Texas Immigration Lawyer Blog

Political Battle on Immigration Shifts to States

New York Times by Julie Preston

"Legislative leaders in at least half a dozen states say they will propose bills similar to a controversial law to fight illegal immigration that was adopted by Arizona last spring, even though a federal court has suspended central provisions of that statute.

"The efforts, led by Republicans, are part of a wave of state measures coming this year aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration.

"Legislators have also announced measures to limit access to public colleges and other benefits for illegal immigrants and to punish employers who hire them.

"Next week, at least five states plan to begin an unusual coordinated effort to cancel automatic United States citizenship for children born in this country to illegal immigrant parents.

"Opponents say that effort would be unconstitutional, arguing that the power to grant citizenship resides with the federal government, not with the states. Still, the chances of passing many of these measures appear better than at any time since 2006, when many states, frustrated with inaction in Washington, began proposing initiatives to curb illegal immigration."

FALSE: U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith says border death toll is 28,000

  
Politifact Texas

"Reacting to the fatal shooting of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith of San Antonio said in a Dec. 15 news release that Brian Terry's death "is a sad reminder of the real-life dangers that Americans and our law enforcement agents face" in the southwestern United States.

"In the last five years, 28,000 people have been killed along the U.S.-Mexico border," said Smith, a Republican who is the incoming chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

* * *

"First, he misleads by failing to specify that all the deaths he is talking about were on the Mexican side of the border. Second, he claims the drug-related homicides took place in the border region, when the Mexican government says they occurred in other parts of the country as well.

"We rate Smith's statement as False."

 

Report: Long lines to enter legally

Immigration Chronicles 

"It's a common refrain in the comment section of this blog: "Why don't people just wait their turn and come here legally?"

"This story from the Salt Lake City Tribune explains the long waits associated with some visa categories in the U.S:

SALT LAKE CITY - Six years after applying to sponsor her sister for emigration from the Philippines, Eunice Jones of Salt Lake County, Utah, was ecstatic to receive a letter last year saying the State Department finally approved her sister's eligibility.

But that didn't mean Emerald Guerra, 39, could come anytime soon. The State Department cautioned that no visas were currently available for Filipinos in her sister's category of siblings of U.S. citizens seeking to immigrate.

"We found out that Filipinos who were then getting those visas had first applied in 1987" or 22 years earlier, said Jones, a naturalized U.S. citizen and real estate agent. Because of tight quotas on visas, legal immigration for Guerra might require another 16 years of waiting.

Many Americans believe the country's laws allow for orderly immigration, and wonder why some jump the line instead of doing it legally. Long waits suggest one explanation...

For instance, some Mexicans arriving legally now first applied 18 years ago, according to the State Department. The U.S. legally admits about 90,000 Mexicans annually, while another 300,000 to 500,000 come illegally.

"Do we have law breakers, or do we have broken laws? I'd say that most immigration attorneys would say that we have broken laws," said attorney Roger Tsai, president of the Utah chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The State Department reported last month that 4.6 million people worldwide had applied for family-related visas. Quotas allow 226,000 to come each year. At that rate, it would take at least 20 years to accommodate them all.

 

Family of Marisela Escobedo Seeks Asylum on Border

Texas Tribune by Julian Aguilar

"The asylum case of a Mexican family whose matriarch was assassinated during a protest could “define the politics of refugee detention” and shape how the U.S. weighs future cases of those fleeing political persecution in Mexico, an El Paso-based immigration attorney said Tuesday.

"The New York Times reported late Monday that the family of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz refused an offer of protection from the Chihuahua state government and instead chose to enter the United States via the international port of entry in El Paso and seek asylum. Escobedo was shot dead two weeks ago as she protested the 2008 murder of her daughter Rubí Frayre, 16, in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Frayre’s alleged killer was arrested but later released by Mexican authorities. Escobedo’s murder was captured by security cameras at the Palacio de Gobierno de Chihuahua in Chihuahua City, the state capital.

“My first reaction was that this case is made for political asylum,” said attorney Carlos Spector. “Marisela’s [case] marks the … beginning of a new type of immigrant. A real political refugee [from Mexico] who is an activist.”

 

Immigration reduces inequality

The Economist Democracy in America Blog

"So here's how it all shakes out. Low-skilled immigration reduces economic inequality when we set aside nationalist assumptions and focus on people instead of populations. Even if we cling to analytical and moral nationalism, low-skilled immigration doesn't happen to increase measured inequality. On the contrary, complementaries between the skills of migrant and native workers can leave natives better off than they would have been with less immigration."

 

ABA to Study Changing Roles of Criminal Defense Lawyers Post-Padilla

New York Law Journal 

by Tony Mauro and Daniel Wise

"The question of whether the role of the criminal defense lawyer has been affected by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Padilla v. Kentucky, 08–651, will be the focus of a task force established last week by the American Bar Association's criminal justice section.

"The goal is to explore the obligations on lawyers to advise clients about the consequences of criminal convictions and help criminal defense lawyers understand and meet those responsibilities.

"In Padilla, the Court found that a defense lawyer's failure to advise a client that a guilty plea would have deportation consequences for the client amounted to "constitutionally deficient" representation.

"The ruling has had repercussions not only for lawyers representing immigrants. It is being used in cases where guilty pleas have had consequences in other areas, including employment, child custody and housing. An Alaska appeals court, invoking Padilla, ruled recently that a prima facie case of ineffective assistance of counsel had been made by a client who had been told incorrectly by his lawyer that his no-contest plea in an assault case would not be used against him in a lawsuit for civil damages.

"The new ABA task force will look not only at the specific obligations created by the Padilla decision and other rulings applying it, but also at the broader implications for the role of defense lawyers."

In Congress, A Harder Line On Undocumented Immigrants

NPR via Associated Press

"The end of the year means a turnover of House control from Democratic to Republican and, with it, Congress' approach to immigration.

"In a matter of weeks, Congress will go from trying to help young, [undocumented] immigrants become legal to debating whether children born to parents who are in the country illegally should continue to enjoy automatic U.S. citizenship.

"Such a hardened approach — and the rhetoric certain to accompany it — should resonate with the GOP faithful who helped swing the House in Republicans' favor. But it also could further hurt the GOP in its endeavor to grab a large enough share of the growing Latino vote to win the White House and the Senate majority in 2012."

Undocumented immigrants help Texas gain 4 House seats

Immigration Chronicles

"So we can safely say that Texas' growth is largely fueled by immigration -- direct or indirect.

"I'm no data wonk, but I'd suggest then that two of the four new congressional seats are probably owed to immigration.

"Now that I've set up where we are, here's a question to ponder: Are Republicans, at least in this one case, suddenly not so bothered by all the illegal immigrants in the state? Are they not too worried about all the babies born in the last decade to illegal immigrants in Texas?

"In this case, are they -- the group that's been the toughest against illegal immigrants -- willing to look the other way?

"For you, the taxpayer, more people also means more money. There's a $400 billion dollar federal pie that gets allocated based on population figures.

"So more money is coming to Texas thanks partly to illegal immigrants.

"Are you willing to give up a seat or two in Congress? A couple hundred billion dollars?"

PLAN B - THE EXECUTIVE OPTION

Over the last 24 hours, Senator Harry Reid and Senator Charles Schumer have both issued statements indicating that they intend to pursue comprehensive immigration reform in the 112th Congress. Do me a favor Senators. Let's not make this THE strategy for fixing the immigration system as we have since 2004. Unless you reform the filibuster rules and can then produce the names of enough Senators who can pass an immigration reform bill, you will be setting back any real effort to fix the immigration system.

via blogs.ilw.com

After Dream Act Setback, Eyeing a Sleeping Giant

 

New York Times James C. McKinley, Jr. News Analysis on the DREAM Act and Texas' Senators:

"HOUSTON — About 37 percent of Texas residents are of Hispanic origin, and the state has a long history of welcoming newcomers who work hard and obey the law. So the state would seem likely to support a bill to grant citizenship to thousands of foreign-born college students.

"Yet the two Republican Senators from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, both voted to block the bill, known as the Dream Act, from coming up for a vote on Saturday.

"Neither senator was moved by protests and hunger strikes in San Antonio, nor by calls from religious leaders to pass the bill, nor by newspaper articles about the children of undocumented immigrants who had made it to college, only to be picked up for traffic violations and threatened with deportation.

"Their votes are another sign of how strong the reaction to illegal immigration has grown among Republicans in Texas, a state where Mexicans, with visas or without, have always been an integral part of the society.

* * *

"Mr. Cornyn said that the bill had several flaws and that the Democrats had refused to allow hearings or amendments. For instance, he said, the bill as written would have allowed illegal immigrants with criminal records to obtain citizenship. Ms. Hutchison also said the bill contained flaws that would benefit people “beyond the intended individuals who were brought here as children and grew up and were educated in the United States.”

"But Ms. Hutchison had supported similar legislation in the past. To win a primary election in 2012, she will have to appeal to conservative voters after Gov. Rick Perry questioned her conservative credentials.

"The risk for Republicans like Ms. Hutchison is that in trying to appeal to the conservative base, they will anger Hispanics, who are regarded as the sleeping giant of Texas politics."