APNewsBreak: Immigration officials offer to shelve 7.5 pct of deportation cases under review - The Washington Post

APNewsBreak: Immigration officials offer to shelve 7.5 pct of deportation cases under review - The Washington Post


 SANTA ANA, Calif. — Immigration officials have offered to shelve 7.5 percent of deportation cases under a massive review of the backlogged U.S. system aimed at focusing on deporting more criminals, authorities said Tuesday.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has offered to temporarily suspend the deportation cases of roughly 16,500 people after reviewing more than 70 percent of the immigration cases pending as of mid-April, according to statistics released by the agency.
ICE officials said 2,700 cases have been shelved. The rest still require paperwork and background checks. It was not immediately clear how many immigrants had been told of the offer or how many had accepted it.
The Obama administration announced in August that roughly 300,000 deportation cases would be reviewed and non-criminals and those illegal immigrants who posed no public safety or national security threat would likely have their cases put on hold indefinitely.

Immigration turnaround offers chance for real solutions - The Washington Post

Immigration turnaround offers chance for real solutions - The Washington Post

According to the Pew report, there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States; six out of 10 are Mexican. The number of immigrants without papers has actually been falling. Wouldn’t this be a perfect time to take a deep breath and start talking about reasonable ways to engineer a more rational immigration policy?

Yes it would, but don’t hold your breath. Apparently, we’re going to have a lot of shouting without actually trying to find a solution. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of Arizona’s “driving while brown” law, which instructs police to challenge and, if necessary, apprehend anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. The law forbids racial profiling, but the truth is that it effectively guaranteesprofiling.

The administration argues that the state law usurps the federal government’s prerogative to set immigration policy. The court is expected to decide the case this summer, and the ruling’s impact may be less practical — since illegal immigration, I repeat, is already on the decline — than political.

click the link to see the rest of the OPED from Eugene Robinson

ImmigrationProf Blog: Almost 700,000 Naturalizations in 2011

ImmigrationProf Blog: Almost 700,000 Naturalizations in 2011

Naturalization report from USCIS:

U.S. Naturalizations: 2011

This report presents information on the number and characteristics of foreign nationals who became American citizens during fiscal year 2011.

In 2011, the total number of persons naturalizing was 694,193 (see Table 1 and Figure 1). The leading countries of birth of new citizens were Mexico (94,783), India (45,985), the Philippines (42,520), the People’s Republic of China (32,864), and Colombia (22,693). The largest number of persons naturalizing lived in California (151,183), Florida (87,309), and New York (76,603).

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/natz_fr_2011.pdf

Opinion analysis: Court rejects retroactive application of 1996 immigration law amendment : SCOTUSblog

Opinion analysis: Court rejects retroactive application of 1996 immigration law amendment : SCOTUSblog

I am a fan of this opinion...unlike many that the Supreme Court has been making lately or may be likely to make in the near future. On immigration, the court has a mixed record in recent years -- but the opinions are typically toward restricting the draconian effects of the "Immigration Reforms" passed by the Contract with America Congresses of the mid 1990s

When It Comes to Immigration, Privatization Can Kill - NYTimes.com

When It Comes to Immigration, Privatization Can Kill - NYTimes.com

I am going to keep on reposting these stories because this really is a travesty of our times. One hundred years from now historians will look back on this practice with shame. Click the link to see the NYT article.

*CORRECTION* USCIS Office of Public Engagement: Designation of Syria for Temporary Protected Status

*CORRECTION* USCIS Office of Public Engagement: Designation of Syria for Temporary Protected Status

Secretary Napolitano announced today the designation of Syria for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), based on deteriorating security conditions in Syria. The effective dates for the designation, as well as dates and procedures for the TPS registration process, will be detailed in a Federal Register notice that publishes next week. Applications should not be submitted until the designation becomes effective. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will be hosting a stakeholder engagement next week to discuss the process for filing TPS applications and to address questions and concerns related to the TPS application process. We appreciate your assistance in helping to inform the Syrian community in the U.S. about the TPS designation and look forward to hearing your input during the engagement next week.

It’s About Immigrants, Not Irishnesss - NYTimes.com

It’s About Immigrants, Not Irishnesss - NYTimes.com

By PETER BEHRENS

 ...excerpted here...

It’s embarrassing to listen to prosperous 21st-century Americans with Irish surnames lavish on Mexican or Central American immigrants the same slurs — “dark,” “dirty,” “violent,” “ignorant” — once slapped on our own, possibly shoeless, forebears. The Irish were seen as unclean, immoral and dangerously in thrall to a bizarre religion. They were said to be peculiarly prone to violence. As caricatured by illustrators like Thomas Nast in magazines like Harper’s Weekly, “Paddy Irishman,” low of brow and massive of jaw, was more ape than human, fists trailing on the ground when they weren’t cocked and ready for brawling.

Soon it was another people’s turn. During the 1890s, when hundreds of thousands of French-Canadians were quitting rocky farms in Quebec for jobs in New England textile towns, The New York Times wrote, “It is next to impossible to penetrate this mass of protected and secluded humanity with modern ideas or to induce them to interest themselves in democratic institutions and methods of government.”

It was bad enough to be invaded by unmoderns. But the real danger was in the numbers, because, as The Times went on, “No other people, except the Indians, are so persistent in repeating themselves. Where they halt they stay, and where they stay they multiply and cover the earth.”

I live in Maine, where these days Hispanics and Somalis, not French-Canadians, are the most visible immigrant groups. I wonder if our governor, Paul LePage, born in Lewiston, oldest of 18 children in a family of French-Canadian descent, ever came across that thoughtless article while formulating a raft of anti-immigrant policies.

After all, the governor’s grandparents were immigrants, members of a generation commonly treated as a despised minority in New England. From the Civil War through the 1950s, many if not most newly arrived French-Canadians looking for work in Maine’s mill towns or north woods were illegal immigrants. 

-----

Well said. Click the link to see the rest of the opinion piece.

Popular Manchester, NH Mayor Ted Gatsas is seeking permission from the State House to place a moratorium on any further refugee resettlement in NH's largest city. This is not unlike what had taken place previously in cities in Southern Maine. The claim is that the refugees are becoming a too large a burden on the social services provided by the city -- to date it seems to be only that -- a claim without evidence.

Given the racially charged vandalism which happened in Concord not long ago -- we should all take care not to further the impression that immigrants and people of color are not welcome in New Hampshire. I may differ with Mr. Behrens slightly when he says St. Patrick's Day is not about Irishness -- but I definitely agree that it is about immigrants. There really is nothing more fundamental to Irish-Americaness than the history of Irish immigration to this country. That "immigrantness" has been a difficult issue for every group that has come to our shores or passed our borders -- yet America has been enriched and strengthened by every new group that has made this their home. St. Patrick's Day is an excellent time to remember that.