New York, October 2010
The United States Immigration Newsletter
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Immigration Courts Backlogged
 Atlanta, GA:
The immigration courts in Georgia are severely backed up. The Syracuse University recently conducted a study that documents the backlog of pending cases in the United States’ immigration courts. The study shows that this summer, Georgia immigration court back logs were at an all-time high, with 7,046 pending cases; most of them are
deportation cases. The immigration courts in Atlanta were so clogged up that the average case takes over a year to resolve. In all of the United States, nearly 250,000 cases were pending last June. That too, is more than ever before. Many of the people whose cases are pending are being kept at a detention center in Atlanta. In September of this year there were close to 1,900 inmates at the facility, each costing tax payers $60.50 a day. That means that the 1,900 pending cases locked up in the detention center costs taxpayers $114,345, per day. In order to reduce the record court back log, more immigration judges are being hired. In addition, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is dismissing some cases involving people who have not committed
serious crimes. Critics say that dismissing cases
is the same as
amnesty, and could encourage others to enter the U.S. illegally, but ICE officials say that they are just trying to save tax dollars by dismissing cases that are likely to end up being dismissed anyway.
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Americans Leave Farm Work to Immigrants
 Visalia, CA:
U.S. citizens, or permanent residents, are not interested in farm work. U.S. government statistics show that even
though unemployment rates are high, very few Americans apply for vacant farm-work positions; and those who do, rarely stay. One California farmer spent $3,000 this year, on advertisements for vacant positions trimming strawberry plants. The ads are to make sure foreign workers do
not get jobs at his nursery that U.S. citizens and residents want. But the $3,000 in advertising did not yield any American workers. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, more than half of all the people who work on United States farms are
illegal immigrants. And more than half of the legal farm workers are born outside of the U.S. The seasonal farm work often performed by foreign labor usually pays little more that minimum wage, something that according to economists is unlikely to attract U.S. citizens to apply for the jobs.
Meanwhile there has been much debate over whether Americans would apply if wages were higher. The United Farm Workers of America has campaigned to get Americans to take farm jobs. 8,600 has applied, 7 has started working in the field. According to the UFW, farm work is the third most dangerous job in the United States, with more than 25 fatal work accidents for every 100,000 workers. They suggest that increasing the number of foreign workers that are allowed to come and work legally in the U.S., for example under the H-2A
visa program, would improve working conditions over time, making Americans more interested
in agricultural work. |
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Texans Divided on Immigration Enforcement Issues
 Austin, TX:
People in Texas are fed up with illegal immigration, and favor laws like the new and controversial Arizona immigration law. However, considering that Texas is sharing borders with Mexico, some find the divide between those who favor tougher immigration laws and those who don’t, surprisingly even. A Texas newspaper poll has reviled that 53 percent of those registered to vote in Texas think that police should check that people they stop are in the United States legally. The divide is even more even when it comes to the question of changing the 14th Amendment, so that
a baby born to an illegal
immigrant
in the U.S. will not automatically get U.S.
citizenship.
45 percent of Texans are in favor of a change, while 43 percent are against it.
An American political science university professor says that while immigration
has been on Texans’ agenda for the past seven years, the debate has never gotten as heated as it has in other places. According to the poll, Texans are less in favor of Arizona-type immigration laws than people are in the rest of the United States. Part of the reason for this is that Texans are concerned that such laws will lead to racial profiling. Another political science professor says that Latinos have always been a part of the Texan community, and that people in Texas do not feel that there is a strong need for such an Arizona-type law. Both professors say that if the Republican Party in Texas were to push tougher immigration laws it could hurt them in the long run, as it could push away Latino voters. |
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Senate Stops Illegal Immigrant Student’s Path to Citizenship
 Washington, D.C.:
The United States Senate in September stopped a military spending bill from making it to final consideration. Attached to the bill as an amendment was, among other things, the DREAM Act, legislation that could give 726,000 students who are in the U.S. illegally, a chance at becoming citizens of the United States. The Dream Act was aimed at illegal immigrants who were brought illegally to the U.S. before the age of 16. After graduating with a four-year college degree, or doing two years of
military service, they would have an opportunity to seek residency and later citizenship in the U.S. Today, only documented immigrants can apply for citizenship after doing military service in the U.S. The vote to halt the bill in the Senate was divided along party lines, with the exception of three democrats voting for the halt. The bill could be brought up
for vote again at a later time. Republicans that voted against the military spending bill said that the
DREAM Act is not related to defense, and that it therefore should not be included in the bill. Another amendment to the military spending bill halted by the Senate was aiming to repeal the military’s policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” related to gays in the military. Many who oppose to the DREAM Act say it is a form of amnesty for illegal immigrants, and that it would be too costly for U.S. tax payers. Others call the DREAM Act a way to get resourceful and well-educated people a chance to contribute to the community, and to stop punishing young people for circumstances in their childhood that they had no control over. |
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Immigration Authorities Sued over Laptop Search
 South Bend, IN:
Several organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, have joined together in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). According to the lawsuit, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers confiscates electronic devices, such as
laptop computers, from travelers entering the U.S. from abroad. The lawsuit goes on to say that searches of electronic devices are executed without suspicion of any wrong doing, against the U.S. Constitution. Among the cases cited in the lawsuit is one where border control agents search the laptop
computer of a criminal defense attorney traveling from Mexico to Texas. Another case is about a freelance photographer whose files were scanned by officials at the U.S.-Canadian border. In a third case that is cited in the lawsuit against the DHS, border control agents seizes the computer of a graduate student traveling by train from Montreal in Canada, to New York. Authorities kept both the laptop computer and an external hard drive for 11 days. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson says in an e-mail that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection searches electronic media in a limited number of cases, in order to prevent that dangerous people or unlawful goods are brought in to the United States. A spokesperson for the lawyers say that anybody traveling to the U.S. from abroad could get the same treatment as the criminal defense attorney, the student and the photographer. The lawsuit claims that the CBP has searched the electronic devices of more than 6,500 people between October of 2008, and June of 2010. |
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Citizenship Services Receive $7.8 Million in Grants from USCIS
 Washington, D.C.:
At a Constitution and citizenship conference in Washington, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) handed out grants to 75 different community-based organizations from a 27 states and the District of Columbia. The total value of the grants is $7.8 million. Compared to last year, when the USCIS gave $1.2 million to 13 organizations, there has been a large increase in the size of the USCIS Citizenship and Integration Grant Program. The grant money is divided into two different grant programs. The Direct Services Grant Program aims at supporting local programs for citizenship educating, and at increasing
naturalization
services. The National Capacity Building Grant Program is meant to help national, regional, and state organizations use members and affiliates in the community to offer new citizenship
services on the local level. The grants
are meant to improve immigrants’ English skills and knowledge of U.S. civics (history and politics), as well as to prepare immigrants for the interview and the citizenship exam that are part of the naturalization process to become a citizen of the United States. The USCIS grant programs receive
their funds through the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2010. |
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