May 18, 2012 – House Bill to Streamline Visa Process Runs Into Opposition From State Department
The State Department has concerns over a bill from House Representative Joe Heck, R-Nevada that would revamp the tourist visa process in key countries as a way to launch more visitors into the United States. The bill would set a 12-day standard to schedule visa interviews for people in the emerging and lucrative markets of Brazil, China and India who are contemplating visits to Las Vegas or other destinations. Heck's bill also provides a test program to conduct visa interviews by videoconference. Read the full story here...

May 17, 2012 – U.S. Embassy in Nairobi Has Begun Asking Somali Refugees for More Proof to Verify Identity
Recently, the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi began asking for more proof to verify that refugees applying to come here are who they say are. The result, according to immigration attorneys in Minnesota familiar with the changes, is that the embassy is rejecting applicants at an alarming rate. Read the full story here...

May 16, 2012 – Senator Seeks to Raise Number of Visas for Foreign High-Tech Workers
Senator John Cornyn, the senior Republican on a panel that oversees immigration, introduced a bill that would make an additional 55,000 visas available each year for graduates with master's and doctoral degrees who have studied at U.S. research institutions. Read the full story here...

May 15, 2012 – Deportation of Undocumented Immigrants Has Become Issue in Race for Texas Sheriff
The US government's Secure Communities program, which expedites deportation of undocumented immigrants in police custody, has become an issue in the sheriff's race in Travis County, Texas. John Sisson, former Austin Police Department lieutenant, who is challenging incumbent Sheriff Greg Hamilton in the Democratic primary, said "What is happening is inhumane. No one in Austin and its suburbs can drive a car for fear of being jailed and deported for a simple traffic violation.” But Hamilton, who aspires to a third term, said that his job as far as immigration matters are concerned has been to follow existing regulations and hand over detainees to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "The only one that can deport and put an immigration detainer on an individual is an ICE agent, not us," the sheriff said. "At the Travis County Jail, we follow the law, and the law says that when an ICE detainer is put on, the law enforcement agency shall hold that individual for 48 hours." Read the full story here...

May 14, 2012 – Farmers May Cut Back On Crop Output Due To Alabama Immigration Law
Agriculture experts said labor shortages caused by the exodus of undocumented immigrant workers are one source of the cutbacks, along with higher wages for home-grown workers filling their spots. Some farmers claimed they didn’t have enough hands to harvest last year’s crops, a scenario that has apparently spurred many of them to scale back production. Read the full story here...

May 11, 2012 – ICE Increasing Use of Ankle Monitors, Even on Non-Criminals
ICE has been installing ankle monitors on people who are not criminals, have little incentive to run away and have a clear path to citizenship in the U.S. The program is run by a private contractor, called BI Incorporated. Over five years, the U.S. government will pay BI $372 million to operate ICE's ankle monitor program. Immigration reform advocate Ralph Isenberg is suing ICE, demanding reasonable standards for those who get an ankle monitor. “These monitors are beginning to smell awful fishy, as if there's too much profit involved for one company,” Isenberg said. Read the full story here...

May 10, 2012 – California State Legislator Proposes Plan to Legalize Undocumented Immigrants
Assemblyman Manuel Perez’s proposed bill, AB 1544, the California Agricultural Jobs and Industry Stabilization Program, would allow undocumented immigrants to get a permit authorizing them to live and work in the state if they pay a state fee, prove they are trying to become proficient in English, and have been working in California for at least 150 days can. Read the full story here...

May 9, 2012 – Federal Court Orders USCIS to Expedite Responses to FOIA Requests
U.S. Magistrate Paul Grewal in San Jose issued an injunction Monday that requires U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests within 20 days, or 30 days in unusual cases, when those requests are made by noncitizens who are applying for citizenship or legal residency or fighting deportation. Read the full story here...

May 8, 2012 – USCIS Opens Portland Field Office
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officially opened its Portland Field Office yesterday. Improvements include an in-house Application Support Center, which can take fingerprints and photographs as part of the application process. Read the full story here...

May 7, 2012 – House Immigration Bill Would Redistribute Abuse Victim Cases Away From Vermont Service Center and Require Officers to Conduct In-Person Interviews
U.S. House Rep. Sandy Adams of Florida sponsored a bill that would redistribute responsibility for handling immigration cases involving abuse under the Violence Against Women Act to local USCIS service centers. The bill would also require officers to conduct in-person interviews with the petitioner and allow officers to gather other evidence including an interview with the U.S. citizen whom they accuse of abuse. Currently, applications are confidential for the petitioner’s safety. The House will discuss the bill on Tuesday. Read the full story here...

May 4, 2012 – Illinois Moves to Bar Privately Run Immigration Jail
The Executive Committee of the Illinois House of Representatives took another step toward approving a bill that would block construction of a privately run immigration detention center 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Chicago. The panel supported SB 1064 by a vote of 7-4, a key step toward bringing the measure to the House floor. The bill already passed the Senate. SB 1064 would prohibit the state, counties and municipalities of Illinois from hiring private firms to administer detention centers. Read the full story here...

May 3, 2012 – DHS Again Extends Temporary Protected Status for Somali Immigrants
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has re-designated Somalia for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and has extended the existing TPS designation for Somalia from Sept. 18, 2012 through March 17, 2014, allowing eligible nationals of Somalia to register or re-register for TPS in accordance with the Federal Register notice. Read the full story here...

May 2, 2012 – ICE Intelligence Director Pleads Guilty to Defrauding the Government
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Intelligence Director James M. Woosley, 48, pleaded guilty to defrauding the government in a scheme involving counterfeit travel vouchers and timesheets exchanged for more than $180,000 himself. Woosley was in charge of the intelligence that supported ICE raids and major customs operations worldwide. Read the full story here...

May 1, 2012 – U.S. Supreme Court To Review Constitutional Right to Effective Assistance Of Counsel Regarding Possible Deportation From A Guilty Plea
The Supreme Court will decide how broadly to apply its two-year old ruling that immigrants have a constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel and must be told about possible deportation resulting from a guilty plea. The justices said they would consider whether its prior ruling would apply retroactively to previous convictions or only to convictions after that date. In its original ruling, the Supreme Court decided by a 7-2 vote that an immigrant's constitutional right to effective counsel was violated when his attorney mistakenly told him he could plead guilty to drug charges without being deported. Read the full story here...

April 30, 2012 – Immigration Officials Relax Detention In Minor Traffic Cases
ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said Immigration officials will no longer immediately detain suspected undocumented immigrants who are arrested only on minor traffic violations and have no criminal history. Read the full story here...

April 27, 2012 – House Speaker Boehner Says It Would Be Difficult to Do Rubio's Immigration Bill
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is crafting a bill that would permit young illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. with their parents to apply for non-immigrant visas. They would be allowed to stay to study or work and obtain a driver's license but would not be able to vote. They could apply for residency later, but they would not have a special path to citizenship. Boehner indicated that politics would make it hard for lawmakers to try to resolve the divisive issue in this election year. Read the full story here...

April 26, 2012 – ICE Offers To Stop About 16,500 Deportation Cases, After Review of the Backlogged System
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has offered to temporarily suspend about 7.5% of deportation cases after reviewing more than 70 percent of the immigration cases pending as of mid-April. ICE officials said 2,700 have already been stopped. 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. Read the full story here...

April 25, 2012 – Proposal to Require Restaurants to Disclose Immigration Checks, Voted Down
One San Bernardino County supervisor's plan to require restaurants to inform customers whether the establishment does immigration background checks on its employees was overwhelmingly rebuffed Tuesday by fellow supervisors. Supervisor Neil Derry, the measure's sponsor, was the only one to vote for the plan, which would have color-coded the A, B and C grade cards that restaurants receive during annual health inspections. Restaurants are required to display the cards. Read the full story here...

April 24, 2012 – Attorneys Allege Ice Makes Little Distinction Between Deporting High And Low-Risk Immigrants
Despite new guidelines, attorneys say that immigrants who are a low priority in the system are still getting deported. Attorneys say recent ICE guidelines, known as prosecutorial discretion, are supposed to make it easier for undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. who are a low priority. But those with a clean record and U.S.-born children are still being deported. According to recently-released federal data, only one percent of all Los Angeles deportation cases are facing administrative closure. Read the full story here...

April 23, 2012 – U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Immigration Case to Determine Whether States Can Enforce Immigration Laws
The Obama administration has challenged an Arizona law that requires police to check the immigration status of anyone detained and suspected of being in the country without legal status, requires immigrants to carry documents at all times, bans undocumented immigrants from soliciting for work in public places, and allows police to arrest immigrants without a warrant if an officer believes they have committed a crime that would make them deportable. A federal judge and a U.S. appeals court earlier ruled for the Obama administration and blocked all four parts of the Arizona law from taking effect. Read the full story here...

April 20, 2012 – Restored Ellis Island Building Now A Museum of Immigration
The first part of the National Museum of Immigration project opened quietly last fall. There are video screens and audio recordings to show how and why new Americans arrived before Ellis Island became an immigration center. It includes the stories of those who arrived in bondage on slave trading ships. A second exhibit, slated to open next year, will focus on newcomers and the restrictions that barred or regulated them after Ellis closed in the 1950s. Before its restoration began a few decades ago, Ellis’ main building had crumbled to such a degree that visitors had to wear a hard hat to go inside. Read the full story here...

April 19, 2012 – Florida Supreme Court to Decide If Undocumented Immigrants May Practice Law
Jose Godinez-Samperio, 25, was born in Mexico and came to the United States at age 9, then overstayed his tourist visa and lost his legal status. After graduating from the Florida State University College of Law, the Florida Bar of Examiners barred him from receiving a law license. He seeks to have this decision overturned. Read the full story here...

April 18, 2012 – Russian Engineers Working For Boeing Under "B-1 in Lieu Of H-1B" Policy
Boeing became part of a controversy by using B-1 visas to bring in foreign workers for months-long visits when 18 Russian engineers headed for Boeing were denied entry at Sea-Tac Airport last fall. The engineers are now pouring back in. Read the full story here...

April 12, 2012 – Demand for H-1B Visas Up Sharply- 25,600 Petitions Since April 2
The USCIS received 25,600 petitions for H-1B visas since April 2, nearly twice as many as it received for the entire first month of last year's application season. The agency began accepting H-1B petitions last week for jobs with a start date of Oct. 1 or later, typically in computer programming, engineering and other high-tech fields. Read the full story here...

April 11, 2012 – India Makes Complaint at WTO Challenging U.S. Immigration Rules
India complained to the World Trade Organization over the cost of U.S. work visas, which it says are too high and discriminate against a group of Indian IT firms. An unnamed Indian official did not say when the complaint was taken to the WTO, but said Trade Minister Anand Sharma raised the visa issue with U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson on a visit to India on March 26. India's complaint is about a U.S. law from 2010 that almost doubled visa fees for skilled workers to $4,500 per applicant. Read the full story here...