It is always interesting to read what members of Congress think about key issues, in this case immigration.
Sen. Lott’s opinion was published in the Clarion Ledger, among other things he says:
As you know, I had hoped to pass a broader immigration reform bill this year. I saw the July immigration debate as an opportunity, not necessarily to get an ideal border security plan in place, but as a foundation on which to build Senate support for stronger border security than we now have.
A few hours ago we got reports from clients and media outlets in Los Angeles, about the big raids conducted by ICE and the Border Patrol, rounding up thousands of illegal aliens and processing expedited removals. This is just the beginning and the government is planning further raids before the holiday season in December.
Read more from the Herald Tribune here
Recently the Department of Labor announced that the permanent foreign labor certification program’s backlog has been eliminated, with nearly 95 percent of cases completed and the rest awaiting responses from employers. The BECs have begun a transition and shutdown phase that will continue through December.
I can say that this is excellent news for many of our applicants that were waiting for so long for the DOL to get the files out with certifications. I am just hoping that we the free time on the DOL’s hands they might just expedite PERM processing and handling to make it really an online experience.
It was actually a strange day for me today. After a hectic week trying to get most of our H2B visa cases ready for filing, I was actually dreaming about this at night. In my dream all H2B visas were gone on Monday morning and all the angry employers are burning tires in front of my office.
Well, when I arrived to the office on Monday, I realized that my dream has become a reality. No not the tires burning, but the H2B cap was reached. Many of the employers waiting so patiently to file for new temporary workers, will need to wait for April and loose million of dollars as a result. I was furious, but we need to start planning ahead and help the clients deal with this crisis.
Every year I hear the same complaints from our farmer clients, there are just not enough workers in this country to keep with the demand. What choice do they have but to hire illegal workers.
According to the Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey, 53 percent of the hired crop labor force lacked authorization to work in the U.S. in 2004-05. Worker advocates and grower associations agree the actual figure is probably closer to 80 percent.
Three-quarters of the hired farm work force in the U.S. was born in Mexico. And more than 40 percent of crop workers were migrants, meaning they had traveled at least 75 miles in the previous year to get a farm job, the survey showed.
Now a growing immigration raids is making life more difficult for everybody. flurry of immigration raids has some farmers in upstate New York worried about their ability to harvest all of their fruits and vegetables.
The farmers blame a growing immigrant farm labor shortage on a dramatic rise in immigration enforcement at a time when national security restrictions have already sharply curtailed attempts by foreign workers to gain lawful seasonal employment in the United States.
So verification systems are back. E-Verify (formerly known as the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program) is an Internet-based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration that allows participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their newly hired employees.
Few federal agencies are using the government’s own employment-verification system designed to prevent hiring illegal aliens, with just the Department of Homeland Security and a few other scattered offices having signed up.
That all changes next month, when the federal government takes the lead in trying to prove the system is user-friendly and works. Under a new directive, every new federal hire is required to be checked against E-Verify, the new name for a decade-old system known as the Basic Pilot Program that has become the backbone of many companies’ hiring process as they try to weed out illegal aliens.
The nice thing about working with immigrants is that they all have amazing stories to tell. Read this one, my favorite for the week. Click here to read
The Freedom of Information ACT allows every American Citizen the right to know what the government is doing. In my Immigration practice we often file FOIA requests to receive copies of clients older immigration files, to allow us to plan future filings more carefully. In recent years this tool has become a waste of time. FOIA applications are now pending for more than 12 months in some cases even years.
Congress is closer than ever to enacting the most important legislation to ensure open government and access to public institutions in over a decade — thanks to the perseverance of two leading members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sens. Patrick Leahy and John Cornyn.
The Senate approved the Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act, or OPEN Government Act, and the House passed its own version of FOIA reform. Advocates are encouraging Congress to send a bill to President Bush as soon as possible.
The OPEN Government Act contains a number of important provisions, but three problems addressed by the legislation are worth highlighting.
Non-citizens who reside in the U.S. for more than 183 days [generally] meet the definition of a ‘tax resident,’ or a ‘resident for tax purposes.’ They are subject to the tax laws as if they were citizens.
This appeared in the Wall Street Journal Today:
“… Illegal aliens probably pay very little state
Visa issues have seemingly become the No. 1 reason for overseas artists to stop their tours lately. The Wall Street Journal took a look at the increasingly difficult process they have to go through to get their paperwork in order. This fall, Immigration restrictions are stopping some popular United Kingdom acts from reaching U.S. borders. At least three anticipated tours by British artists scheduled for this month alone have been called off or pushed back because of musicians’ visa problems.
It seems that processing artist visas like the P’s and the O’s is becoming more and more difficult in the age of the internet. I see this in my practice representing young artists coming to perform in America. YouTube and myspace evidence is what I use, but it is not always easy to convince the USCIS adjudicators not familiar with these popular mediums.
Here is an example, Last fall, the British band Klaxons landed a spot at the CMJ music festival in New York, an annual showcase of new talent. But its visa request was delayed when immigration officials said they needed more evidence of the band’s longevity. About a week before its scheduled trip to the U.S., the band pulled the plug on the tour. The group waited another seven months to enter the U.S. Can you blame them!
Visa Lawyer Blog