Greg Siskind on Immigration Law and Policy

NEW I-9 FORM DELAYED TWO MONTHS

Last week I blogged about the new Executive Order delaying all regulations from taking effect for 60 days. Two rules that seemed to fit the bill were the E-Verify federal contractor rule and the other is the new I-9 form with tighter (and controversial) document requirements. DHS, facing litigation over the E-Verify rule, chose to delay implementation until May. But they seemed to be ignoring the order when it came to the new I-9 form. That form was scheduled to become effective February 2nd. And USCIS posted the new form online a couple of days ago, well after the Executive Order was issued. AILA and other groups asked USCIS why they were somehow allowed to ignore the President. And guess what? They're not! USCIS now is withdrawing the form and making it effective April 3, 2009. They're also reopening the comment period on the form and will accept comments until March 4, 2009.



I-9 delay - Free Legal Forms

SENATE PASSES BILL PROVIDING HEALTH COVERAGE FOR IMMIGRANT KIDS

The House passed this even before the President was sworn in. The bill now brings in a large number of legal immigrant children in to the Children's Health Insurance Program. Pro-immigrant groups are applauding the measure. From a press release from the National Conference of La Raza:

Legal immigrant children in the U.S. are today one step closer to accessing critical health care services. The Senate approved the “Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act,” (SCHIP) a bill that will provide more health insurance opportunities for approximately four million children in the U.S. and includes legal immigrant children and pregnant women in the scope of its coverage. The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., fought to end a five-year waiting period for legal immigrant children and pregnant women that has shut hundreds of thousands out of Medicaid and SCHIP for a decade. The bill was passed by a vote of 66-32. The bill’s passage affirms President Barack Obama’s recent actions and statements supporting healthcare for every child in the U.S.

“Including legal immigrant children in the reauthorization of SCHIP affirms American values. America is not a country that chooses which children get health coverage and which do not,” said Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO. “Latino children continue to be the most uninsured ethnic group in the country. Yesterday’s vote provides a strong signal that the new Congress is committed to addressing the issues that affect the Latino community.”

Murguía also lauded the leadership of several Senators who helped advance the legislation in spite of receiving public criticism for their support of the bill. “We are glad that Congress chose not to play games with the health care of America’s children. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–NV) and Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-IL), and Senators Jay Rockefeller (D–WV), Olympia Snowe (R–ME), and Robert Menendez (D–NJ) should be especially commended for their sustained efforts in the fight to achieve healthcare for our littlest ones,” noted Murguía.

EXPERTS REFUTE EXTREMIST GROUP CLAIMS ON 2008 ELECTION

The November elections were just a few weeks ago so I was surprised to hear that various anti-immigrant extremist organizations have been trying to re-write history and claim that the voters were actually sending an anti-immigrant message. Huh?!! People paying attention know that this is a bunch of malarkey, but it's important that this type of nonsense does not go unchallenged. I was glad to see one organization make a big deal out of debunking these claims lest the antis succeed in re-drafting reality.

America's Voice is making sure that media organizations have the facts before they take the antis propaganda at face value.

CONGRESSIONAL HISPANICS OPPOSE INSERTING E-VERIFY PROVISIONS IN STIMULUS PACKAGE

Members of the powerful Congressional Hispanic Caucus have sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging her to strip provisions extending E-Verify for five years and requiring employers receiving stimulus money to use the electronic system. The group's main arguments are that the system is still not accurate enough and that it will disproportionately affect Hispanic workers. They also argue that the stimulus bill is not the appropriate place to deal with this controversial immigration subject. The letter is produced below.



CHC Opposed E-Verify in Stimulus bill - Free Legal Forms

GILLIBRAND PLEDGES TO RE-VISIT PAST IMMIGRATION POSITIONS

Kirsten Gillibrand was sworn in yesterday as the new Senator from New York and the complaints of pro-immigration groups and media outlets over her dismal voting record in the House of Representatives apparently has had an impact:

Immediately following the announcement, liberal blogs and New York’s ethnic media lit up with complaints about Ms. Gillibrand’s positions. A group of Hispanic state lawmakers have threatened to support a primary challenger to Ms. Gillibrand, who must stand for election next year. And El Diario La Prensa, the Spanish-language daily, described her as “a disappointing choice.”

“If Gov. David Paterson wanted to deliver a slap to immigrant New Yorkers, he effectively did so with his appointment yesterday of Representative Kirsten Gillibrand,” El Diario said in an editorial on Saturday.

*****

Ms. Gillibrand, who was sworn in as senator on Tuesday, has tried to allay some of the concerns, reaching out to Hispanic elected officials and pledging to reconsider some of her positions. Outside a reception in Washington following her swearing-in ceremony, she acknowledged that she had an obligation to revisit some of these questions as she now “represents the whole state.”

Assemblyman Peter M. Rivera, a Bronx Democrat, received a phone call from Ms. Gillibrand over the weekend after he said that her immigration record “borders on xenophobia.” And when Mr. Rivera and some other Hispanic state lawmakers scheduled a press conference for Tuesday morning to announce plans to meet with “potential candidates to unseat her” in 2010, an aide to Ms. Gillibrand called the organizers and offered to have “a sit-down,” the assemblyman said.

Gillibrand's problem right now is that she needs to figure out how to move away from prior positions without seeming like a total flip-flopper (which is probably unavoidable). No easy task, but presumably Governor Paterson and Senator Gillibrand thought about this before the appointment was announced.

BREAKING NEWS: E-VERIFY CONTRACTOR RULE NOW ON HOLD UNTIL MAY

Just got word that DHS and the plaintiffs in the suit challenging the E-Verify federal contractor rule agreed on the extension of the applicability date of the E-Verify contractor rule until May 21, 2009 in order to give the new President time to review the rule. This is longer than the 60 day hold called for under the executive order I wrote about last week.

ANTI-IMMIGRANTS DISCOVER MY BLOG

Have you noticed an uptick in comments from anti-immigrant posters you've never seen here before? There's a reason.

A friend of mine forwarded me the latest email newsletter from the nice folks at the Federation for American Immigration Reform and they have a little article discussing the Gillibrand Senate appointment mentioning how pro-immigration groups were reacting with concern over Ms. Gillibrand's record. I happened to have been one of the first to write about the Congresswoman's immigration record and it caught their attention:

Last week's confirmation of Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State created a vacancy in the United States Senate.  Even before Governor David Paterson (D-NY) could officially announce that he was appointing Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) to fill the vacated Senate seat, the open-borders lobby came out in full force in opposition to the Governor's choice.  (Rochester Homepage, January 24, 2009). Greg Siskind, a prominent pro-amnesty blogger wrote that "her appointment will be extremely disappointing to the pro-immigrant community."  Siskind's blog, widely distributed on the pro-amnesty email alert network, warns that, "Unless Gillibrand dramatically changes her views on immigration, she will very likely face a primary opponent when her seat is up." (Siskind's Blog Post).

It's always nice to get a compliment.

[UPDATE: Apparently, a right wing publication has picked up the FAIR story as well.

WHITE HOUSE CONSIDERING REPEALING DIRECTIVE RELATED TO PRESIDENT'S AUNT

Strange politics here. President Bush's Homeland Security Department issued an order last November when the story broke that then Senator Obama's aunt was in the country illegally and subject to deportation. Now the President is seeking to scrap the directive presumably to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

IMMIGRANT OF THE DAY: RAUL HINOJOSA-OJEDA - SOCIAL SCIENTIST

I've just blogged about the new study released by UCLA's Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda on the impact of a legalization program on economic recovery in the US. Dr. Hinojosa-Ojeda is a native of Mexico and was raised in Chicago. He received a bachelors, masters and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago and is one of the nation's leading scholars on the poligical economy of regional intgrations in different parts of the world. He's written extensively on trade, investment and migration relations between the US, Mexico, Latin America and the Pacific Rim. He's also originator of the idea for the North American created by the US and Mexican governments in 1994.

COULD IMMIGRATION REFORM BE AN ECONOMIC STIMULUS?

UCLA's Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, Executive Director of the university's North American Integration and Development Center, makes the case that a legalization program on a large scale will be an economic boon to the country:

Legalization of the nation’s undocumented workers is now an economic necessity, as well as a
moral and civil rights imperative. Legalization increases short-term incomes, job creating consumption and net tax revenues in the low wage segments of the labor market, as well as sets the long-term foundation for an expanding middle class and a more sustainable economic recovery. The experience of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) is very instructive in this regard, producing both wage and consumption gains, and enhanced tax-revenue collection in the midst of a recession of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, as well as decades of very high rates of educational, home and small business investments by newly legalized families. If Congress and President Obama legalized the current 10-12 million undocumented persons in the U.S. an economic stimulus of $30-36 billion in personal income, 750,000-900,000 new jobs, and $4.5 to $5.4 billion in net tax revenue would result!