Greg Siskind on Immigration Law and Policy

BROWNBACK AND KYL TO DO A SWITCHEROO

If you would have told me a year ago that Sam Brownback, arguably the Republican with the most pro-immigration record in Congress, would come out against comprehensive immigration reform and Arizona Republican Jon Kyle, a vocal opponent of CIR last year, would be leading the negotiations to make a deal with Democrats on the bill, I would have been pretty skeptical.

But that appears to be what's happening. Brownback appears to have chucked all of his principles to appease the rabid anti-immigrant wing of his party and is all of sudden Mr. Tough Guy on immigration issues. And Jon Kyl is assuming the role of statesman and a mature "do what's best for the country" rather than what is in my best political interest kind of politician.

WILL LOU DOBBS BE THE NEXT IMUS?

We all know that CNN's Lou Dobbs has this thing about immigrants. His nightly rants on the issue have been his signature. Dobbs has been the voice of "respectability" in the anti-immigrant community, but is that about to change? Dobbs was recently quoted comparing pro-immigrant advocates to Nazi propagandists and at least one major Jewish organization in the US is calling for CNN to fire the talk show host (I say talk show because the show is primarily one that advocates for political positions despite its claim that it reports on news).

Dobbs is not exactly one that I would expect would apologize for anything, so it should be fun to see how this gets handled.

SHOOTING VIDEO SOURCE OF US-MEXICO TENSION

A video of a Border Patrol agent shooting Ramiro Gamez Acosta,a Mexican national, has angered the Mexican government and led to calls for an investigation. The Border Patrol is claiming that the shots were fired in self defense. It does look like the Border Patrol officer was being threatened as it appears Acosta was about to hurl something at the officer, but I'm no expert and will be interested in what others have to say. You can see the video here.

HE MAY BE A BIG MOUTH, BUT HE'S OUR BIG MOUTH

Way to stand up to a bully, Geraldo! By the way, before the anti-immigrant nuts go crazy on this, I believe the driver should face the justice system and should possibly be deported when the sentence is done. My beef is with the O'Reillys and the Dobbs of the world who try and use an incident like this to stir the emotional pot and get ratings rather than focus on what's best for the country.

THE NUMBERS JUST DON'T ADD UP (PART 2)

My post from earlier this month has apparently struck a nerve with some of the anti-H-1B folks who find the unemployment in this country an inconvenient truth. I was accidentally copied on a message sent to about 20 of the leading anti-H-1B folks griping about my blog. I've allowed them to post in the comments as long as the messages were civil. I've deleted a few that bash the immigration bar and made it clear to such posters that they can repost their messages and stick to policy or go start their own blog (that really seems to make them nuts).

One of my "fans" - Roy Lawson - insisted that when I quoted the unemployment rate in IT last week, the numbers were really actually high if I just "drilled down". I'll challenged him to put his money where his mouth is and show me. I've heard nothing.

But I did see an interesting article in the normally anti-H-1B Information Week that seems to back up my observations. The IT job sector is growing in a very healthy manner with more than 3.5 million people working in IT professions. H-1Bs only constitute a small percentage of such workers. Remember, only about 40% of the 65,000 H-1Bs are used in the IT sector so this means that the number of H-1Bs coming in each year constitute probably no more than a few percentage of those working in the field.

Furthermore, the article admits that the unemployment rate in IT overall is 2.3% (and that's still inflated as it looks at an average over the last year and not the most current numbers). The numbers across IT fields were all strong, with software engineers seeing the most job growth. Even programmers got some good news as the job shrinkage in that field that began in the last recession seems to have stopped in 2004 and been stable since then. Finally, most of the job growth in IT has been at the management level, good news for those older IT workers worried that they were being replaced by entry level H-1B workers (which was always only suggested and never proven anyway). IT management positions have grown 18% since 2004 and since these are likely the highest paying types of IT jobs, it's hard to spin this as bad news.

I stand by what I've been saying - H-1Bs taking jobs away from IT workers is a MYTH.

 

CONAN TAKES ON THE BORDER

Getting in to Canada looks like more fun than the US.

WHOSE DUMB IDEA WAS THIS?

I'm sure most USCIS examiners try and do their best to make quality decisions. But ask an honest, experienced examiner and they'll admit that as the agency has expanded and rapidly brought on more and more examiners, the lack of experience is showing.

So instead of focusing on improving the quality of decision making, the folks at USCIS headquarters have come up with the bright idea of giving examiners even MORE power. USCIS examiners will now be able to deny cases without giving applicants an opportunity to respond to a notice of intent to deny and they will also be able to determine how much time applicants have to respond to a request for evidence. Today, there is a standard 120 days permitted to respond. The memorandum simply says the examiner is to decide whether the evidence is easy to obtain or difficult and set the response time for the request for evidence accordingly.

For those of us who practice immigration law, this is a recipe for disaster. Examiners can make assumptions on how long is reasonable to respond, but they may be completely off base. And there are no provisions for an extension of a request for evidence. The evidence requested is often completely irrelevant to eligibility anyway. Bad examiners will now will be even more likely to issue bad decisions.

LAMAR SMITH: DON'T GET ANY BRIGHT IDEAS

In The Know: The U.S. Moat

[EDIT: While I thought it was obvious that this is a spoof, the folks at the Onion have apparently fooled a reader or two. I'll now label posts like these as satire.]

ANOTHER POLL SHOWS AMERICA SUPPORTS COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM

The Washington Post released a poll today that is consistent with several other recently released surveys in showing that the public is ready to accept a proposal along the lines being proposed in Congress. They are interested by a margin of two to one in putting immigrants currently in the US on a path to legalization while at the same time seeking tougher enforcement of immigration laws. Go to question 28 for the relevant items.

FLORIDA - THE ANTI-SKIL STATE

Though I've lived in Tennessee for many years, I spent my growing up years in the Sunshine State. One thing I remember over the years is Florida's interesting tax strategy - slam tourists. Hotel taxes, car rental taxes, airport taxes - you name it. And this has made Florida's cities some of the most expensive for travel taxes of any cities in the world.

Now Florida is sticking it to people coming to the state on work visas. Florida's property tax rules have been skewed to make non-immigrants ineligible for the major property tax deductions available to citizens and green card holders. This is not entirely new, but Florida used to be a very cheap state for real estate. In the last few years, property values have exploded. Citizens and green card holders are guaranteed their taxes won't rise by more than 3% per year which means that newcomers carry the biggest burden. Plus, non-immigrants lack eligibility for a homestead exemption which means that a greater percentage of the value of their properties are taxable. With Congress considering legislation to make the US more attractive to global talent - particularly for people with graduate degrees in science, technology, engineering and math - one has to wonder whether Florida will be taken off the list of places those talent workers will be going.