Immigration / Press

NYT

March 24, 2004

White House Irks Senators by Inaction on Immigrants

By RACHEL L. SWARNS

ASHINGTON, March 23 — Republican and Democratic senators accused the Bush administration on Tuesday of doing too little to transform President Bush's sweeping immigration plan into legislation that might be voted into law this year.

Mr. Bush made headlines in January with his proposal to grant temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. But administration officials have yet to propose any specific
legislation, and Republicans in Congress, who are deeply divided over the proposal, say it is unlikely that a major immigration bill will pass in this election year.

Administration officials told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on Tuesday that the president was unlikely to back any other immigration bills pending in Congress, including bipartisan legislation intended to provide legal status to some illegal farm workers and certain groups of students.

Among those expressing frustration at the lack of progress were Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, John McCain of Arizona and Larry E. Craig of Idaho, all Republicans, and Senators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Barbara Boxer of California, all Democrats. They warned that the session would probably end without the passage of any significant immigration legislation unless prompt action was taken.

"This is an immense task for us, and it is going to require intense presidential leadership," Mr. Hagel told Bush administration officials at the hearing. "My question would be: What is the
administration doing? What will the administration do to push this issue since you do not have your own proposal up here?"

"The president deserves credit for stepping forward, as I have said many times publicly, but that only takes us 5 percent of the way," said Mr. Hagel. Mentioning it is good, but that
doesn't move the ball."

Eduardo Aguirre, director of immigration services for the Department of Homeland Security, said the White House remained committed to its plan, but he acknowledged that the administration had yet to provide specific legislative guidance to Congress. Mr. Aguirre also said the White House was not ready to back other existing immigration bills.

"I don't think any one of those proposals meets exactly the president's initiative," Mr. Aguirre said of the various immigration plans proposed by Mr. Hagel and others. "But we're happy to engage and find common points of convergence."

"I certainly expect that action will be taken," Mr. Aguirre said. "Whether or not it's going to pass the Senate and the House, I'll leave it to you."

Mr. Bush hopes to revamp an immigration system widely viewed as broken and to re-establish his credentials as a compassionate conservative, particularly with Hispanic and swing voters. But his plan has been criticized by conservative Republicans, who have condemned it as an amnesty for lawbreakers.

At the hearing on Tuesday, several Republican senators who have expressed support for the president's immigration plan emphasized the need for prompt action. Mr. McCain cited the mounting deaths of illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican border into Arizona "to emphasize the urgency of this situation."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/w...,1716909,print.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire
 
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NYT / DOS

Delay sought in nation's passport
deadline
Rachel L. Swarns, New York Times


March 25, 2004
VISA0325


WASHINGTON, D.C.
-- Secretary of State
Colin L. Powell and
Homeland Security
Secretary Tom Ridge
are warning that a
deadline requiring 27
countries to issue their
citizens computer-coded
passports to travel to the
United States could
threaten the U.S. travel
industry. The countries
-- 22 European nations,
Japan, Brunei, Australia,
New Zealand and
Singapore -- have to begin providing passports with technology that
recognizes travelers' faces by Oct. 26. Congress imposed the deadline after
Sept. 11.

The State Department says nearly all the countries are expected to miss the
deadline, which would force millions of visitors to apply for visas. The
demand would probably surge to 12 million in the 2005 fiscal year from 7
million in 2003, creating a workload that could lead to significant backlogs.

In a letter to Congress last week, Powell and Ridge urged lawmakers to delay
the deadline to Oct. 26, 2006. Failing to do so, the officials said, would result
in "grave consequences."

"It is important to note that the U.S. economy would likely suffer gravely if
tourists 'vote with their feet' and go elsewhere, possibly resulting in
multibillion-dollar losses to our economy and reducing employment in one of
our economy's most dynamic sectors," Powell and Ridge wrote to Rep. F.
James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., who is chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee.

About 12 million of the 19 million overseas visitors to the United States in
2002 came from the 27 countries whose citizens can visit for 90 days without
visas.

Tourists from Britain, France, Germany and Japan alone spent $22.2 billion in
the United States in 2002, accounting for a third of spending by overseas
visitors, according to the Travel Industry Association of America.

In their letter, Powell and Ridge said none of the 27 countries would be able
to issue computer-coded passports "in sufficient numbers to meet the
legitimate needs of their traveling nationals" by October. They emphasized that
the delays resulted from technical problems, not lack of effort.
 
President's immigration grand plans

LATimes:

Immigration Reform Is Off Front Burner

A bipartisan Senate panel says the Bush administration is unwilling to promote a guest-worker program in an
election year.

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Times Staff Writer

March 24, 2004

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has failed to put much political muscle behind its immigration reform plan, and as a result Congress is unlikely to act on it this year, senior senators from both parties said Tuesday.

In a tough exchange with administration officials at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Mexico, centrist Republicans and Democrats suggested that President Bush was unwilling, in an election year, to expend the political capital needed to overcome criticisms of his guest-worker proposal from both the political right and the left.

"I've been around long enough to know when an administration wants something and when they're just being lukewarm," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who has been in the Senate
for 23 years. "I'm being polite calling this lukewarm. I don't get any sense of movement at all."

Speaking with reporters after the hearing, Eduardo Aguirre Jr. — who as head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is the administration's point man on immigration reform — insisted that Bush remained committed to passing a bill soon. But, he added: "If [lawmakers] run out of time this year, there is nothing I can do about it. I don't control the legislature."

Sen. Charles Hagel (R-Neb.) joined Dodd in grilling Aguirre and other administration witnesses. He asked what the White House was doing to encourage Congress to take action and
whether top administration officials — including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge — were calling the congressional leadership in support of the proposal.

Told that Bush promotes immigration reform at public events and mentioned it in his State of the Union message in January, Hagel responded: "Mentioning it is good, but it really doesn't move
the ball."

Bush's framework for immigration reform — a set of principles, not a detailed plan — "only takes us about 5% of the way," said Hagel, coauthor of a bipartisan bill that would cap the number
of guest workers but would allow more illegal immigrants already in the United States to get on the path to citizenship.

The president has called for a guest-worker program that would allow Mexicans and other immigrants to hold jobs in the United States for a limited number of years and then return to their
home countries with their savings. Undocumented immigrants already here would be eligible for legal temporary worker visas. But those wishing to become permanent residents and citizens
would have to apply separately, with no guarantees.

"Immigration reform is going require the president's leadership," Hagel said.

With another summer approaching and the prospect of scores of migrant deaths in the desert along the southern U.S. border, immigration reform remains the central issue in America's
relationship with Mexico. About 60% of the estimated 8 million to 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States were originally from Mexico.

The administration's proposal has won support from business groups and from Mexican President Vicente Fox. Some lawmakers involved with immigration issues praised it as a constructive
first step, but others have called it unworkable.

Many Democrats and Latino organizations say the plan does not do enough to help longtime undocumented residents become citizens. Proponents of restricting immigration say the Bush plan
amounts to an amnesty.

In the House, where opposition from conservatives is strong, a hearing today will examine whether the guest-worker plan would take jobs from Americans.

Immigration has become "politically too hot," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters after joining other senators to testify in favor of action on reform.

"The extremes are driving this debate," he told the committee. "It's apparent to me that the Congress is not going to act this year on the immigration issue."

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), committee chairman, said the administration should tell lawmakers if its timetable for action was really in 2005 and not this year. That might allow more
limited measures that have bipartisan support in Congress to move ahead, he noted.

"We are all needing some guidance as to the priorities the White House has on this issue," Lugar said.

Separately, Aguirre's agency announced Tuesday that tens of thousands of illegal immigrants wrongly turned away when they applied for green cards in a late 1980s amnesty program could
now reapply. After years of fighting lawsuits by pro-immigrant groups, the government in January agreed to reconsider the cases.

Illegal immigrants who were in the United States before 1982 can reapply during a one-year period beginning May 24. Information is available online at http://www.uscis.gov under "USCIS
Legal Settlement Notices and Agreements." The government estimates that fewer than 60,000 people will be eligible for green cards, but immigrant advocates say the number could approach
200,000.
 
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Backlogs

From the LA Times.

THE NATION

Backlog of Immigrant Paperwork Growing

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Times Staff Writer

March 29, 2004

WASHINGTON — Four years ago, as a presidential candidate hoping to draw Latino votes, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush vowed to slash the backlog of applications for legal immigration. No one would have to wait longer than six months, he promised.
Despite that resolve, the opposite has happened — more people than ever are facing longer-than-ever delays.
Green cards that would have taken 14 months to process in 2001 are now averaging 33 months. The number of pending applications for such things as replacing a lost green card and obtaining citizenship has shot up nearly 60%, to about 6.2 million. Cases more than 6 months old have increased by 89% since 2000, from 1.8 million to 3.4 million, according to the government.
The main reason for the delays is the increased security checks since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the Bush administration. But congressional investigators and other critics
say insufficient funding, lack of personnel and other shortfalls are also to blame.
The problems with the system have been very real in the life of Elerida Rodrigo, a soft-spoken nurse from the Philippines. Rodrigo, who lives in Torrance, met all the legal requirements for a green card long ago, but it took eight years before she recently got the word that her application had been approved.
"I prayed that the people taking care of my case would be enlightened by the Holy Spirit," said Rodrigo, 34. She was so relieved when she got the news, she said, that it felt like "one of the thorns in my heart came out."
The costs and consequences of the growing delays go beyond personal heartache. Businesses that rely on foreign professionals are facing logistical headaches and added legal costs to maintain their workforces. Family members sponsoring a relative have died while the process dragged on. And some immigrants have lapsed into illegality, risking
deportation, because work permits or other papers have expired.
"Even though we say we want immigrants to go through the legal process and not come here illegally, we make the legal process as cumbersome and difficult as we can," said Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-North Hollywood). "That is encouraging the very illegality we are trying to deter."
Annual levels of immigration have held steady since the terrorist attacks. Now the growing backlog raises questions about the ability of the system to handle the additional load that would be created by the president's proposed guest worker program. As many as 8 million to 12 million illegal immigrants could file for legal status.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the arm of the Department of Homeland Security that inherited the work from the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, is the agency struggling with the effect of the increased security checks and scarce resources.
"All of these factors combined to put us where we are today, which is digging out of a very deep hole," said William Yates, head of operations for the immigration agency.
The agency will soon send Congress a backlog elimination plan that is expected to promise that Bush's six-month goal can still be met — but not until 2006.
At bottom, congressional investigators and outside critics say, the agency was simply unprepared to handle its new challenge. Nor has the government assigned a high enough priority to overcoming the obstacles and clearing the backlogs.
"Our government has spent a huge sum of money in elevating the security and the equipment at airports," Yates said. "We have had the mandate. We have not had the funding."
Without question, heightened security concerns have been a big factor in the growth of delays and backlogs. Before Sept. 11, for instance, the government ran full security checks on only some kinds of immigration applicants, such as those seeking citizenship. Now, every applicant must undergo full screening, causing the workload to balloon.
Full Security Checks

Immigration is performing full checks on 7 million applicants a year, compared with 2.5 million before the attacks, Yates said. Out of 4,500 officers who handle immigration applications, 1,000 have been relegated to do nothing but security checks.
In addition, errors have led to costly setbacks. In late 2001, when a security check conducted by the FBI failed to flag a suspected terrorist who was seeking citizenship, the immigration agency had to recheck 3.2 million applicants to make sure there were no other mistakes.
"We had to put naturalization cases on hold," Yates said. "It put us further in the hole."
More delays resulted when immigration case officers were diverted to handle a controversial registration program for men from predominantly Muslim countries.
Efforts to make the system friendlier and more efficient created their own problems. A national toll-free call center was set up to handle questions and ease some of the burden on
immigration district officers.
But the private contractor employees who answer the phones know little about immigration matters, have no access to individual files and largely stick to scripted responses.
"The call center is in Kentucky, but it might as well be in India for all the good it does," said Crystal Williams, the American Immigration Lawyers Assn.'s liaison with the agency. "If the issue is outside the script, they don't know what to do."
Veteran immigration employees say morale within the agency keeps sinking.
"We're as frustrated as the applicants, if not more so," said Brenda Neuerburg, a documentation expert in Baltimore.
"The people who come to us are very irate because their cases are taking so long," she added. "If there is the slightest problem with a case, that increases the time."
Like a bureaucratic nightmare, the backlog has begun to perpetuate itself, say those caught in it.
Consider green cards: Because the applications are taking so long, supporting documents, including fingerprints, medical records and security checks, often become lost or outdated and have to be resubmitted. That means the application is delayed, with more chores for employees and more anxiety for immigrants.
"The backlogs are now much longer than at any time since I've been practicing, and by an exponential factor," said Carl Shusterman, a Los Angeles immigration lawyer with 30 years of experience.
Some immigration employees have taken matters into their own hands.
In December, a former immigration contractor at the agency's Laguna Niguel office was convicted of shredding immigrants' files to clear up a 90,000-document backlog.
Some experts suggest extending the expiration dates for work permits, fingerprints, travel permits and other supporting documents.
"If you know a case is going to take three years, at least you shouldn't bury yourself in other paperwork that is only going to make matters worse," Shusterman said.
Rodrigo, the Torrance nurse, said she had to submit fingerprints three or four times, and at least twice had to have medical checkups. "It's a stressful wait, but I didn't lose hope," she said.
Change of Sponsors
While Ymelda Gonzalez of Gardena waited, her mother, who was her sponsor, died of cancer at age 73. Gonzalez said her request had been pending for more than three years. Now her father is her sponsor. He is 67 and suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure.
"I feel bad," said Gonzalez, 40. "All of my brothers and sisters are U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and I am not. I would like to feel more secure." Originally from Mexico,Gonzalez remains an illegal immigrant after 19 years in California.
Her husband, Salvador, 42, a machine shop programmer in the movie industry, is also seeking a green card with his employer's support. For now, he said, he makes do with a work permit that must be renewed annually. The couple just bought a house, but they wonder whether the government will one day send them back to Mexico. "I wish the people who are handling these cases could put themselves in the shoes of those of us who are waiting," he said.
Instead of empathy, the immigration agency is offering a fee increase.Fees for most applications will soon increase by $55 to $60, and henceforth be automatically adjusted for inflation. The cost of a citizenship application will increase to $320.
Immigrant advocates say the fee increases add insult to injury. "If this was a private operation, consumers would be outraged," said Karen Narasaki of the National Asian Pacific
American Legal Consortium. "But it's a government monopoly, the worst of all monopolies."
Immigration operations head Yates said there was no other alternative. "That fee increase is long overdue," he said. It "gets us to a point where we stop bleeding, we stop losing money on the cases we are adjudicating and we start digging into the backlogs."
Bush's 2005 budget proposes a $58-million increase that would bring immigration funding to $1.7 billion. But the president is also calling for a reduction in general fund dollars to the agency as those are replaced with receipts from higher fees.
It's going to be tough to get any more funding than that, Berman said. "By definition, people waiting to become U.S. citizens are not voters, and they are not constituents."
 
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Immigration Priorities

washingtonpost.com

U.S. Anti-Terrorism Tactic: Immigration

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 29, 2004; Page B01

Majed Hajbeh was in his stocking feet when the war on terrorism came calling. It was a rare morning off for the engineering technician, a lazy
Thursday in a suburban Virginia neighborhood of red-brick townhouses and gently flowering Bradford pear trees. And then came the rap on the door.

Agents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security were on the stoop of the Woodbridge home. Hajbeh, 41, black-eyed and bearded,agreed to let them search it. Several hours later, they drove off clutching a sheaf of documents related to his immigration in 1992.

Today, nearly 10 months after that raid, Hajbeh sits in an orange jumpsuit in Piedmont Regional Jail near Lynchburg. He is facing a routine
immigration charge: falsely portraying himself as a single man in order to qualify for legal U.S. residency. But if he is sent back to his native Jordan,he faces a life sentence.

And that is precisely why U.S. authorities are so eager to get rid of him. According to court testimony, the agents drove to Hajbeh's townhouse June 9 after making an alarming discovery: He had been convicted in 1999 for a series of bomb attacks in Jordan.

Hajbeh's case offers a glimpse at a new legal offensive playing out in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Homeland Security officials say they are checking immigration records of hundreds of U.S. residents suspected of ties to terrorism, looking for violations in order to jail and potentially deport them.

Officials argue that with the United States facing grave peril, they must do everything they can to ferret out potential terrorists. But building terrorism cases can be dauntingly complex, so in many cases authorities are turning to evidence of other, lesser offenses.

Hajbeh's supporters, including local Muslims and a civic group in Prince William County, protest that this tactic is abusive. They say that the
Jordanian bombing case is full of holes and that it is unfair to separate a man from his wife and seven children for 10 months because of a minor
immigration charge.

Denyse Sabagh, one of Hajbeh's attorneys, complained that authorities are using terrorism allegations to target immigrants, even though they are never charged with terrorism.

"Just because there's some sort of hint there could be something there, they just want them out," she said.

Michael J. Garcia, who oversees immigration and customs enforcement at Homeland Security, acknowledged that immigration charges are being used in a more systematic way than ever against potential terrorists. He defended the move, saying the government must use all legal tools to preempt attacks.

"We are looking to use them broadly to shut down those vulnerabilities before they become acute," he said. "Before they become the attack that kills a thousand people."

Sentenced in Jordan

The chains on Hajbeh's feet clinked as he stood up. The judge had just recessed the bond hearing in the tiny immigration courtroom, located in an obscure corner of an office tower above the Ballston Metro station in Arlington.

"I came to America 'cause it's freedom. And they catch me for nothing," Hajbeh bitterly told a reporter. "There is nobody killed, and they tried to make me a terrorist."

Authorities believe there is plenty of reason to be worried about him. Five years ago, he was convicted in absentia by a Jordanian military court in a series of 1998 bomb blasts in Amman. The homemade explosives, planted late at night, damaged an American school, a five-star hotel and the cars of two former government officials. No one was injured.

But that wasn't all. One of Hajbeh's co-defendants was Abu Qatada, known in Jordan as an Islamic preacher who had sought asylum in London. U.S. authorities believe he is something else: an agent for Osama bin Laden.

The government's concerns emerged as the bond hearing proceeded in November. Luis Paoli, an attorney for Homeland Security, said in court papers that evidence in the Jordanian case showed that Hajbeh organized a small Islamic anti-government group, Reform and Challenge, during two visits home in 1994-95 and in 1996. Hajbeh instructed members to contribute money for bomb materials, according to the case. After Hajbeh returned to the United States, he stayed in touch, approving the group's planned attacks
in 1998, according to Paoli, citing the Jordanian information.

"A person who has done this in the past . . . is capable of doing it again," he declared in the packed courtroom.

The judge asked why U.S. prosecutors hadn't charged Hajbeh with terrorism. "There's some classified information. There are some other factors. We can go ahead and lodge a charge, if that's the problem," Paoli replied.

Sabagh, the defense attorney, jumped in. "This case has been going on since June," she said, adding that if the government had enough evidence to support a terrorism charge, it should file it.

Hajbeh and his supporters gave the judge a dramatically different version of events. Sabagh pointed out that the 1999 terrorism verdicts in Jordan were later overturned. "The charges are gone," she said. Hajbeh's sentence remained only because he didn't show up for his appeal, as required under Jordanian law, she said.

Hajbeh testified that he had no role in Reform and Challenge, although he knew some of the defendants. His visits to Jordan were for family reasons, he said. At the time of the bombings, he was living in Tennessee, working 70 to 80 hours a week in a shampoo factory and a Whirlpool air-conditioning plant. He moved to Virginia three years ago.

Witness after witness took the stand, testifying that Hajbeh had lived quietly and devoutly in the United States. He was so gentle he wouldn't even step on a roach, said one friend. He forbade his children to retaliate against bullies, said another. Essam Mesiry, his boss at EMSI Engineering in Manassas, recalled when a client punched Hajbeh during a disagreement over results of a soil test.

"Majed never fought back," he said.

The alleged al Qaeda connection did not come up at the hearing. According to Jordanian court papers, the London-based terrorism suspect, Abu Qatada, got in touch with Reform and Challenge after Hajbeh had moved back to the United States. Hajbeh's wife and one of his attorneys said in interviews that he does not know Abu Qatada.

The immigration judge, Wayne Iskra, granted Hajbeh bond. He noted, among other reasons, the acquittals in Jordan and claims by several of those defendants that they made false confessions because they had been tortured.

The Homeland Security attorney appealed, blocking Hajbeh's release. Four months later, that appeal is still pending.

A Family Waits

Again and again, Najwa Hajbeh has decorated the rented townhouse for her husband's return. Last month, she repeated the ritual, looping red-and-white crepe paper from the living room ceiling and taping up balloons. "Congratulations!" says a sign taped to the wall.

Hajbeh, 34, a softly rounded woman with big brown eyes and tentative English, still is puzzled by the twists and turns of her husband's case. First, he was charged with immigration fraud in U.S. criminal court in Alexandria, and found not guilty. Up went the crepe-paper banners.

But Hajbeh's case passed to immigration court, a separate system, and he continued his peripatetic journey through Virginia's prison system. Since his arrest, he has been shuttled among six jails, his husky frame becoming steadily leaner.

"I think, here is law in United States," said Hajbeh, in a maroon velvet robe, breast-feeding her 1-year-old in the bright living room. "What is this law?"

Her husband is the calm one, the student of the Koran who urges his family to remember how the prophets suffered. Najwa is the one sprouting white hairs: She is having to feed seven children without her husband's $11.25-an-hour salary, and she is begging friends to lend her money and take her to the jail, because she doesn't drive.

For a highly traditional Middle Eastern woman, it is not easy to speak to a public gathering of men and women. But in July, Hajbeh told her story to a local group, Unity in the Community, which fights racism and anti-Semitism. Its members began attending Hajbeh's hearings.

"The more we heard, the more it became clear the government has not put forth evidence for why this man should continue to be incarcerated," said Sandra Fox of Manassas, a math tutor. "I am distressed and appalled at the way our government is behaving."

Targeted Tactic

Hundreds of Arab and South Asian men were arrested and removed from the United States shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, mostly because they had overstayed their temporary visas. Many were caught up in the terrorism investigation by accident.

The current actions are more targeted. Homeland Security officials say they are looking for immigration violations that would allow them to jail and eventually deport legal residents believed to have ties to terrorism. They also are trying to revoke the U.S. citizenship of a handful of suspects, alleging that they lied on their applications -- a rare procedure that has been used mostly against former Nazis.

Prosecutors sometimes turn to immigration rather than terrorism charges when classified documents are involved. They often can't reveal such information because it would expose sources or tip off others under investigation, law enforcement analysts say.

"You may know something and know it 100 percent . . . but you may not be able to use it [in court]. That happens all the time," said Matthew Levitt, a former FBI counter-terrorism analyst who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.


Continued.......
 
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A HISTORICAL CASE

Curtesy of Siskind...."www.visalaw.com"

NY Immigration Lawyer Co-Produces Play About His Famous Case

The immigration case work New York attorney Leon Wildes did for a celebrity client has proved to be lucrative for him 32 years later, as he is now the co-producer of “Ears On a Beatle: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of John Lennon,” a new off-Broadway play about law, politics and an unlikely client-attorney relationship.

Possession of illegal substances charges in 1972 sparked a major effort by President Richard Nixon, Attorney General John Mitchell, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Strom Thurmond to deport former Beatle John Lennon. Although Wildes was able to win permanent resident status for Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, he failed with Lennon until three suits against the government in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York were finally settled by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Lennon v. United States, 527 F. 2nd 187.

Wildes used a classified FBI memo written by Thurmond to prove that Lennon was a victim of selective prosecution, and he won Lennon his green card on September 8, 1976. The legal saga of Lennon has been the subject of an immigration class taught by Wildes at Cardozo School of Law for 24 years.

After first seeing the play in Massachusetts, Wildes is now the co-producer of the play, which was revised for a New York production at the DR2 Theatre. “Ears” opened March 28, 2004.
 
NYT

The Land of the free?????

March 31, 2004

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Land of the Free?

By STEVEN C. CLEMONS

ASHINGTON — Even if their applications are rejected, citizens of developing nations must pay $100 for a non-immigrant visa to the United States. Not only is this policy unfair and counterproductive, but it is also unpatriotic.

The unfairness is obvious: people should not be charged for something — in this case, a visa to the United States — that they do not receive. And $100 is a huge sum in nations like India, with an annual per capita income estimated at $2,600 in 2002, or even Poland, where it is $9,700.

The State Department says these higher fees — increased from $65 in November 2002 — help pay for the cost of running America's consular service around the world. It's true that heightened security measures adopted in the wake of 9/11 cost more money. But rejected visa applicants should not have to pay for them. It's also true that the higher fees have produced more revenue. But they have discouraged visitors.

From October 2000 to September 2001, 6.3 million people applied to travel to the United States for business, pleasure or medical treatment from developing nations. (These include any nations that do not have a reciprocal visa waiver agreement with the United States.) That number dropped to 3.7 million for the 2003 fiscal year. Applications for student visas fell by almost 100,000 over the same two years.

Despite the decline in applications, visa rejection rates have risen. The rate for "cultural exchange" visas, for example — used by many medical students — was 5.1 percent for the
2001 fiscal year; two years later it was 7.8 percent.

The combination of these factors — an increase in the visa fee and the greater likelihood of rejection — has only strengthened the perception that America has become less hospitable to foreigners in the aftermath of 9/11. So it is not surprising that fewer foreigners aspire to train at American universities and become part of the United States network of talent and innovation.

Here is where it becomes clear the policy is counterproductive: the gap in perspective and perception of the world between Americans and citizens of other nations is only becoming
wider. To narrow it, America should allow more people to come here, not fewer. Winning the war of ideas against those who fear or hate American society cannot be won by keeping the world out.

America should encourage more educational, scientific and cultural exchange with the developing world and support business and leisure travel here. Of course it is costly to monitor
the borders and to screen each person who would like to come to this country. But by reducing its visa fee and more efficiently screening the few bad guys from the many good guys, applications may increase — and so will revenue. At the very least, the federal government should institute a policy — mandated by Congress if necessary — of returning the $100 fee to all applicants refused entry into the United States.

America should not penalize ambition. This country has thrived in large part because smart, curious and determined people from all parts of the globe want to study or work here.
When they become citizens, as they often do, their productivity and innovation help the United States maintain its position as one of the most dynamic economies in history.

Steven C. Clemons is executive vice president of the New America Foundation.
 
NYT

Posted also by "waytoolong". Reposted for integration purposes. Text is posted to avoid registration. Compare with the LA article.

Backlog article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/06/nyregion/06VISA.html?hp


Wait for U.S. Residency Soars Over 18 Month Span
By NINA BERNSTEIN

Published: April 6, 2004


abriella A. Barschdorff, a vice president for strategic investment at J. P. Morgan Chase in New York, is not exactly the
huddled-masses type. But one rainy day last week, shortly before 7 a.m., she joined the long, bedraggled line of immigrants
standing outside 26 Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan. There she took the spot held for her by a young man she had
hired to camp out in his sleeping bag.

It was all part of a last-ditch bid to get her formal travel document, a paper that, as a legal foreign worker with a pending
green card application, she badly needed. If she failed, she would miss a business meeting in London. If she went without
the permit, she risked being barred from coming back to America.

Ms. Barschdorff, who is Swedish, is one of thousands of skilled foreign professionals working legally in the United States who
find themselves virtual prisoners of a ballooning immigration-services backlog. In the last year, the mostly routine paperwork
they need to work and travel has slowed to a crawl.

Processing times — for everything from renewing an annual work permit to securing permanent legal residency — have as
much as quadrupled over the last 18 months, despite the Bush administration's pledge to cut waiting times in half. The wait
to replace a lost green card, for instance, has grown to 19 months from four. And the kind of paperwork sought by Ms.
Barschdorff — a document allowing her to re-enter the country after a brief trip — now takes seven months instead of two.

As a consequence, and despite an infusion of $160 million earmarked for cutting the backlog, the number of pending
applications has risen by nearly 60 percent over the last three years, to 6.2 million, according to a recent congressional
report. The root cause, officials say, is the post-9/11 reassignment of 1,000 agents who used to issue documents and now
do extensive security checks of every applicant instead.

The fallout ranges from minor inconveniences to wrenching dilemmas.

There is Christopher B. Murray, for example, the manager of nano-scale research for I.B.M., who had to decide whether to
rush to his mother's side when his father died in Nova Scotia last week, or battle for an emergency travel document to
replace the one that he had applied to renew last year. And there is William Powell, an American journalist for Fortune
magazine, and his Chinese wife, Joyce Cui, who spent most of her pregnancy agonizing over whether she should go back to
Beijing to give birth near her family. Because she had applied for a green card, she risked being barred from the United
States if she left before her travel documents came through; if she stayed, she risked going into labor alone in New York
when he was reassigned to China.

"The delays in processing some of these cases have clearly been as a result of moving so many of our employees, especially
in the service centers, into security checks," said William R. Yates, associate director of operations for Citizenship and
Immigration Services, in Homeland Security. "We don't apologize. We have identified a number of persons who represented a
threat to the United States."

But he added, "Everything else has suffered, unfortunately."

Mr. Yates reiterated the commitment to cut the backlog by the end of September 2006. But there is little optimism among
many international businesses and institutions struggling with the problem on behalf of 700,000 U.S.-based foreign
employees.

The new obstacles and delays, business leaders say, are already hurting their ability to recruit and keep the best talent
worldwide.

"There are key people who are unable to work, unable to close the gaps in their status," said Mr. Murray, adding that his
recruitment of foreign researchers at Harvard and M.I.T. had been damaged. "There are family impacts. But if you want to be
very cold about it, it puts the U.S. at a serious disadvantage."

One reason the backlog has ballooned is that processing delays force employers to file costly multiple petitions just to keep
an employee and dependents in legal status, complained Lynn Shotwell, director of the American Council on International
Personnel, a Washington organization for 250 corporations and institutions that want to ease the movement of personnel
across national borders.

The council has protested a Bush administration plan to impose higher processing fees to cover the cost of hiring additional
personnel.

Wait for U.S. Residency Soars Over 18 Month Span

Published: April 6, 2004


(Page 2 of 2)



One of the regional immigration offices most beset with delays is the Vermont Service Center, which handles applications
from New York and other Northeastern states. Mr. Yates, the homeland security official, said the office, in St. Albans,
stopped issuing travel documents for several months this winter because it ran out of security paper with the department's
new logo.

The overflow spilled into district offices like 26 Federal Plaza. In theory, after waiting 90 days for a work permit to be
renewed by mail, for example, an applicant is entitled to have one issued in person, the same day. But in practice, no more
than 100 such permits are given out daily.

Such problems played out last week when Ms. Barschdorff, 33, passed through the metal detectors at 26 Federal Plaza. She
wanted to renew her annual work permit and to get the document that would let her travel safely to London and back to her
1-year-old American daughter.

For her, the last best hope was the young man with the sleeping bag, Kendo McDonald. Mr. McDonald, 28, has worked for a
decade as a trusted "runner," shepherding documents and now clients for the international immigration law firm of Fragomen,
Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy. He has his own measure of how much worse the backlog grew in the last year.

"Before I didn't have to do this 3 o'clock in the morning thing," he said, rainwater still dripping from his jacket. "I could come
at 8 a.m."

After vetting Ms. Barschdorff's documents, and those of two other clients, Mr. McDonald guided them into the netherworld of
federal bureaucracy. Ms. Barschdorff would spend the next nine and a half hours there, in a labyrinth of lines and waiting
rooms.

The two other clients asked that their names not be published, worried that publicity could hurt their pending green card
applications. One was a 33-year-old computer scientist at I.B.M. who left India eight years ago to earn a doctorate at the
State University of New York at Stonybrook. He said he had risen at 3 a.m. to make it from his home in Mohegan Lake, where
his wife and 5-month-old U.S.-born daughter were sleeping. The other man described himself as a "denim consultant" who
was born in Zimbabwe but had lived for years in London before moving to New York six years ago to work for the fashion
designer Calvin Klein.
......................
 
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Pastor

Customs holds up pastor

Published Monday, April 5, 2004 11:47:40 AM Central Time


By JAN TUCKER

Globe Staff Writer

The Rev. George Kallarackal, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Ewen, has had a serious problem with immigration which resulted in his not being allowed to reenter the United States on return from his vacation in India.

The Diocese of Marquette indicated that the problem with U.S. Customs and Border Protection was not the fault of Father Kallarackal or the diocese, but was a mistake made by the CBP officials. The matter is being pursued through the office of U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak and the diocese attorney, according to a statement by the diocese.

Meanwhile a letter was read to area Catholics on Saturday and Sunday indicating that, with the absence of Fr. Kallarackal, the parish plans, which have been approved to go into effect when a pastor leaves, will be set in motion.

Effective June 5, St. Jude's Catholic Church of White Pine will become a part of the Holy Family, Ontonagon, and St. Mary, Rockland Parish. Fr. Abraham will pastor the three churches. The Rev. Tom Ettolil, pastor of St. Jude's, will become the pastor of St. Ann's in Bergland, Sacred Heart, Ewen, and the Watersmeet Catholic Church.

The Rev. Abraham Kazhunnady announced a meeting will be scheduled for parishioners of Holy Family, St. Mary's and St. Jude's to work out a Mass schedule. The date and time will be announced.
 
Tennesean

Monday, 03/08/04
Immigrants here frustrated over delays in green
cards

By ANITA WADHWANI
Staff Writer

Ashwak Alrazak, a refugee from Iraq, says immigration officials keep giving her the same message: You'll get your green card in three to six months.

After seven years, Alrazak has no green card, the document that confers legal resident status on immigrants. As a refugee, she is still a legal immigrant but cannot become a citizen. Alrazak is frustrated by the slow pace, the trips to wait in hours-long lines at the Memphis immigration office and the uncertainty of not being an official permanent resident when immigration policies could change quickly.

She was among almost a dozen immigrants who gathered at the Somali Community Center in south Nashville last week to speak to the press about delays and lost paperwork they say have cost them legal work status or postponed reunions with family members.

Their stories were timed for the first anniversary of the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which handles all their immigration cases.

There has been a 21% decrease in the number of new immigration applications but a nearly 60% increase in the application backlog in the past year, according to the General Accounting Office.

Homeland Security officials said the delays are because of new post-Sept. 11, 2001, security measures that have resulted in greater scrutiny of each immigrant's application.

''That's something that we make no apologies for, and that's what we plan to continue,'' spokesman Chris Bentley said. ''We have an obligation to make sure that only the right people receive the nation's immigration benefits.''

Bentley said the agency was pursuing ''better business policies,'' with the goal of reducing waiting periods to six months by 2006.

Citing the Nashville area's rapid growth in immigrant populations, local advocates also want a full-service immigration office here. Now, Memphis has the only office.

There are no plans to open a Nashville office, said Temple Black, an agency spokesman. However, staff in U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper's office said recently that immigration authorities would hire at least eight new citizenship processors for the state — four in Nashville.

Alrazak and other immigrants said one of the biggest strains was not being able to visit home or otherwise leave the country without the permission of the U.S. government,which sometimes takes years to come by.

Iraqi immigrant Nabaz Khoshnaw said his elderly mother has not received permission to travel home for 14 months and was told she would have to wait three to six more months.

''When you are here and you're going by the book and you're told you can't visit family, it's very frustrating,'' said David Lubell, statewide coordinator of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, ''Regardless of where they're from, they have rights.''
 
The VISA Numbers

Big wait to get
families into U.S.

By Emily Bazar -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT
Wednesday, April 7, 2004

Miguel and Marta Suarez have built a
small empire of bilingual day-care
centers in Sacramento, caring for
15,000 children over 21 years and
employing a multinational flock of
employees.

The couple are eagerly awaiting the
arrival of another potential employee,
Nancy Suarez, a longtime elementary
school teacher from Uruguay, who
speaks Spanish and English.

The teacher is also Miguel Suarez's
sister, and has been waiting more than
four years to move to the United States legally.

If the American immigration system doesn't change, she faces a wait of at least five to
seven more years, said Sacramento immigration attorney Ann Kanter, who represents the
family.

Nancy Suarez, 52, is angling for one of the
roughly 1 million immigrant visas granted
annually. By far, the largest number - more
than two-thirds - go to family-sponsored
petitions.

As the Suarezes have discovered, sponsoring
someone to come to the United States legally
is a complicated process that can take years
depending on which country you're from and
which category you fall under.

Federal lawmakers and President Bush are
discussing whether and how to reform the
system, but agreement remains elusive.

"We did everything by the law. We didn't want
to put any hardship on any other taxpayer to
pay for her," said Marta Suarez, 52. "It's not
working."

Roughly 2.4 million people are on the family
waiting list, said Charles Oppenheim, chief of
the State Department's Immigrant Visa
Control and Reporting Division. That number is
a starting point and doesn't include the
applications being processed by federal
immigration officials in the Department of
Homeland Security, he said.

Department of Homeland Security officials say
the reason for the backlog is simple: Demand
for visas in these categories exceeds the supply.

"There are limitations to the number of immigrants that can come in from each country in
any year," said Chris Bentley, spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
"We have no leeway in assigning any limits."

The vast majority of immigrant visas, commonly referred to as "green cards," are
awarded through a handful of pathways:

* American employers can sponsor a foreign-born employee for legal permanent
residence. The State Department says about 203,000 employment-based immigrant visas
will be available this fiscal year.

* Some people seeking refuge from persecution can obtain green cards as refugee or
asylum applicants.

* Fifty thousand people from countries with traditionally low rates of immigration to the
United States are eligible through an annual "diversity lottery." In recent years, people
from Africa and Europe have benefited most.

For family-based petitions, the government divides relatives into two categories:

There are no caps on spouses, unmarried minor children and parents of American citizens.
The wait in these cases is reasonably short, though the application process can take up to
a year.

The government does cap the number of visas available to other relatives of U.S. citizens
and to relatives of permanent legal residents.

This year, 226,000 green cards will be available to people in these categories, the State
Department said. In general, no one country is allowed more than 15,820
family-preference visas annually.

People from the Philippines, Mexico and India experience the longest waits in these
categories.

Over time, immigrants in the United States from those three countries have filed more
visa petitions than those from any other country, significantly outpacing the fixed quotas.
The result: Extra-long wait times.

"I miss my parents very much. I want to join them and help my father," said Dennis Calo,
reached by phone from the Philippines. His parents, Elena and Pablo Calo, are American
citizens who live in Vallejo.

They applied for green cards in 1990 for their two oldest children, Dennis, 36, and Maria
Melissa, 38. That was the same year their two younger children - who were minors at the
time - came to the United States.

Dennis and Maria Melissa recently became eligible for green cards, but must wait for their
papers to be processed, said Kanter, the family's attorney. The Calos recently purchased
the vacant lot next to their Vallejo home, where their children can build a home when they
arrive from Manila.

"I'm discouraged from waiting so long," Dennis Calo said. "If only I can help my parents
(so) they may have a little rest."

But the Calos' wait hasn't been as long as that of others in the Philippines.

There, siblings of U.S. citizens have endured longer waits than members of any other
category: 22 years and counting.

Despite the millions of people waiting for immigrant visas, not all of the available family
visas are used every year because of processing backlogs.

Oppenheim, of the State Department, estimated that 60,000 family visas went unfilled last
year because Department of Homeland Security application processing has been slowed
by new security checks.

"All of the different checks create additional processing time," Oppenheim said. "That can
reduce the number of cases that are ultimately processed to conclusion."

As the backlog grows and waits increase, some immigrant advocates argue that the
system encourages illegal immigration.

"There is no incentive to wait," said Daniel Kowalski, an immigration attorney in Austin and
editor-in-chief of Bender's Immigration Bulletin.

Kowalski and others argue that the quotas should be increased or eliminated to reduce the
backlog and to make the legal immigration system more equitable.

"The government must finally address the millions of people who have been waiting in
line, doing it the right way," said Carl Shusterman, a Los Angeles-based immigration
attorney who once served as an attorney for the former Immigration and Naturalization
Service. "Let's face it. A lot of people that are in the lines are already in the United States
(illegally)."

...............Continued

203,000 EB = 140,000 + 63,000 UNUSED FB : GOOD LUCK
 
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Continued

................Continued

Shusterman, whose wife is Filipino and waited 21 years for her siblings' applications to be
approved, believes the 50,000 visas through the "diversity lottery" should be transferred
to the backlogged family categories.

In principal, most lawmakers agree that the immigration system is overwhelmed and due
for change. But the issue's political volatility has made it nearly impossible for them to
agree on how and what that reform will be.

A bill in Congress by Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, and Senate Minority
Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., would make additional visas available to backlogged family
categories, and would remove the caps on spouses and minor children of green card
holders.

Many lawmakers acknowledge that major immigration reform bills have little chance of
passage during this presidential election year. Besides, proposals that would increase the
number of available visas face steep opposition from certain politicians and from
immigration-control groups.

Diana Hull, president of Californians for Population Stabilization, said family-sponsored
immigration should be limited to spouses and minor children.

"If they want to be reunified with their families, I guess they could go back home and be
reunified," she said.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington,
D.C., proposes, at the very least, to eliminate the category that gives brothers and sisters
of adult citizens the opportunity to immigrate.

Krikorian said he's not sympathetic to immigrants who have been waiting for years.
Instead, he said he's sympathetic to the American people, who he believes don't want to
increase the number of immigrants, legal or illegal.

"Nobody has a right to come to the United states. It is a privilege granted exclusively by
the American people," said Krikorian, whose group supports tighter immigration controls.
"Frankly, if we wanted to admit redheads from West Africa who could sing Happy Birthday
while drinking a glass of water, that's our prerogative. It is completely up to us."

But for those immigrants already on the waiting list, cutting back on legal immigration
doesn't make sense.

Miguel Suarez, 56, cringes at the idea of waiting up to seven more years for his sister,
Nancy, to join the family here.

Suarez came to the United States in 1976 to play professional soccer for the Sacramento
Spirits. He and his wife opened the first of their three Only Love Children's Centers in
1983.

While it would be helpful to have his sister working for him, he said, he wants her to come
to the United States so his family can be together.

"It's tough. We don't have any other family," he said. "The frustrating thing is that my
children grew up without any auntie."


About the Writer
---------------------------

The Bee's Emily Bazar can be reached at (916) 321-1016 or ebazar@sacbee.com.

- Get the whole story every day - SUBSCRIBE NOW!
 
Travel

ravel to U.S. Said Down Due to Entry Rules

Wed Apr 21, 1:48 PM ET

Add White House - AP Cabinet & State to My Yahoo!



By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Top Bush administration officials said Wednesday that restrictions on the entry of foreigners have prompted many to shun travel to the United States since 2001. They recommended that the constraints be reviewed.

"This hurts us," Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said, citing a 30 percent decline in overseas visits to the United States over 2 1/2 years. "It's is not serving our interests. And so we really do have to work on it."

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the security benefits derived from the post-Sept. 11 restrictions have had unwanted economic side effects.

Powell and Ridge made their comments in testimony to the House Judiciary Committee (news - web sites).

Powell cited the example of a Harvard Ph.D. candidate from China who returned to his homeland to attend a wedding but was unable to resume his studies for months because he had neglected to reapply for permission for the return trip.

"People aren't going to take that for very long, and when the word gets out to others, they will start going elsewhere," Powell said.
The number of foreign students in the United States is down as are visits by scientists, businessmen and others, he added.
Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., said the Boston area he represents normally attracts large numbers of foreign scholars but there has been a "dramatic decline" since 2001.
"I am very concerned," he said. Ridge said the increased scrutiny of foreigners wishing to visit the United States was understandable in the post-Sept. 11 climate.
But, he said, "two years have elapsed. We've seen the consequences of some of these changes. We have to be serious about reviewing them."
Stessing the need for making travel restrictions less onerous, Powell and Ridge defended the administration's recent request for a tightening of rules affecting millions of visitors from 27 friendly European and Pacific nations.
Earlier this month, the administration asked Congress to require for the first time in years that travelers from these countries be fingerprinted and photographed before entering the United States.
Under the administration's proposal, the requirement would be in effect until Nov. 30, 2006 __ two years later than originally planned. By that time, the 27 visa waiver countries will be expected to have so-called "biometric passports" for its citizens.
Such passports will include fingerprint and iris identification features that make the documents virtually impossible to counterfeit.
Since January, travelers from most foreign countries have had their digital photographs and fingerprints checked against U.S. security data bases.
 
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NY Daily News

Citizenship, Free Legal Advice.

From green to red, white, blue
Pick up a copy of today's Daily News to learn more about our
citizenship pros and the number to call for their expert advice
By LESLIE CASIMIR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
After decades of living here with only a green card, hundreds of
immigrants who called the Daily News yesterday seeking advice on
citizenship said they are ready to take the plunge.

"I really never thought about becoming a citizen before, until seeing
the article in the paper today," said Marva Spencer, 52, a native of
Trinidad and a U.S. permanent resident since 1975.

"I think if I become a U.S. citizen, I will be able to voice my opinion
more. I will be able to vote."

Spencer was one of more than 1,500 callers who spoke yesterday with
a roster of immigration lawyers, counselors and paralegals
participating in a weeklong project sponsored by The News and the City
University of New York.

The phone-in, called Citizenship Now, is offering free legal advice
between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. until Friday. Thousands of people have
called seeking help. In the first two days, 2,500 callers spoke directly
to a counselor.

But what has astonished many of the volunteer experts has been the
numerous longtime green-card holders who are eligible to naturalize
and do not even know where to start.

"This is unbelievable," said Andy Fair, a Manhattan attorney with the
law offices of Gleit and Fair. "This is a slice of life. You can't imagine the
amount of people who need help."

In some cases, callers get surprising news. Julia Scotto, 74, an Italian
who entered through Ellis Island in 1940, was told by The News'
immigration columnist Allan Wernick that she may already be a citizen.

Scotto, who was a minor when her parents naturalized in the 1940s, has
had to apply twice for citizenship. Her second interview is set for the
summer.

Wernick is also the director of CUNY's Citizenship and Immigration
Project and the driving force behind the Citizenship Now initiative.

Originally published on April 28, 2004
 
Lou Dobbs Should Air USCIS Backlogs

I posted a note on Lou Dobbs website a couple of weeks ago for him to explore the connection between the so-called 'outsourcing of high-tech and R&D jobs' and the backlogs at USCIS.

A company will certainly prefer to open an office abroad to keeping some of its best brains in limbo for 3 to 5 years waiting for USCIS to act.

I think my note was ignored !!
 
Re: Lou Dobbs Should Air USCIS Backlogs

Originally posted by elcid2000
I posted a note on Lou Dobbs website a couple of weeks ago for him to explore the connection between the so-called 'outsourcing of high-tech and R&D jobs' and the backlogs at USCIS.

A company will certainly prefer to open an office abroad to keeping some of its best brains in limbo for 3 to 5 years waiting for USCIS to act.

I think my note was ignored !!
Click to expand...

I really don't want to frustrate you. but how could you come up with the idea to get help from Lou Dobbs.

when you watch his show did you get the sense that he hates immigrants to death. his real concern is not that "outsourcing" harms american economy but indians and chinese, those people he hates, are getting jobs. almost every expert in economics he invited in the show says "outsourcing" is good for american economy. you know what, he knows that.

your point of shifting "outsourcing" jobs to the aliens here makes no difference to Lou Dobbs: aliens are getting american jobs, and he just does not like that idea.
 
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