Greg Siskind on Immigration Law and Policy

IMMIGRANT OF THE DAY: JHUMPA LAHIRI - AUTHOR

Jhumpa Lahiri, a British-born author of Indian descent, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for her collection of short stories entitled Interpreter of Maladies. Ms. Lahiri's books and stories explore the lives of Indians and Indian-Americans both in this country and in Bengal. Her third book, Unaccustomed Earth, is set for release this coming April.

 

A COAT AND TIE INSTEAD OF A HOOD AND ROBE

A lot of the antis say they're pro-immigrant and just against illegal immigration. And there are many for whom that is really true. And then there are some who say this because it is more acceptable to say this than to say you're against immigration all together. But there are few who actually say in public that they are against immigration because they actually dislike immigrants - legal or illegal. Even groups like FAIR or NumbersUSA don't go this far. They'll attack what they say are the consequences of immigration - economic and environmental impacts, for example - but won't actually attack immigrants themselves.

Most of the people willing to publicly go after immigrants as "cultural invaders" who are a threat to our white, European, Christian society belong to white supremacist groups and are generally shunned in the mainstream media. But not Pat Buchanan who somehow gets a pass.Media Matters has an piece describing sme of the lovely things this former Republican presidential candidate has had to say.

Read for yourself.

IN CASE YOU'RE WONDERING WHY SO MANY MISTAKES ARE MADE BY USCIS CONTRACTORS

If you don't treat your employees well, how can you expect them to treat your customers well?

SHOCKING NEWS: LATINO IMMIGRANTS ASSIMILATE JUST LIKE PREVIOUS IMMIGRANTS

This would be filed in my "no, duh" reference file except for the fact that today's antis repeat what every previous generation of antis has said - immigrants in the past (including my ancestors) were great and helped build this country, but today's immigrants are too different and are ruining America.

IMMIGRATION DAILY: FBI DELAYS TO END

Hallelujah. If you haven't seen today's Immigration Daily (also published here at ILW.com), here's the scoop:

FBI Delays To End

Immigration Daily has learned that the FBI name check delays that have stalled benefit applications may soon be a thing of the past. We understand that the Executive branch will soon provide name check clearances within a prescribed amount of time. If the clearance is not completed within the designated timeframe, the benefit will be approved by USCIS while the FBI continues to work on the security process in parallel. The rationale to move to this new process is not just better customer service for benefits applicants but also because it will enhance national security (our security demands that the bad guys be apprehended, not merely be denied immigration benefits). The background for this change of heart by the Executive branch is the fact that many federal courts have been coming down hard on excessive name check delays by the FBI. In fact, not only have some courts ordered expedited name check completions but in some cases courts have suggested that the courts have and would use their authority to adjudicate petitions if the Executive branch could not get its act together. The attorneys and litigants who have sought federal court relief over these last several years deserve credit for forcing the Executive branch to adopt a more effective policy in this area (when it does happen, hopefully very soon). Stay tuned.

 

IMMIGRANT OF THE DAY: GHULAB KHAN - VENTURE CAPITALIST

Many of America's most famous companies are around today because the early founders of the company found an individual willing to take a chance on investing in the company and helping it move from a start up venture to a grown up company. The venture capital investors who provide this money often are taking tremendous risks since many of the ventures ultimately fail. And that is why banks and more conservative financial institutions are often not willing to take a chance.

One of the most successful venture capitalists is Pakistan-born Ghulab Khan who came to this country as a foreign student at Stanford where he got a masters in engineering and then went on to receive an MBA at Harvard. Among the more successful startups his firm supported - Google, Apple, Youtube, eBay and Yahoo. Pretty good choices! That would largely explain why Mr. Khan is one of our country's wealthiest individuals.

REPUBLICANS CLASH OVER IMMIGRATION IN CNN/YOUTUBE DEBATE

Immigration was, not surprisingly, the hot topic in last night's Republican debate. Forget about the fact that we're in a war, a banking crisis could potentially push the country in to recession, health care costs are soaring and we're facing a climate crisis that threatens all of our futures (though I'm sure the antis will figure out a way to blame immigrants for all of these problems). Immigration is obviously the issue that needs to be front and center because, after all, this is a problem that just started yesterday </sarcasm off>.

Putting aside the snarkiness, there were a couple of interesting things said. First, if Americans didn't yet know it, Mayor Guiliani and Governor Romney both have secret pro-immigration pasts. They're happy to tell you all about it (as long as you're asking them about their opponent's past). Senator Fred Thompson gets the hypocrisy award for the evening by accusing Mayor Guiliani of flip-flopping on immigration. If this is not an open invitation for the media to be reporting on Thompson's own pro-immigration, I'm not sure what is. If you want to know more about this, read my post from a few months back on the subject.

Kudos to Governor Huckabee of Arkansas for fighting back when he was attacked for supporting college scholarships for the children of unauthorized immigrants. Said Huckabee:

In all due respect, we are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did.

Does that mean, Governor Huckabee, that you would also support the DREAM Act which is based on the same logic?

John McCain had the guts to defend his pro-immigration record and also to challenge his opponents to stop using immigration as a wedge issue. According to the Washington Post:

McCain, whose campaign was damaged by his support for comprehensive immigration legislation, promised along with others that, as president, he would secure the borders, but he called on his rivals to tone down their rhetoric on the hot-button issue. If he becomes president, he said, "We won't have all this other rhetoric that unfortunately contributes nothing to the national dialogue."

One candidate said something on immigration that was hard to dispute. Anti-immigration candidate Tom Tancredo noted ""All I've heard is people trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo." And that's a shame.

REPORT: E-VERIFY FALSE POSITIVES ARE A "SEVERE" PROBLEM

USCIS officials were provided details details from an outside firm's report yesterday regarding the accuracy of the e-Verify system, the online government database used by employers to check the work authorization of employees. According to Carolyn Shettle, who led the investigative team for Westat Corp., the problems faced by foreign-born US citizens is severe and that nearly 10% of such naturalized citizens were incorrectly identified by the system as unauthorized to work.

According to the report:

The accuracy of the USCIS database used for verification has improved substantially since the start of the Basic Pilot program. However, further improvements are needed, especially if the Web Basic Pilot becomes a mandated national program – improvements that USCIS personnel report are currently underway. Most importantly, the database used for verification is still not sufficiently up to date to meet the IIRAIRA requirement for accurate verification, especially for naturalized citizens. USCIS accommodates this problem by providing for manual review that is time consuming and can lead to discrimination against work-authorized foreign-born persons during the period that the verification is ongoing, especially naturalized citizens.

The report showed that foreign-born employers were thirty times more likely to be subject to a false identification as unauthorized to work than a US-born employee which leads to the obvious conclusion that USCIS' records are either inaccurate or are not being properly integrated in to the e-Verify system. According to the report:

Foreign-born U.S. citizens are considerably more likely to receive erroneous tentative nonconfirmations than are work-authorized foreign-born persons who have not become U.S. citizens. Among foreign-born employees verified by the Web Basic Pilot, the percentage of ever-authorized employees found to be workauthorized after a tentative nonconfirmation was 1.3 percent for noncitizens compared to 10.9 percent for naturalized citizens. The erroneous tentative nonconfirmation rate for naturalized citizens is unacceptably high. Reducing it will take considerable time and will require better data collection and data sharing between SSA and USCIS than is currently the case.

Tentative nonconfirmations have negative consequences for work-authorized employees for two reasons. First, there are very real costs and burdens associated with adverse actions that some employers take against employees receiving tentative nonconfirmations, even though such adverse actions are prohibited by statute. Second, there are burdens associated with visiting an SSA office and, generally to a lesser extent, contacting USCIS.

The reports findings are highly disturbing because the federal government and a number of states are moving down the path of severely penalizing employers who fail to use the system. Provisions in four appropriations bills currently pending in Congress would require employers doing business with a variety of federal agencies to use e-Verify. And several state governments have passed laws either mandating employers use the system or providing "safe harbors" preventing loss of a business license or access to state contracts only for employers who use the system. One state - Illinois - has been disturbed enough by reports of inaccuracies to actually bar employers in the state from using the system until the false positives are down to less than one percent.

I have obtained a copy of the report and you can download it here.

IMMIGRANT OF THE DAY: HELIO CASTRONEVES - RACE CAR DRIVER/BALLROOM DANCER

Now that's an odd combination! But Brazilian-born Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves is one of America's top car racers and is also one of the three remaining contestants on the current run of ABC's Dancing with the Stars. Good luck Helio!

[Update - Congrats on winning, Helio.]

BROOKS: "DOBBSIANISM IS FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG"

New York Times columnist David Brooks paints a frightening picture of how Lou Dobbs is affecting public opinion and why the CNN "anchor" is simply wrong in his thinking.