Immigration Dispute Stalls Tech Visa Bill
By Marilyn Geewax and Miriam A. Garcia
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution
Washington --- Hispanic leaders and high-tech employers called on CongressWednesday to pass stalled legislation to create more visas for highly skilled foreign workers. But that's where the agreement ended. Technology executives, saying they are desperate for workers, want a ''clean'' bill that does just one thing: expand the H-1B visa program to allow more computer-savvy workers into this country for up to six years. ''An enormous number of jobs are going begging in the United States,'' said William Archey, president of the American Electronics Association, atrade group. ''There is an extraordinary need for the high-tech industry to have an increase in the H-1B visa program.'' But at a separate press conference on Capitol Hill, a coalition of groups involved with Latin American immigration issues said Congress should approve H-1B legislation only if it:
Allows as many as 2 million undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States since 1986 to apply for legal residency. Permits immigrants who qualify for visas to remain in this country while awaiting resolution of their cases. Gives immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti treatment equal to that given to Cubans and Nicaraguans. ''It is unconscionable that U.S. senators and representatives would fast-track the H-1B visas without considering other immigration policies that have been pending for years,'' said Marisa J. Demeo, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. But tech executives said Latin American immigration issues should be considered separately because the need to hire skilled workers, such as computer programmers and engineers, is so urgent.
Senate Panel Votes to Let Border Patrol Add 1,000 Agents
By Steve Lash
Houston Chronicle
WASHINGTON -- The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved legislation to add 1,000 agents to the Border Patrol to fight drug smuggling and illegal immigration. Up to 600 more agents could be assigned to the Texas border if Congress
passes the bill, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said Wednesday. About 2,300 Border Patrol agents guard the Texas-Mexico border, the senator's office reported. But, even if the Senate measure passes, the proposed number of agents
could be sharply reduced by a House-Senate conference committee. The House this summer passed legislation to fund only 430 new agents, the number requested by the Clinton administration. Hutchison, however, expressed confidence the Senate proposal would be enacted. "We are bringing a major realignment of federal resources to the Southwest border that will take the burden off local law enforcement," she said. "The federal government is at last acknowledging the staggering law enforcement responsibilities that have been placed on states and localities as a result of Washington's failure to commit sufficient resources to border requirements." The Senate committee's call for $92.9 million to fund 1,000 more agents is
contained in budget legislation for the Justice, Commerce and State departments in fiscal year 2001, beginning Oct. 1.
The House-passed measure would provide $52 million next year for the Border Patrol, a division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In her testimony before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee in March, USCIS Commissioner Doris Meissner called the hiring of more agents a high priority. But she said the booming economy has made recruiting Border Patrol
agents difficult because of competition from other law enforcement agencies.
Portland USCIS Faces Review of Operations
A "top-to-bottom" audit is not related to complaints about treatment of foreigners at the airport, a spokesman says
By Richard Read
The Oregonian
Portland immigration officials, under fire for inspectors' conduct at the airport, face a "comprehensive, top-to-bottom review" of their operations. Greg Gagne, a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman in Washington, D.C., said Wednesday that the timing of the audit is coincidental. "It's absolutely unrelated" to the controversy over treatment of foreigners at Portland International Airport, Gagne said. Yet the audit, to be conducted in August by members of an elite corps from USCIS headquarters, will expose the embattled office to wide-ranging review. The report will remain confidential, but members of the public can submit comments during the audit.
The Portland USCIS office already faces extraordinary scrutiny as regional officials in Laguna Niguel, Calif., review the case of each foreigner rejected at the airport for admission to the United States. Business representatives continue to meet with Portland USCIS officials in a forum coordinated by the office of U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, R.-Wash. USCIS managers have promised to address Portland's unusually high rejection rates of foreigners and alleged arrogance and intimidation by inspectors.
Rejection rates have fallen recently, but complaints about inspectors persist. Bad publicity concerning the airport is one factor threatening Delta Air Lines' remaining flights between Portland and Japan.
The team of about 30 experts from the USCIS Office of Internal Audit will evaluate management effectiveness, efficiency and compliance with laws, regulations and procedures. USCIS Portland District Director David Beebe said that although the upcoming audit will be disruptive, he welcomes the thorough review. "I want to know if we're doing something wrong," Beebe said. Beebe, 55, presides over about 135 employees and a multimillion-dollar budget. Aloof and bureaucratic in public, the tall, solemn civil servant has held the position for 12 years. His by-the-book style has aroused the ire of congressional aides and representatives of companies who depend on quick, easy access for foreign businesspeople at the airport.
Beebe's operation has never undergone an audit of the type that will be conducted during one to two weeks beginning Aug. 15. The USCIS began thenational audit program about three years ago and is completing the first round of reviews of offices.
Auditors focus on areas that are "highly vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse or mismanagement" or have a high priority for the BCIS, according to an agency advisory issued in 1996. Offices considered "high risk" -- those with difficult missions, large backlogs or management problems, for example -- are inspected more frequently.
Members of the public who wish to send information to auditors may do so by mail to Kathleen M. Stanley, assistant director, USCIS Office of Internal Audit, 425 I Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20536. The phone number is 202-305-9337.
Generally about three months after a review, auditors send their draft reports to senior USCIS managers and to the offices they have inspected. Specific results are kept confidential, but information on abuses or useful new approaches is circulated throughout the BCIS. USCIS managers have implemented several reforms following the controversy in Portland. Except in aggravated circumstances, inspectors use guarded hotel rooms instead of jail cells for foreigners who can't fly home the same day they are denied entry. Western region inspectors have received newly condensed field guides and will undergo cultural sensitivity training as part of a national program on professional skills.
In 1994, the U.S. Justice Department declared USCIS Portland operations "relatively well managed" despite a report to the contrary in The Oregonian the year before. The department reviewed inquiries by USCIS auditors and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The upcoming audit was scheduled more than a year ago, Beebe said. He said the auditors would not compare rejection rates of foreigners in Portland with those of other USCIS districts. "I'm certain that's of no concern to them," Beebe said, "because they know that every port is unique unto itself."
Deportation Process a Concern for Panel
By Jason Hoppin
The Recorder
T hree federal judges had tough questions for both sides Friday in a suit alleging the Immigration and Naturalization Service violates the due process rights of immigrants in many deportation proceedings. The immigrants in question were once deported from the country, but have returned and, in some cases, established residency and families here. But the USCIS reinstated their removal orders under the Immigration Reform Act of 1996, with little or no administrative proceedings.
The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel -- Judges Stephen Reinhardt and Ferdinand Fernandez and Senior Judge William Canby Jr. -- sounded ready to hand each side a partial victory as they interpret Congressional votes aimed at tightening the country's borders. While skeptical of the petitioners' argument that the IRA could not be applied to those whose initial deportation orders precede 1996, the judges also had tough questions for the government, wondering whether the USCIS administrative process is constitutional. Under the IRA, those with prior removal orders are subject to the reinstatement of those orders with virtually no representation or hearings. The government argued Friday that immigrants who check a box stating they understand the order and waive the right to make a statement also waive their right to appeal the order. "That seems like a pretty strange bit of administrative law," Fernandez said during Friday's proceedings. Canby compared it to the end of a criminal trail, when the defendant is offered the chance to make a statement before sentencing. "They usually don't, but we still let them appeal," he said. Reinhardt put forward a hypothetical along the same lines: If a defendant pleads guilty to an arresting officer, does he then waive his right to a trial? The answer, Reinhardt said, is no. "You're entitled to the procedure, even if you're guilty."
Timothy McIlmail, an immigration attorney for the Justice Department, said comparing criminal trials to civil proceedings was to compare apples to oranges. But even if the petitioners were to get a hearing before a federal appellate court, the panel also wondered how the government expected it to rule on cases with virtually no administrative record. In court briefs, McIlmail argued that the Ninth Circuit "has held that where an alien does not challenge that he re-entered the United States illegally after deportation, the attorney general's reinstatement proceedings satisfy the requirements of due process." The judges seemed unswayed. "Why is it that in this area, a person gets virtually no review?" Fernandez asked. Another question central to Castro-Cortez v. BCIS, 99-70267, is the BCIS' application of the IRA's removal provision to immigrants whose removal orders preceded the enactment of the statute.
Marc Van Der Hout, of Van Der Hout & Brigagliano, made it a central question in the case. He argued the consolidated case on behalf of five petitioners, two of whom now live outside the United States. The wife of one was in court Friday, and the infant granddaughter of another began to cry midway through the hearing. "Thousands of individuals who are eligible to [change] their status in the United States to that of a lawful permanent resident . . . are prevented from moving forward with applications to do so out of fear of being summarily removed from the United States," Van Der Hout wrote in court briefs.
But the panel didn't seem ready to halt the retroactive application of the statute. Fernandez in particular said Congress' intentions were fairly clear. Instead, much time was spent arguing over interpretations of various statutes and language, leaving Reinhardt to joke: "Well, as usual, it's not clear what anything means."
Guest-worker Plan Calls for Many Changes
IMMIGRATION: Key provisions include a five-year permit for Mexican laborers.
The Orange County Register
Here are the main points of the Mexican-worker program proposed to a congressional committee chairman by a group of prominent Hispanics: Each temporary-worker permit would be valid for five years, with a two-year extension possible. Once the permit expires, workers would be eligible to apply for permanent-residency status. Undocumented immigrants already in the United States would be eligible if they are currently employed or have an offer of employment by a U.S. employer.
Mexicans not yet in the United States would be eligible if a U.S. resident or company is willing to sponsor them by guaranteeing that the future immigrant will not be a public charge and has a job offer in the works. U.S.-based employers would be allowed to interview and select prospective applicants at facilities in Mexico. All approved immigrants would receive an employment-authorization card that would identify them as program participants and grant them permission to travel between Mexico and the United States. It also would allow them to obtain a Social Security number, which they could use to apply for a driver's license. The program would not set a limit on the number of permits that are issued each year, but rather allow market conditions to determine the amount.