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Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first Black president and the symbol of the anti-apartheid movement has passed away. Through untiring and ever vigilant efforts, Mandela would work through the hardest circumstances, including 27 years in prison to see apartheid end in South Africa. Because of his work, Mandela was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and elected as his country’s first Black President.

Nelson Mandela represents the virtues of those who work tireless to bring equality and justice to his country. He is quoted as saying “People tend to measure themselves by external accomplishments, but jail allows a person to focus on internal ones; such as honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, generosity and an absence of variety,” These values continued to show through his work fighting against apartheid in jail and the changes he tried implementing when he became president of his country.

What we can take from Nelson Mandela’s passing is that these virtues are important for accomplishing important changes in government and in society. The immigration reform movement stands for the kind of change that is necessary to benefit all Americans. The impact immigration has on our lives and in our communities is the kind of change that Mandela would strive for because of how many people and communities are affected by the changes that are truly needed. Let us follow Mandela’s example and continue to implore, to speak out, and to actively call on our government to pass immigration reform that Americans have been asking for.

If one recalls the earthquake from back in 2010 that hit Haiti, USCIS provided some relief options for Haitians affected by the earthquake, whether it was those currently living in Haiti or Haitians still in the United States. Recently, USCIS issued a statement regarding immigration relief options for Filipinos affected by Typhoon Haiyan. USCIS understands that a natural disaster can affect an individual’s ability to establish or maintain lawful immigration status in the United States. Therefore, Filipino nationals impacted by Typhoon Haiyan may be eligible to benefit from the following immigration relief measures:

Change or extension of nonimmigrant status for an individual currently in the United States, even when the request is filed after the authorized period of admission has expired;

Extension of certain grants of parole made by USCIS;

An eleventh hour deal was finally struck between Democrats and Republicans to reopen the government while they work out a long term fiscal budget for the federal government. The deal calls for the government to remain open until January 15, 2014 while Congress works on a long term budget over the next few months. The debt ceiling was also raised until February 7, 2014, meaning Congress spending and borrowing power remains in effect until that date. The impact of this deal has some very important, short term effects on some of the operations concerning our immigration matters. Some of these include the following:

– The Department of Labor is back in operation, meaning business employers can petition for immigrant workers again and that iCERT and PERM services are available.

– E-Verify is back in operation, meaning employers can verify their employees immigration statuses again

In recent news, despite the government shutdown, immigration reform is still on the minds of many who want that change to happen. Amid the political gloom of a government shutdown and the threat of default if a budget compromise is not brokered soon, immigration reform advocates are hardly basking in the momentum they enjoyed this summer. But backers of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants are keeping up the public fight in spite of a bleak outlook for legislative action this year.

Thousands descended on the National Mall on Tuesday, chanting “Si se puede” — “Yes we can”– as mostly Democratic lawmakers told them not to give up the push for reform. Despite the gridlocked political climate, many in attendance remained optimistic, but frustrated.

“I’m not sure when it’s going to, but I think it’s going to happen. We have momentum, like a snowball that is rolling,” said Juan Frias, a Fairfax, Va., a resident originally from Mexico. “But we know this will not be easy.”
“Congress needs to get their act together,” said Rebecca Diaz, a Puerto Rican who moved to Washington, D.C., one year ago. “I’m going to fight for immigration reform right now. Not in a year, not in five months, right now,” she said.

That fight meant a trip to jail for some, including some lawmakers. Eight House members outspoken about the immigration issue — including Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. — were among those arrested for civil disobedience during a march after the organized rally and charged with “crowding, obstructing, and incommoding” near the Capitol.

With the ongoing shutdown, the rally’s location on the National Mall was itself the subject of controversy. A week after World War II Honor Flight participants made national headlines for fighting for access to the shuttered national memorial honoring their service, critics said that immigration rights ralliers – including some who might be undocumented immigrants – should not be able to use space that would otherwise be closed because of the funding lapse.

The National Park Service granted the host organizations access to the area for “First Amendment activities.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., commended the park service for “bending over backwards” to ensure the rally took place on the National Mall, directly between the Washington Monument and the Capitol.

Legislative progress on a comprehensive immigration bill –once seen as on track to being signed by the president after a bipartisan Senate vote to advance it – has all but halted. House Speaker John Boehner declined to put the Senate-passed bill up for a vote, waiting instead on “piecemeal” legislation from GOP House members. A years-in-the-making effort by a coalition of bipartisan House members to create their own comprehensive bill gradually crumbled.

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With the U.S. Government shutdown looming, many are wondering how immigration will be directly impacted by U.S. Congress’ failure to pass a budget bill to keep our services in operation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association has passed on information regarding key services that will be directly impacted by the government shutdown. These key services directly affect business immigration the most with respect to employers being able to hire foreign workers because of the involvement of the Dept. of Labor in that process. The Dept of Labor put out this notice to practitioners and individuals who will be affected by the government shutdown:

“OFLC functions are not “excepted” from a shutdown and its employees would be placed in furlough status should a lapse in appropriated funds occur. Consequently, in the event of a government shutdown, OFLC will neither accept nor process any applications or related materials (such as audit responses), it receives, including Labor Condition Applications, Applications for Prevailing Wage Determination, Applications for Temporary Employment Certification, or Applications for Permanent Employment Certification. OFLC’s web site, including the iCERT Visa Portal System, would become static and unable to process any requests or allow authorized users to access their online accounts.”

Basically, the statement from the DOL is that many of the services that business immigration clients use to allow individuals to work in the U.S. will be placed on hold until the budget is resolved and appropriations are made to allow those functions to work again. As of tomorrow, no further services by iCERT and PERM’s websites will put a lot of those cases on hold until the U.S. Congress has resolved its budgetary concerns.