Immigration Law

Immigration Highlights - 04-03-2009

By Arshil

Rather than one long post on a single topic (like Tuesday?s post), today?s post will be a few short highlights of different immigration issues that have been circulating around lately.

ISSUE 1: The DHS Yearbook of Immigration Statistics was published within the last few days on the DHS website. The Yearbook provides all sorts of interesting statistics of all the people who immigrated to the U.S. If you are/will be an immigrant, see where you fall among the rest at: DHS Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.

ISSUE 2: According to the Los Angeles Times, L.A. detainees sue immigration authorities over holding conditions:

?The center is ?regularly overcrowded, causing violence, safety hazards and humiliation,? while detainees are denied access to attorneys and courts and are rarely provided drinking water or a change of clothing, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the National Immigration Law Center and the Paul Hastings law firm.?

Why is this important? For one, it becomes clearer just how out of whack the U.S. immigration system is. After all, the detention centers cannot seem to adequately protect the detainees.

ISSUE 3: For a little while, I was wondering where Obama disappeared to regarding the issue of immigration reform. I, personally, granted the American Government some slack because of all the focus on the current economic slowdown; however, I wanted to see whether immigration reform was still in the works (or whether it would be potentially delayed until next term? whoever is President then). In looking it up, here?s what I found:

-    According to the White House Blog, President Obama met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on March 18, 2009. The readout on the meeting states:

?During the meeting, the President announced that he will travel to Mexico next month to meet with President Calderon to discuss the deep and comprehensive US-Mexico relationship, including how the United States and Mexico can work together to support Mexico?s fight against drug-related violence and work toward effective, comprehensive immigration reform.?

-    Then, on March 19th, the Dallas Morning News followed up and stated that:

?President Barack Obama renewed his campaign promise to tackle the immigration system in a meeting with Hispanic lawmakers Wednesday. ?The president made clear to us that he is a man of his word,? said Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.?

The May Visa Bulletin still has not been released yet. So, the most current Visa Bulletin is still April 2009! Be sure to keep up all of your great support and comments! And feel free to also comment and provide your thoughts on the most recent blog posts as well.

Post from: The Visa Bulletin

Full post as published by The Visa Bulletin on April 03, 2009 (boomark / email).