their parents might have come here illegally — the kids didn’t do anything. They were just doing what kids do, which is follow their parents. They’ve grown up as Americans. They went to school with us or with our kids. They think of themselves as Americans, but many of them still don’t have a legal status.
And so what we’ve said is, especially for these young people who are our neighbors, our friends, our children’s friends, if they are of good character and going to school or joining our military, they want to be part of the American family, why wouldn’t we want to embrace them? Why wouldn’t we want to make sure that — (applause.) Why wouldn’t we want to make sure that they’re contributing to our future?
The president remarked that the United States is “both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws,” acknowledging that our historical emphasis on immigration needs to be handled in the context of an orderly system.
He continues:
So what we’ve said is let’s fix the whole system. First of all, let’s make the legal immigration system more fair than it is and more efficient than it is. And that includes, by the way, something I know that is of great concern here in Silicon Valley. If we’ve got smart people who want to come here and start businesses and are PhDs in math and science and computer science, why don’t we want them to say?
Being in Silicon Valley, his focus on highly-skilled workers is understandable. He did address unskilled workers already here:
And what I’ve said is they did break the law; they came here — they have to take responsibility for that. They should pay a fine. They should learn English. They should go to the back of the line so that they don’t automatically get citizenship. But there should be a pathway for them to get legalized in our society so they don’t fear for themselves or their families, so that families aren’t separated.
I’m not sure what he means by “the back of the line” but I think everyone agrees there must be a pathway. That’s comprehensive immigration reform. That’s family unity. What we need are specifics. I haven’t heard any proposals lately.
One of the topics I often explain, typically during initial consultations, is under what circumstances will a Maryland court grant a divorce. I thought it might be helpful if I posted here the very few grounds there are. Referring to the Maryland Family Law Article section 7-103, they are:
That’s it. Number 4 above is referred to as a no-fault divorce as it does not require a showing of misconduct on anyone’s part. Until recently there were two flavors fo no-fault divorce based on how the separation occurred. If it was voluntary by both parties, the term of separation need only be 1 year. If it was involuntary as to any party, it’s 2 years. The Maryland State Legislature recently collapsed these two into a single ground — 12 month separation — with no showing of voluntariness at all.
The rest are fault-based grounds. Some party is at fault (well, insanity isn’t exactly someone’s fault). Note that 2, above — Desertion — requires a period of separation of 1 year or more prior to filing. Similarly, 3 — conviction of a crime with a 3+ year prison sentence — requires that 12 months of that sentence to have already been served.
There are some other requirements to each of these grounds, and this is not an exhaustive discussion of each, naturally. But I find that often clients are surprised by the requirements Maryland has for obtaining an absolute divorce. Other states may have more grounds (or less, for example, by eliminating fault-based grounds altogether), or have lesser requirements (e.g., 6 month separation rather than 12).
Arizona’s controversial “show me your papers” law is ruled unconstitutional. AILA has a press release here. Way to go 9th Cir.
With less than 15 hours until the government runs out of money, it’s looking more likely that there will indeed be a shutdown. Obviously it’s unknown how long this shutdown will last. Immigration services are not considered “essential” but because they are funded by those rather hefty filing fees, the service centers and local field offices may be able to remain open. According to AILA, however, some field offices are nevertheless putting together shutdown plans. At this point it’s unclear what the bottom line impact will be on pending cases. Obviously it would create a tremendous disruptions if days or weeks worth of interviews and biometrics appointments were cancelled and rescheduled. I’ll try to post updates as they come.
Read this for some international perspective on US immigration policy and the American Dream.
Here’s a fascinating look at the effects state immigration laws have had. Rather than stem “illegal” immigration, these laws apparently have done nothing but fuel anti-immigrant sentiment.