A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of Alabama’s new law cracking down on illegal immigration, ruling Monday that she needed more time to decide whether the law opposed by the Obama administration, church leaders and immigrant-rights groups is constitutional.
This means the law won’t take effect as scheduled on Thursday. The brief order did not go into whether the law is constitutional, and the judge could still let all or parts of the law take effect later. A longer ruling will be issued by Sept. 28 after the judge has had more time to consider lawsuits filed by the Justice Department, private groups and individuals that claim the state is overstepping its bounds with the law.
The law includes provisions requiring police to verify the status of people stopped whom they suspect may be in the country illegally. The law also makes it a crime to knowingly rent housing to unlawful immigrants. It would require schools to verify the citizenship status of students. Officials say it wouldn’t prevent illegal immigrants from attending public schools. Both supporters and opponents say Alabama’s law is the nation’s toughest against illegal immigration.
Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/08/29/national/a120401D24.DTL
The Department of Justice challenged the state of Alabama’s recently passed immigration law, H.B. 56, in federal court this week stating that the law conflicts with federal immigration law and undermines the federal government’s immigration enforcement priorities and objectives. Alabama’s law is designed to affect virtually every aspect of an unauthorized immigrant’s daily life, from employment to housing to transportation to entering into and enforcing contracts to going to school. H.B. 56 criminalizes mere unlawful presence and, like Arizona’s law, expands the opportunities for Alabama police to push aliens toward incarceration for various new immigration crimes by enforcing an immigration status verification system. The federal government’s suit is consistent with the department’s position in United States v. Arizona, in which the department last year successfully obtained a preliminary injunction against Arizona’s S.B. 1070. The government’s brief said that the mandates that H.B. 56 imposes on Alabama law enforcement may also result in the harassment and detention of foreign visitors, legal immigrants and even U.S. citizens who may not be able to readily prove their lawful status. The government further argues that the Alabama law would impose burdens on children by demanding that students prove their lawful presence, which could discourage parents from enrolling their children in school.
While the administration of George W. Bush focused on headline-making raids that resulted in arrests of immigrant workers, the Obama administration has gone after employers with ICE’s I-9 audits on the theory that employers who hire unauthorized workers create the demand that drives most illegal immigration. Nationally, from fiscal year 2009 to date, ICE has initiated Form I-9 inspections against nearly 4,000 businesses resulting in fines of nearly $7 million. Employers are required to complete and retain a Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States. This form requires employers to review and record the individual’s identity and employment eligibility document(s) and determine whether the document(s) reasonably appear to be genuine and related to the individual. Additionally, an employer must ensure that the employee provides certain information regarding his or her eligibility to work on the Form I-9. The New York Times ran a story on July 14, 2011 that discussed the effect that an I-9 audit can have on a business. The article focuses on the case of a California employer, David Cox, whose I-9 audit revealed that 26 of his 99 employees were not authorized to work in the United States. Because ICE determined he had acted reasonably in hiring them, Mr. Cox was not fined or held criminally liable. But after confirming that the 26 employees could not produce authentic documents, he was forced to fire them. The article discusses the economic effect that this had on his business.
Here is the link to the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/business/smallbusiness/how-a-small-business-can-survive-an-immigration-audit.html?_r=1&sq=immigration&st=cse&scp=3&pagewanted=all
Jon Stewart again offered some humor on the humorless situation in Arizona in his report titled The Naturalized. Last year Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill that made it a crime to be an undocumented immigrant in the state. The law is being challenged in federal court. On Tuesday critics of the polarizing immigration law in Arizona protested in triple-digit heat outside Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game in downtown Phoenix, drawing sideways glances from fans who were more interested in getting to the game. The protests were not as big as predicted. Last year after SB1070 initially passed, activists called for baseball to move the All-Star game from Arizona. Commissioner Bud Selig declined and said it was a political issue, prompting critics to ask players, coaches and fans to boycott the game as part of a wider call for companies to stop doing business with Arizona. Although at the time several baseball players spoke out against the law and said they might skip the All-Star game if picked, the protests largely fizzled out and there was no indication Tuesday that any players or coaches wouldn’t play because of the law.
Two separate pro-immigrant groups protested outside of Chase Field before the game, with one quietly passing out white ribbons that symbolized peace and unity and the other loudly chanting in bullhorns and marching in circles with signs that read “Boycott hate” and “Stand with us.”
UC Berkeley’s newspaper, The Daily Californian, reported that the Berkeley-based Pacific Steel Casting Company will be subject to an audit to verify the employment eligibility of its workers by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. The audit seeks to verify the employment eligibility of employees through the evaluation of Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9s that employees submit. The company is the fourth-largest existing steel foundry in the nation, employing a diverse group of workers belonging to approximately 30 different nationalities, according to the company’s website. ICE penalizes employers for knowingly hiring or employing unauthorized workers. ICE has shifted its enforcement focus to employers so it is important that the HR staff is compliant with the current requirements and procedures.
USCIS has updated its handbook for employers regarding the I-9. The updated handbook with helpful information can be found at: http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/m-274.pdf
USCIS has also posted a new I-9 Q&A at: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=330df7c555b2e210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=330df7c555b2e210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD
If you have questions about the I-9 form or are interested in an I-9 training for your HR staff please contact our office at info at harms-law.com.
As of June 13, 2011 approximately 15,200 H-1B cap-subject petitions were receipted. Additionally, USCIS has receipted 10,200 H-1B petitions for aliens with advanced degrees. USCIS started accepting H-1B petitions subject to the fiscal year 2012 on April 1, 2011. The current annual cap on the H-1B category is 65,000. Not all H-1B non-immigrants are subject to this annual cap. If you are interested in the H-1B program or have any questions, please contact our office at info at harms-law.com.
Obama administration officials are sharpening their crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants by focusing increasingly tough criminal charges on employers while moving away from criminal arrests of the workers themselves. The scope of the administration’s strategy has become clear as long-running investigations of employers have culminated in indictments, convictions, exponentially increased fines and jail sentences. While conducting fewer headline-making factory raids, the immigration authorities have greatly expanded the number of businesses facing scrutiny and the cases where employers face severe sanctions. Last year, according to government figures, the enforcement agency started 2,746 workplace investigations in addition to audits, more than double the number in 2008, the last full year of the Bush administration. Fines totaling about $43 million, also a record, were levied on companies in immigration cases. Department of Homeland Security officials, speaking anonymously in order to discuss internal policy, said immigration officers were no longer authorized to carry out workplace raids unless they cooperated with federal prosecutors to prepare criminal cases against the employers. Last year, 119 employers were convicted.
To read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/us/politics/30raid.html?pagewanted=1&sq=immigration&st=cse&scp=2
The San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that Susan Su of Pleasanton was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that her school, Tri Valley University, was a front for foreign students seeking to establish U.S. immigration status. Federal prosecutors say she illegally obtained visa documents “without regard to the students’ academic qualifications or intent to pursue a course of study required to maintain a lawful immigration status.” Authorities said Indian nationals paid $2,700 a semester in tuition for visa-related documents that allowed them to live and work in the country on student immigration status.
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/05/03/BAC01JAS0N.DTL
President Obama gave a speech today in El Paso, Texas on the need for immigration reform. He asked for a bipartisan effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws to deal with the millions of skilled and unskilled workers already here illegally. The President’s trip was part of a series of events to promote his support for immigration reform legislation. The President urged Congress to act on this issue and reiterated his legislative aims: A path to citizenship for illegal immigrants that would require them to come forward, pay taxes and a penalty, and learn English; legal status to encourage foreign college graduates and other skilled non-citizen residents to remain and start businesses; and the so-called Dream Act, providing citizenship to young people who were brought to the United States as children and receive an education or want to enter the military.
Here is a link to the text of his speech: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/us/politics/11obama-text.html
On September 23, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement criminally charged an owner and a top executive with knowingly hiring undocumented aliens. The charges carry a maximum penalty of six months in prison.
ICE claims that after ICE notified the employer that employees had used false “green cards” to obtain their jobs, the employee failed to terminate these individuals.
These arrests is less than two weeks after ICE arrested other employers the Los Angeles area on similar charges.
Please visit the “Worksite Enforcement” tab under the “Information” section on this website for further resouces on worksite enforcement.
Immigration Law in the News, immigration reform | melissa | 
August 30, 2011 9:31 pm | 
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