USCIS Introduces Change of Address Online Function to Web
January 12, 2007
WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today launched a new web-based service allowing USCIS customers to submit change of address information online. All non-citizens in the United States are legally required to keep USCIS informed of any change of address within 10 days of their move by completing an Alien Change of Address Card (Form AR-11).
Individuals with a pending immigration case should also notify USCIS of any change of address. This will ensure that customers receive notices or decisions related to their case in a timely manner. “Not only is this a terrific service for our customers, in the long run it is a great cost and time saver,” said USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez. “USCIS is continuing to retool the agency to get as much efficiency from automation as possible.”
USCIS processes more than one million change of address requests each year. The new online service will reduce processing time and improve customer service by providing immediate confirmation that USCIS has received the updated address information. Overall, test users found the new online form convenient and simple to use.
This is the first phase of this online system. Phase two, which is projected to launch sometime in May, will include additional customer service features, including allowing applicants with a pending naturalization application to report their change of address online. Until then, those individuals should continue to contact USCIS by telephone at 1-800-375-5283 to report their change of address.
Before using the online change of address tool, users should have the following information available:
- USCIS receipt number (If you have a pending case with USCIS),
- New and old addresses,
- Names and biographical information for family members for whom you have filed a petition, and
- Date and location (port of entry) of your last entry into the United States.
USCIS will continue to accept change of address cards through the mail. Change of Address online is available on the UCSIS web site at:
http://www.uscis.gov/AR-11.
– USCIS
Deporting a Model Noncitizen
Washington Post
Thursday, December 7, 2006
Marina Alvarez came by herself to the United States from El Salvador at age 16. Fleeing sexual abuse, she was smuggled across the Mexican border to San Diego by bus. She knew no one. She learned English by working in hotels and restaurants in the Washington suburbs. She worked days, nights, weekends.
Last spring, she thought she finally had made it: She bought a house in Howard County for herself and her two U.S-born children. The closing was to be on a Monday. On the previous Saturday, she was heading home from work at the Chesapeake Bay Seafood House in Arundel Mills when police pulled her over for following another car too closely. When the officer checked her out, up popped a decade-old arrest warrant from federal immigration authorities.
Alvarez -- pregnant, with 8-year-old Keyla and 11-year-old Brian waiting for her at home -- was sent to a detention center in Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore, where she remains today, nearly six months later.
The U.S. government expects to deport Alvarez, who is 29, sometime soon. If she is sent back to her native land, she says, she will not take her children with her. Keyla and Brian know no one in El Salvador, speak little Spanish and have a legal right to stay in the United States. "Here, they have a future, an education," Alvarez tells me. "There, nothing."
One possible solution is to send them back where Alvarez came from. Another is to put the children's interests first and let the family stay because the kids are U.S. citizens. Both approaches sound easy, but both are deeply flawed.
Marina Alvarez did everything Americans want immigrants to do -- except arrive legally. She never got into trouble, she worked, paid taxes, got involved in her children's schooling.
"She worked her way from homelessness to self-sufficiency," says Veronica Peterson, Alvarez's former child-care provider, who has taken in Keyla and Brian without compensation. Their father is out of the picture, gone. "No way I could help her if she was living an illegal's life, off the books. But she did everything she was supposed to. After all these years, I'd like to think my government would make an exception about her being here against the law."
Sorry, says Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which pushes for tougher sanctions against illegal immigrants: "Any parent convicted of any offense could employ that same argument, 'Don't hurt me because you're going to hurt my kids.' It's the parent's responsibility to deal with the consequences of her own illegal act."
The record is clear. After she applied for political asylum in the United States, Alvarez failed to show up at a hearing in 1996. In her absence, a judge ordered her deported. Alvarez says she never received notice of that hearing; the envelope containing the notice, marked "Attempted -- Not Known," sits in her file a decade later. But she did know the authorities were looking into her case: She'd attended an earlier hearing.
An immigration judge has ruled that the government fulfilled its obligation by sending the proper notice. Alvarez must go, the court said -- a decision she has appealed.
I asked Alvarez to consider her case as U.S. citizens might view it. What is the right thing to do?
"I don't know," she said. "I understand how people feel, and I cannot change their minds. People have lives and children, and they don't have any choice but to do what they have to for their children."
Alvarez says she was repeatedly raped by relatives starting when she was 10. She says she had no choice but to leave her home. Now, she says, she simply will not put her own children back in that environment.
Teachers at Running Brook Elementary School in Columbia have rallied around Alvarez. Administrators took in Keyla and Brian for a while. Of all the struggling parents Marta Goodman, the Howard County school's bilingual community liaison, has met, "Marina is my most admired," she says. "She has earned and deserves the right to be in this country."
The children, who get to visit their mother one day each month, are "angry," Peterson says. "Keyla wants to get serious about her education because she wants to become an immigration lawyer so she can protect other children from this. Brian is angry because he's not in a position to help his mom."
In custody, Alvarez spends a lot of time crying. "It's like your heart -- " she stops and hold up her fist -- "your heart is a sponge, and they have it, and they're squeezing." It hurts, but there's no question she broke the law.
Alvarez's lawyer, Peter Asaad, says the only way to prevent deportation is to convince judges that she never got notice of that 1996 hearing. He believes her case is a taste of what's to come if the government adopts a more aggressive deportation policy. "Those kids are citizens like anyone else," he says. "If they stay behind, they could become wards of the state."
That's possible, says U.S. immigration spokesman Dean Boyd. "We're obligated to carry out the judge's orders. That makes some people very unhappy, but that's the law. The children are paying for their parent's transgressions."
These kids, living with no parent, are already paying. Don't Americans have an obligation to care for Keyla and Brian as for any other citizens? "We do have obligations," says Mehlman of FAIR, "but I'm not sure they're greater than the parent's obligation to take care of their own kids." Mehlman suggests scrapping the law that grants citizenship to anyone born on our soil. But that promise is a big part of what makes this country a land of hope and opportunity.
There's no point in waiting for politicians to get serious about immigration reform; they will always choose the path of least resistance. Alvarez, meanwhile, will surely do what she has to do. If deported, she will find a way back to her children. She'll get back on that bus to San Diego. In a way, that's the glory of America: The real strivers will find their way here.
2008 Diversity Visa Lottery Registrations
Over 6.4 million entries for the 2008 Diversity Visa Lottery were received during the two-month electronic registration period, from October 4, 2006, through December 3, 2006. This is an increase from the more than 5.5 million applications received in the 2007 Diversity Visa Lottery. Taking into account dependents, there are more than 10 million participants in the 2008 Diversity Visa Lottery.
Most of the applications were from Africa and Asia with 41 percent of the total from Africa, 38 percent from Asia, 19 percent coming from Europe, and 2 percent coming from South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. The largest number of applicants came from Bangladesh (more than 1.7 million applicants) followed by Nigeria (684,735) and Ukraine (619,584). The number of winning entries by country will be available after the random lottery process is conducted next year.
The electronic registration process makes it easier for applicants to apply and continues to increase the Department's ability to screen against duplicate and other fraudulent entries. Anti-fraud technology using facial recognition and data mining will be used to eliminate duplicate cases.
Winners will be notified with a letter mailed from the Kentucky Consular Center confirming the name, date of birth, and country of chargeability for the registrant, as well as a time/date stamp when entries were registered. Notification will be sent to the winning entrants by mail only between April and July 2007 and will provide further instructions, including information on fees connected with immigration to the United States.
There have been several attempts to defraud Diversity Visa Lottery entrants. Lottery entrants selected as winners in the Diversity Visa random drawing are notified only by the Department of State's Kentucky Consular Center. No other organization or company is authorized by the Department of State to contact winning entrants.
Midterm Elections And Prospects For Comprehensive Reform
Benjamin Johnson of The Immigration Policy Center
Anyone who has been keeping close tabs on the immigration debate in Washington over the last five years can attest to the fact that it has all of the ingredients for the perfect political storm. For starters, U.S. immigration laws are so arcane that only a handful of legislators truly understand them. As a result, many policy makers search for simple, sound-bite driven solutions to problems that are far too complex for quick fixes. The complexity of the issue is made even more difficult by the fact that the immigration issue is not easily defined by party labels. Supporters and opponents of various immigration proposals come from both parties and span the political spectrum. This makes it difficult for party leaders to determine where, when, and how to discuss the issue. Finally, and perhaps most destructively, the topic of immigration evokes intense emotions that are easily stirred by politicians and pundits who play to the fears and insecurities of the electorate rather than deal with the issue honestly and pragmatically. It is the emotional nature of the debate that really has whipped the political winds into a fury over the last five years.
The failure of anti-immigration politicians to ride their emotional storm to victory in the midterm elections could set the stage for the new Congress to find a workable solution to the immigration troubles we face. Public relations gimmicks such as fences and walls along the border are likely to emerge again; but we also are more likely to see serious proposals to provide better and more efficient channels of legal immigration that fit with the economic realities of our times. We may also see the emergence of a long overdue debate about the steady erosion of due process protections for non-citizens and the complete absence of any national policy to facilitate the integration process for these new members of our communities. With any luck, the new composition of Congress may also set the stage for serious debate on a myriad of social and economic issues that, in the past, have falsely been linked to immigration. Blaming immigration for the nation’s shrinking middle class, stagnant wages, rising health care costs and dysfunctional schools has been a diversionary tactic that enabled last year’s Congress to avoid its responsibility for solving these problems. The early agenda announced by the incoming House Democratic leadership suggests that next year Congress may be more willing to face these problems for what they are: social and economic issues independent of immigration. Successfully separating these issues from the immigration debate raises the prospects for truly confronting these issues and for moving forward on comprehensive immigration reform.
Letting Some Hot Air Out of the Political Storm
The biggest gain for the immigration debate from the recent midterm elections may be the release of some of the congressional hot air that has kept the political debate over the subject long on rhetoric and short on substance. If nothing else, some of the most strident anti-immigration voices simply won’t be in Congress next year. Among the incumbents who lost their re-election bids were highly vocal anti-immigration firebrands like Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-5th/AZ), Rep. John Hostettler (R-8th/IN), and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). Moreover, the anti-immigration camp has not been replenished thanks to the defeat of vitriolic candidates such as Randy Graff of Arizona, Katherine Harris of Florida, or Rick O’Donnell in Colorado. Of course, some strident opponents of immigration remain in Congress, such as Rep. Thomas Tancredo (R-6th/CO) and the now diminished ranks of his self-styled “Immigration Reform Caucus.” But the losses suffered by anti-immigration candidates will, hopefully, provide a much-needed respite from the demagoguery that has dominated the immigration debate for years.
Beyond the losses experienced by particular candidates, the political lessons of the election may have an overall moderating effect on the language used to frame the immigration debate. This year’s election put the anti-immigration spin machine to the test, and it largely failed. In many races, significant time and money was spent trying to use immigration as a wedge issue and pollsters on both sides of the aisle have acknowledged that there was almost no return on that investment. Exit polls indicate that even among voters who viewed immigration as a high priority issue, only a bare majority voted Republican. The polls also reveal strong support for a “comprehensive approach” to immigration reform, as opposed to the ”enforcement only” approach of immigration opponents. The lesson in all of this may be that the public wants more than just tough talk or a 700-mile fence to nowhere.
Attempting to use immigration as a wedge issue not only failed as a short-term electoral strategy, but also could carry with it serious long-term political consequences. Early polling numbers suggest that only 30 percent of Latino voters—who represent a large and growing share of the electorate—chose Republican candidates. This is a sharp decline from the 40 percent who voted for President Bush in 2004. The hard-line immigration stance taken by the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives was clearly a significant factor in this loss of support. This doesn’t imply that Latino voters are a monolithic voting bloc. Simply talking nice about immigration doesn’t win Latino votes any more than does memorizing a couple of phrases in Spanish for a campaign advertisement. However, Latino voters have consistently been more sensitive to the immigration issue than other voters. The massive demonstrations around the country in response to a proposal in the House of Representatives that would have turned undocumented immigrants into felons was clear evidence of a backlash against extremist immigration proposals. Politicians who are interested in appealing to Latinos will certainly have to think twice about using inflammatory immigration rhetoric as a means of winning votes.
Setting the Record Straight
Even with an improved tone to the debate, immigration reform will remain a difficult issue. Some Democrats are as uneasy about “guest worker” programs as Republicans are about providing a path to legal status for the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants now living and working in the United States. Many of the attitudes and opinions about immigration now prevalent both on and off Capitol Hill, however, have been shaped by the congressional record on the issue created over the last 12 years. Particularly in the House of Representatives, Congressional hearings on immigration have been used more for political theater than for any real attempt to provide meaningful information to members or the public. The House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims have showcased a parade of anti-immigration stalwarts over the years who consistently paint immigrants as criminals who do little more than drain public coffers, refuse to learn English, and take jobs from Americans. Over the past summer, the titles of some of the hearings on the House bill included “How Does Illegal Immigration Impact American Taxpayers and Will the Reid-Kennedy Amnesty Worsen the Blow?,” “The Reid-Kennedy Bill’s Amnesty: Impacts on Taxpayers, Fundamental Fairness and the Rule of Law,” and “Should We Embrace the Senate’s Grant of Amnesty to Millions of Illegal Aliens and Repeat the Mistakes of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986?”
The new House leadership ushered in by the last election offers some hope that new ideas and perspectives will be brought to bear on the immigration debate. Representatives John Conyers (D-14th/MI), the presumptive chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-18th/TX), last year’s ranking Democratic member in the House Subcommittee on Immigration, have been strong supporter of immigration-reform proposals far more comprehensive than the enforcement-only measures favored by their Republican counterparts. Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-16th/CA), who is in contention for Chair of the House Immigration Subcommittee, has also been an articulate voice for a sensible, workable immigration policy. This new leadership also is much more likely to take a second look at the due-process protections that Congress stripped from immigrants in 1996. For more than a decade, even legal immigrants have been subject to detention and deportation for offenses such as shoplifting and other minor offenses that the law defines as “aggravated felonies” for lawful permanent residents but not for U.S. citizens. Moreover, this law has been applied retroactively to crimes committed before it was even passed. The erosions of due process protections and the inhumane treatment of detained immigrants has been a stain on our judicial system that has been largely ignored by the Republican controlled Congress.
Confronting Rather than Confounding Major Social Issues
The rhetoric of anti-immigration politicians has resonated with some Americans because it offers an easy, though fundamentally flawed, explanation for the difficulties that many middle class American workers face. Immigration has been blamed for the shrinking middle class, stagnant wages, rising health care costs, dysfunctional schools and a host of other pressing social problems that weigh heavily upon most working families in the United States. But immigration has very little to do with these issues. The simple fact is that if you could wave a magic wand and make all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. disappear, and then wave the wand again to create enough native-born workers to replace them, those replacement workers would face the same challenges that immigrant workers face. Regardless of whether they are native or foreign born, these workers toil in jobs that offer no health insurance coverage. They live in neighborhoods that struggle to provide an adequate education to the children who live there. And they face growing wage inequalities in an economy that puts a premium on education and training. Immigrants are not immune to the problems that all workers face in the United States, but they did not create those problems.
By using immigrants as scapegoats for the nation’s various economic and social ills, anti-immigration extremists have deflected attention from remedies that might actually alleviate those ills, such as raising the minimum wage and expanding health care coverage for the uninsured. The new Congress appears to have the political will to tackle these issues head on rather than avoiding them by casting the blame on immigrants in the same way that the outgoing Congress has done.
A Difficult Road with Rich Rewards
The bottom line is that although the outcomes of the November 7 election were dramatic, the results are not likely to score an immediate victory for immigration reform legislation. The new Democratic controlled Congress, however, is in a much better position to be able to navigate this complex and politically divisive issue. If they are able to rise to the challenge, the rewards for the American public, and the U.S. economy, could be huge. The debate has opened some ugly wounds in communities around the country that desperately need to heal. Most Americans, though frustrated and angry about Congressional inaction on this issue, are proud of our tradition as a nation of immigrants. The clear message from the election is for Congress to stop the political rhetoric and get to work on creating a secure, reliable, and legal framework that will allow us to continue that noble tradition.
USCIS Announces that the H-2B Cap for the First Half of FY 2007 Has Been Reached
On December 5, 2006, USCIS announced that it had received a sufficient number of petitions to reach the congressionally mandated H-2B cap for the first six months of Fiscal Year 2007 (FY 2007). November 28, 2006 was the "final receipt date" for new H-2B worker petitions requesting employment start dates prior to April 1, 2007. USCIS will apply a computer-generated random selection process to all cap-subject petitions received on that date. Petitions not randomly selected and petitions received after the "final receipt date" which request a start date prior to April 1, 2007 will be rejected.
Petitions for workers who are currently in H-2B status do not count towards the bi-annual cap. In order to qualify as a "returning worker," the worker must have counted towards the H-2B numerical cap between October 1, 2003 and September 30, 2006.
ICE Raids Reveal Flaws in Current US Immigration Policy
WASHINGTON, DC - "Raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials at meat-processing plants around the country yesterday clearly point out that our immigration system is broken and that America needs comprehensive immigration reform right now," said Carlina Tapia-Ruano, President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). "By not having a reasonable immigration policy in place, we have created a system that practically begs for people to break the law."
AILA believes that what America needs is an immigration policy that allows companies to fill jobs with willing legal workers. A reasonable, orderly worker program would go far in helping to eliminate the dangerous human smuggling and border crossings that currently plague our system, and would also alleviate such related crimes as the use of false social security numbers. In addition, such a policy would significantly diminish illegal immigration by creating a legal avenue by which people could enter the U.S.-something that barely exists today. In fact, current U.S. immigration law provides just 5,000 annual permanent visas for low-skilled "essential" workers, versus an estimated annual demand for 500,000 such workers.
"Once again yesterday's action by the federal government doesn't really address the deep problems plaguing our immigration system," stressed Tapia-Ruano. "AILA's hope is that when the new Congress convenes in January, it will act quickly and enact some type of comprehensive immigration reform."
AILA also calls upon ICE to ensure that the rights of the workers being rounded up are protected, and that attention be paid to the safety and welfare of those workers' children. "Please do not forget the tenets of due process that underlie our entire legal system, or the compassion and caring for the welfare of children that underpin American society," urged Tapia-Ruano.
THE IMMIGRATION SERVICE'S PILOT PROGRAM "DORA" COMES TO OKLAHOMA
Special Information on new mandatory requirements for filing Applications (Form I-485) for Permanent Residence ("Green Card") for certain persons now living in Oklahoma.
Effective November 20, 2006, if you were residing within Oklahoma, you must follow the procedures below when submitting your application based on:
1) A family relationship with an immediately available immigrant visa;
2) A Diversity Visa lottery selection; or
3) A Special Immigrant status, excluding religious workers.
Scheduling of appointment to file Form I-485 in person.
If you are filing the Form I-485 based on the criteria specified above, you must file in person at the USCIS office in Oklahoma City. To file in person, you must obtain an appointment through InfoPass, an online immigration service appointment request system. Once a date and time for the appointment has been obtained, you must print the appointment notice, which shows the time, date and location of the appointment, and present it when you appear in person to file Form I-485.
WARNING: IF ARE NOT IN A LEGAL VISA-NONIMMIGRANT STATUS AT THE TIME YOU APPEAR AT YOUR APPOINTMENT AND THE USCIS DETERMINES YOU ARE INELIGIBLE OR OTHERWISE DISQUALIFIED TO RECEIVE PERMANENT RESIDENCE STATUS, YOU MAY BE TAKEN INTO CUSTODY AND/OR PLACED IN REMOVAL-DEPORTATION PROCEEDINGS AT THAT TIME. A BOND MAY OR MAY NOT BE SET TO ENABLE YOU TO BE RELEASED FROM JAIL UNTIL YOUR IMMIGRATION COURT PROCEEDINGS ARE CONCLUDED.
Documents to bring to the Infopass appointment.
At the InfoPass appointment, you must bring the following documents:
1) Form I-485 with supporting documentation and/or evidence of eligibility (e.g. Form I-797, Notice of Action, or Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, or Form I-360, Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant, if applicable, Form G-325A, Biographic Information, Form I-693, Medical Examination of Aliens Seeking Adjustment of Status, Form I-864, Affidavit of Support, etc.); and
2) Required fees in the form of a cashier’s check or money order made payable to Department of Homeland Security or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Note: If you do not also file an application for employment authorization and/or permission to travel if eligible, and the approval of your green card application is delayed past the USCIS's 90 day target date, you will have to wait and additional 90 days or more from the dates when you do actually file such applications.
DHS and DOS Issue Final Rule on First Phase of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative
The Federal Register published a joint DHS/DOS notice of a final rule on the first phase of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI). As of January 23, 2007, all U.S. citizens and nonimmigrant aliens from Canada, Bermuda and Mexico will be required to present a valid passport at air ports-of-entry when departing from or entering the U.S. from within the Western Hemisphere. The final rule differs from the August 11, 2006, Federal Register Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which also proposed changes in documentation requirements for travelers arriving by sea. Documentation requirements at sea ports-of-entry under the WHTI will be addressed in a future rulemaking.
Immigrant legislation strategy is plotted
Kennedy, McCain, 2 congressmen meet
By Jerry Kammer
The San Diego Union Tribune, December 9, 2006
Washington -- Two of the most liberal members of Congress met with two of their most conservative colleagues this week to revive immigration legislation that passed the Senate but was throttled by House Republican leaders who resisted its attempt to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants.
“The plan is to bring the bill up in late winter,” said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a conservative stalwart who attended the meeting in the office of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. The other participants were Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.
The strategy session Wednesday came amid speculation about how the dynamics of the immigration debate might change, if at all, when Democrats take control of the House and Senate next month.
Flake said that Kennedy, who will be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee, wants to let the new Congress deal first with issues such as the war in Iraq and proposals to raise the minimum wage.
“Then he'll be ready to go” with a new version of the bill that the Senate approved in April.
Republicans ran the show in both houses of Congress then, and passionate divisions in their ranks over immigration policy became a dominant feature of the debate. Democrats, particularly in the House, were mostly content to sit back and enjoy the stalemate, even as they campaigned against the “do-nothing Republican Congress.”
Now Democrats face the hazards of immigration politics.
Immigration-law changes are conspicuously absent from the legislative agenda laid out by incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Observers here say it will be difficult for Pelosi, D-San Francisco, to honor her campaign-season pledge to work for a new comprehensive immigration law without splitting a caucus that includes freshly elected Democrats who vowed to secure the border and crack down on illegal immigration.
The November midterm elections seemed to send mixed messages.
In a cliffhanger contest, Arizona Rep. J.D. Hayworth, a conservative Republican and strident foe of illegal immigration, was defeated by Democrat Harry Mitchell.
Immigration advocates such as Ben Johnson of the Immigration Policy Center say Hayworth's defeat showed that immigration “did not turn out to be the firebrand issue that some people thought it could be.”
But immigration restrictionists point out that Mitchell made getting tough on immigration the centerpiece of his campaign. They also say Mitchell cleverly used the issue against Hayworth, saying his Republican opponent was part of a political regime that wasn't competent enough to stop the hundreds of thousands of immigrants that sweep across Arizona's southern border each year.
While Mitchell said he favored legal status for long-established immigrants, he insisted that immigration policy can be fixed only by “members of Congress who are willing to enforce the law, produce real immigration reform and stop playing politics with the issue.”
That enforcement-heavy approach is fine with immigration advocates as long as it is part of a package that provides permanent legal status to those who are beckoned across the border by agriculture, restaurant, construction, landscaping and janitorial jobs. The number of illegal immigrants in the United States is estimated to be at least 11 million.
Immigrant-rights advocates, along with their allies at the National Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations, also support a proposal to provide hundreds of thousands of low-wage workers every year for employers who demonstrate that they are unable to find Americans to fill the slots.
While McCain and Kennedy describe this as a “temporary-worker program,” the legislation they sponsored would put the workers on a path to citizenship.
At a time of anxiety about the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs, the McCain-Kennedy bill's efforts to import low-wage labor has drawn the anger of critics across the political spectrum. That is why Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates immigration restrictions, predicts Pelosi will be reluctant to get behind a proposal that could endanger the new Democratic majority.
“Nancy Pelosi knows the Democrats are on probation for the next two years,” Krikorian said.
He predicted that Pelosi would back less ambitious immigration change, such as a plan to provide legal status to undocumented students, rather than take on the explosive issue of mass legalization, which critics condemn as an amnesty that would spawn more illegal immigration.
But Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which advocates for immigrant rights, argues that next year will be pivotal because of the presidential race that follows.
“I think that once we hit primary (election) season, controversial issues get a lot harder to do,” Sharry said. “Everybody I talk to says 2007 is the window of opportunity.”
Pelosi was noncommittal this week on whether the House would take up immigration legislation. She sought to deflect some of the responsibility to the White House, suggesting that she expects President Bush to offer more specifics than his call to “match willing worker with willing employer.”
“That's up to the president,” Pelosi said. “We want to work closely with him because it has to be comprehensive and bipartisan.”
President Bush's political advisers, meanwhile, have acknowledged that revamping immigration law may be necessary to shore up sagging support for Republicans among Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group. Republicans received just 30 percent of the Hispanic vote this year, down from 44 percent in 2004.
Texas Comptroller Concludes that Undocumented Immigrants Provided Substantial Financial Benefit to State Economy
The Office of the Comptroller for the state of Texas this month released a report detailing the net financial benefit provided to Texas by undocumented immigrants. The report concludes that these undocumented immigrants contributed $17.7 billion to the gross state product of Texas, exceeding by nearly half a billion dollars the amount spent by the state for education, healthcare and other services to such immigrants. These findings directly contradict the conclusions of two recent reports which found the costs of undocumented immigrants to exceed revenue. The Comptroller attributes this discrepancy partly to the fact that at least one, if not both of those reports relied on population estimates based on outdated data from 1994, as opposed to the current, more accurate data used in the Comptroller's report.
Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the Texas Comptroller, stated that this report marks "the first time any state has done a comprehensive financial analysis of the impact of undocumented immigrants on a state’s budget and economy, looking at gross state product, revenues generated, taxes paid and the cost of state services." She added that "(t)he absence of the estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our gross state product of $17.7 billion. Undocumented immigrants produced $1.58 billion in state revenues, which exceeded the $1.16 billion in state services they received." The report identifies education as the largest cost factor spent on state services for the undocumented, while sales tax and other consumption taxes and fees constituted the largest share of revenue generated by this group.
You can find the full report on the Texas State Legislature's website.
TAXING UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS: SEPARATE, UNEQUAL, AND WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
Francine J. Lipman
Note: The following is an excerpt from the introduction to the article as published in American Bar Associations The Tax Lawyer. Author citations have been omitted for brevity.
Associate Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law; University of California, Santa Barbara, B.A. 1981; San Diego State University, M.B.A. 1989; University of California, Davis, J.D. 1993; New York University, LL.M. 1994. A draft of this Article was presented at the 2006 Conference of Western Law Professors of Color in San Diego, California and the 2006 Western Region American Accounting Association Meeting in Portland, Oregon. The author thanks Michelle Dalton (’05) and Sean M. Stegmaier (’06) for their expert tax research, skillful editing assistance, and valued camaraderie. The author also gratefully acknowledges research support from Chapman University School of Law and her affiliation with the George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics. This Article is dedicated to Rose Lipman, my grandmother, who continues to amaze me with her phenomenal strength and courage even in her 100th year of life.
INTRODUCTION
Americans believe that undocumented immigrants are exploiting the United States economy. 1 The widespread belief is that “illegal aliens” 2 cost more in government services than they contribute to the economy. 3 This belief is undeniably false. “[E]very empirical study of illegals’ economic impact demonstrates the opposite . . . : undocumenteds actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services.” 4 Moreover, undocumented immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; 5 filling millions of “essential worker” positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity, and lower costs of goods and services; 6 and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs. 7 Seventy-four percent of economists surveyed have concluded that undocumented immigrants have had a positive impact and 11% have concluded that undocumented immigrants have a neutral impact on the U.S. economy. 8
Documented and undocumented immigrants have played a vital role in this country’s economy and development since its colonization. 9 Immigrants “voted in the United States and even held public office from the colonial era through the 1920s.” 10 “[N]either the Constitution nor common law jurisprudence present a bar” to extending voting rights to noncitizens and principles of democracy and equal protection actually support it. 11 For many years the right to vote was based upon property ownership, not citizenship, because “property owners, including noncitizens, pay taxes and thus they too should have the right to vote.” 12
Undocumented immigrants, like all U.S. citizens and residents, are required to pay taxes. 13 Despite Americans’ historically strong opposition to taxation without representation, undocumented immigrants have not enjoyed the right to vote on any local, state, or federal tax for almost 80 years, except in rare and unusual cases. 14 Nevertheless, each year undocumented immigrants add billions of dollars in sales, excise, property, income, and payroll taxes—including Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment taxes—to federal, state, and local coffers. 15 Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants file annual federal and state income tax returns. 16
Yet undocumented immigrants are barred from almost all government benefits, 17 including food stamps, 18 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, federal housing programs, 19 Supplemental Security Income, Unemployment Insurance, 20 Social Security, Medicare, 21 and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). 22 Generally, the only benefits federally required for undocumented immigrants are emergency medical care, which is subject to financial and category eligibility, 23 and elementary and secondary public education. 24 Many undocumented immigrants will not even access these few critical government services because of their ever-present fear of government officials and deportation. 25
Undocumented immigrants living in the United States are subject to the same income tax laws as documented immigrants and U.S. citizens. 26 However, because of their status most unauthorized workers pay a higher effective tax rate than similarly situated documented immigrants or U.S. citizens. 27 Yet, these workers and their families use fewer government services than similarly situated documented immigrants or U.S. citizens. 28 Moreover, unauthorized workers have been denied remedies by the U.S. Supreme Court under the National Labor Relations Act 29 and may have difficulty receiving protection under wage and hour, anti-discrimination, and workers’ compensation laws. 30 As a result, undocumented immigrants provide a fiscal windfall and may be the most fiscally beneficial of all immigrants. 31
Despite their net positive contribution to public coffers, hundreds of thousands of immigrants enter the United States each year without documents because of impracticable quota and labor certification requirements. 32 These immigration restrictions combined with the additional tax or “tariff” on undocumented immigrants are inconsistent with an economically efficient immigration policy. 33 Moreover, the high effective tax rate imposed on the poorest undocumented working families relative to their less unfortunate friends and neighbors is inconsistent with fundamental tax policy. 34 This Article will describe and analyze the separate, unequal, and unrepresented federal taxation of undocumented immigrants.
Part II provides a brief description of the demographics of undocumented immigrants. This description provides a foundation for the tax analysis. Part III describes the tax issues most commonly faced by typical undocumented immigrants and their families. The tax analysis includes a description of the separate and unequal treatment of undocumented immigrants under the EITC and the child tax credit (CTC).
Part III includes a description of the new uniform definition of a “qualifying child” and its implications for undocumented immigrants for calendar year 2005 and thereafter. While this new definition of qualifying child simplifies the application of the dependency exemption deduction, the EITC, and the CTC, it comes at a significant cost for some undocumented families.
Part IV presents the inconsistencies of the separate and unequal treatment of undocumented immigrants with regard to fundamental tax and immigration policies. Finally, Part V summarizes proposals to make the tax treatment of undocumented immigrant families more consistent with fundamental tax policies and economically efficient immigration policy. And perhaps most importantly, these proposals are true to “principles of human dignity and human solidarity . . . .” 35
Published by
Section of Taxation, American Bar Association
With the Assistance of
Georgetown University Law Center
Democrat warns firm about firing staff based on 'no-match' letters from the SSA
By Jerry Seper
The Washington Times, December 1, 2006
A major Cincinnati company threatened with criminal sanctions by a key House Democrat if it terminates any of its 32,000 employees over the validity of their Social Security numbers says it hasn't fired anyone.
Mike Wallner, a spokesman for Cintas Corp., says Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson's warning letter 'came out of the blue,' and that the congressman has not returned calls to discuss the matter.
'All employers, including Cintas, have a legal obligation to ensure that all employees are legally authorized to work in the United States,' said Mr. Wallner, whose company is the nation's largest uniform supplier. 'Cintas has not and will not fire anyone simply because an individual has a mismatch problem with the Social Security Administration (SSA).'
Mr. Wallner said about 400 Cintas workers have received 'no-match' letters from the SSA -- issued when a person's name and Social Security number on payroll records do not match. They have been given two months to correct the problem and then would be put on administrative leave until the matter is resolved.
Mr. Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee and its expected next chairman, warned the company in a letter Nov. 2 that it could be charged with 'illegal activities in violation of state and federal law' if any employees are terminated because they gave incorrect Social Security numbers to be hired.
'It is my understanding that hundreds of Cintas' immigrant workers have received these letters,' Mr. Thompson wrote. 'I am extremely concerned about any potentially discriminatory actions targeting this community.'
In June, President Bush proposed guidelines to make it easier for employers to verify workers' eligibility and continue to hold them accountable for those they hire. That announcement was followed up by Homeland Security with the June 9 issuance of proposed regulations that include setting guidelines for companies when handling SSA no-match letters. A required 60-day public comment period has passed, but the proposal remains in limbo.
Mr. Thompson, whose office did not return calls for comment, has described the proposed no-match policy as a threat to workers who fail to reverify their Social Security information and, in the letter, said their termination could put Cintas in violation of federal law. He also said that before the proposal becomes law, it must go through a rule-making process, 'which could radically change the regulation or kill it all together.'
The seven-term congressman is among a number of immigration activists, labor organizers, employers and politicians opposed to the new regulation, including Unite Here, a union representing the 450,000 members of the former Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and the former Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The EEOC has that under the proposal, employers might decide simply to terminate their workers after the receipt of no-match letters for reasons that may be discriminatory, while the Chamber of Commerce has said it would allow the use of letters 'as a means to enforce immigration laws against employers.' Unite Here officials, who are trying to organize Cintas workers, have accused the company of targeting employees involved in the union.
But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the proposal gives 'U.S. businesses the necessary tools to increase the likelihood that they are employing workers consistent with our laws.' He said it also would help 'identify and prosecute employers who are blatantly abusing our immigration system.'
What does child face if parents deported?
2006 Houston Chronicle
Q: How many U.S.-born children are left behind when their illegal-immigrant parents are deported?
Randy Capps, a senior associate researcher at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., says no researcher has looked into the question.
But in a recent study titled "Immigration and Child and Family Policy," he found the potential pool is large.
In the United States, one in five children has an immigrant parent. In Texas, the figure is one in four.
An estimated one-third of those immigrant parents are thought to be undocumented — meaning that across the country, about 3 million to 5 million children risk a parent's deportation.
Q: Can't parents argue that they shouldn't be deported because their American children need them here?
Before the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, if undocumented parents could prove to a judge that their deportation would hurt a U.S. citizen family member, the judge could let them stay.
But the act made deportation automatic. Capps said that change added tens of thousands of deportations per year.
The number of deportations jumped from about 40,000 a year in the mid-'90s to 204,000 in 2005.
Q: What happens to children when the parents are deported?
Carl Rusnok, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said children are rarely left behind, although he has no statistics. "Normally, the parent takes the kids with them," he said.
He explained the agency's standard procedure:
"If ICE knows that a single parent is being deported, they give the parent the option of having the children deported with them, at ICE's expense.
"If not, they inform (Child Protective Services), and that organization makes the necessary arrangements.
"Of course," he said, "this requires the parent to inform ICE agents that they have children."