My official source for news, TMZ, is reporting that Balloon Boy’s mom, Mayumi, is not a U.S. citizen, and could possibly face deportation depending on the crime she is eventually convicted of. Mayumi’s attorney purportedly explained that she is a “Japanese citizen” and could force deportation if convicted of a felony or “certain misdemeanor.”

What is not clear from the blurb is whether Mayumi has any status at all, though it appears that she may be a lawful permanent resident (LPR). If she is an LPR, let this situation be a lesson to all LPRs – you should apply for citizenship before concocting an insane scheme to draw attention to yourself. In all seriousness, Mayumi you are not helping the immigration debate.

Citizens of Gwinnett County (with skin that is not white)…brace yourself for a barrage of racial profiling at its best. Prepare to be pulled over for trumped up traffic violations so under-trained police officers can inquire into your immigration status in an attempt to bring another prized “illegal” back to the station so that the County can receive federal money for housing them. Prepare to be questioned regarding your immigration status if you call the police for help after having been the victim of a crime or traffic accident.

Gwinnett County recently announced that it will be joining Cobb, Hall, and Whitfield Counties as a county that practices 287(g), a federal program that trains and authorizes deputies to enforce federal immigration law.

With 287(g) expanding, it is now more important than ever to know your rights and be prepared. If you are a person affected by the expansion of the program, remember, do not sign anything! Ask to speak to an attorney immediately, and do not allow yourself to be pressured into accepting what the ill-trained 287(g) officers say is your fate.

Once upon a time, there was a young boy named Sergey who lived in a faraway land known as the Soviet Union. He lived in Central Moscow in a tiny apartment with his mother, his father and his grandmother.
Sergey’s father Michael was very smart, especially in math and physics, and always dreamed of being an astronomer. However, because Sergey and his family were Jewish, they were often denied many opportunities; and so his father was not allowed to study physics or attend graduate school to achieve his dreams.

One day, Michael had to attend a conference in Warsaw, Poland, for his job. In Poland, he met dozens of other mathematicians like him, from places like France, England and the United States. Michael came back to his family and Moscow and said to them, “We must leave the Soviet Union and look for a better life somewhere else.” His wife agreed, and Michael applied for exit visas in order to leave the country.
Once the government found out that Michael had applied for visas for himself and his family to leave the country, they fired him from his job. Michael and his wife took temporary jobs while they waited to receive their visas. A group known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) helped the family. Michael and his wife took turns watching young Sergey. In the meantime, Michael decided to teach himself computer programming. Sergey watched, even though he was only six years old.
HIAS helped the family in many ways. They helped the family understand the process of leaving the country, helped them prepare their visa applications, paid for their tickets out of the Soviet Union, and even gave them money to help them start their new life. Then one day, about nine months later, the visas arrived and Sergey and his family left the Soviet Union as refugees.

Sergey and his family ended up in the United States in the state of Maryland. Sergey went to school and studied a lot. He wanted to study computer science and math, just like his father.
While he was in graduate school, Sergey made a friend named Larry. They decided to start a business together. They wanted to create the biggest, best search engine for the internet that anyone had ever seen. They named their company “Google.”

Google became one of the most successful companies ever in the United States, and Sergey became very rich. Today he is the 26th richest man in the entire world, and he is worth over $12 billion!
Last week, Sergey was thinking about coming to the United States as a refugee. He remembered how full of hope his family had been in leaving their country and starting a new life. And he remembered how much HIAS had helped his family. He wanted to help other families like his start over and have opportunities to do great things.

Sergey and his wife decided to give $1 million to HIAS. The Chief Executive of HIAS, Mr. Gideon Aronoff, thanked him and said, “one of the most important things that Sergey Brin’s gift signifies, not just for HIAS but more importantly for the nation, is the possibilities inherent in being a refugee. The debate over immigration has frequently become so bitter that an element has been lost: refugees are as varied in their skill sets and contributions as the rest of us.”

I had a very upset client contact me this last week. He was angry . . . at the Visa Bulletin. He could not understand how, after the start of the new fiscal year, there was essentially no movement in the visa numbers. I tried to calm him by telling him that he just needed to be patient. Then I realized how patronizing that sounded. How much longer did he need to wait? He has an approved immigrant visa petition (EB-3) with an early 2005 priority date in the worldwide category. So, I decided to try to figure out when he might actually get his green card. I ask that you bear with me through this process. This is a LONG post, but one I think you will appreciate reading.

First, how many approved I-140 cases are awaiting a visa number? According to AILA’s recent liaison meeting with DOS, there are 198,186 “case ready” I-140 petitions awaiting visa issuance, in the EB-2 (52,584), EB-3 (139,737) and EW (5,865) categories. Case ready means (as best as we understand), that as soon as the petition is current, the Adjustment will be approved or consular processing will begin. Obviously, the EB-2 numbers are only for India and China.

Trick-or-treat!

Immigration is stirring up trouble again in Congress. Just when we thought we were safe to put the issue on the back-burner for another few months, Republican Senators David Vitter (LA) and Bob Bennett (UT) have found a way to sneak it back into some upcoming legislation. And this time, the new alliances are being formed and the new lines are being drawn are almost spooky.

Sens. Vitter and Bennett are trying to attach an amendment to an upcoming Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill that would freeze Census Bureau funds if the organization does not add a question about the citizenship status of respondents to the more than 425 million forms before the once-a-decade count begins this coming April.

The Senators claim that the bill is necessary in order to exclude illegal immigrants from the census count so their numbers won’t affect congressional appointment or legislative redistricting, both of which are based on population. Vitter says that the inclusion of these non-citizens will increase the population count in some states, which would result in a loss of congressional seats for other states, including Louisiana.

Clearly, the proposed legislation has raised many questions, but not only from civil-rights and Latino groups. Even some Republicans signed a letter that was released last week criticizing Vitter’s amendment; and the consistently anti-immigrant group Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington-based research group, also came out against the proposed amendment. The group’s research director Steven Camarota said that Vitter’s amendment was not the right way to go about addressing the problem of illegal immigration, and that it was too late in the game to make significant changes to the 2010 Census.

Surprisingly enough, while many Latino groups have come out against the legislation, one group is talking about the possible merits of the legislation. The Rev. Miguel Rivera of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders said, “It’s basically the best thing to happen to us since sliced bread.” He goes on to explain that illegal immigrants should not be factored in when it comes to calculating electoral districts, but also thinks that this legislation could be a great way to convince Latinos to boycott the Census and apply pressure on Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform package sooner rather than later.

There’s no question that the proposed legislation has created some rather unconventional alliances. But here are a few more reasons why I think it’s just a really bad idea:

• The bill feeds off public animosity over the immigration debate to create an even more rigorous set of laws for immigrants, in turn creating a vicious cycle that perpetuates a dialogue of hatred while legislatively accomplishing nothing;
• Inquiring about immigration status may raise questions of the confidentiality of the information provided to the Census Bureau among citizens, and non-citizens, residents, and non-residents, alike;
• A citizenship question would likely impede Latino participation in the count, a group which is the largest minority in the United States today. Their lack of participation could seriously skew the results; and
• My favorite: former census directors have stated that adding another question this late in the game could not only delay the Census, but could add significant additional costs to the $7 BILLION ALREADY SPENT on the survey. Not with my tax dollars!

With any luck, the provision will not pass and the issue, for the moment at least, will be safe. However, it’s only a matter of time until the next member of Congress comes along with a new trick up their sleeve to sneak the immigration issue back onto the floor. What Congress needs to realize is that the real treat for everyone would be to have a respectful, honest discussion about how to seriously solve one of the nation’s scariest problems.

1. I have paid my relative’s Cobb County bond- why can’t he get out?

Cobb County has implemented a 287 (g) program. Under this program, state and local law enforcement are authorized to identify, process, and when appropriate, detain people who may have violated the immigration laws. Once you pay the Cobb County bond, your relative will be placed under an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer. The detainer provides ICE with a period of time to interview and assess the alien. This means that even if you pay the bond, he can’t leave the jail for 48 hours.

2. If I pay the county bond, what will happen?

Your relative should be interviewed by an ICE official in Cobb County within 24 hours of the payment of the county bond. Your relative will be moved to a section of the jail designated for immigrants and will be transferred out of the jail- generally within 48 hours of bond payment. Note that the ICE official may issue an immigration bond – payment of which will result in a release from jail.

3. If I don’t pay the county bond, what will happen?

Your relative will remain in Cobb County until the underlying charges are disposed of. He will remain in the immigration section of the jail and should then be interviewed by an ICE official within 24 hours.

4. How often does ICE pick up detainees from the Jail?

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

5. Where will ICE take my relative?

Cobb County will bus detainees to the Atlanta ICE Office. From there they will be sent to the various detention centers based on their country of origin

Over the course of the last year, the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (”BALCA”)has been posting a series of appeal decisions. These BALCA decisions routinely deny the labor certification appeal, even for minor, de minimis errors of the employer and/or counsel. An example of today’s postings include the following:

What a horrible name for a post, but I am simply quoting the comment of DLG to an article published today by the Associated Press noting that the soaring number of deaths on the Southern Border so far this year. DLG’s full quote is as follows:

Good, let them die. Maybe if enough of them die, they will start to think it isn’t worth it to sneak over the border. It isn’t our country’s job to make sure that they are safe sneaking in.

We have to understand, as someone who recognizes that a broken immigration system is one of the principal reasons why these people (and they are people, real human beings with families and children and parents) keep dying in our southern desert. Now, in case you think this is an isolated sentiment, here is the comment of “Illegal Foreign Nationals”:

Gotta love the news media and the ACLU, they keep calling these criminals immigrants by mistake. At least those that die aren’t stealing from america and the citizens of this country, except in funeral costs and rescue costs. We should have our military forces along the border to have better border security and keep these illegal foreign nationals out of this country.

It is deplorable to call these Mexican illegals immigrants when they had no immigration records or identification unless that too is forged. It’s too bad more of them aren’t dieing from bullet wounds for invasion and terrorism to america.

Our economy would not be in the mess it is if all illegals trying to cross our borders were caught, killed, or returned before they get in to the pockets of government agency’s. Americans would have jobs, paying taxes, and have some expendable incomes.And never refer to them as immigrants, they are criminals breaching our national borders intent on destroying our economy. By all definitions that is terrorism.

What is missing from the comments in this article, and in dozens of other articles around the country today, are two things. First, a recognition that our Immigration Laws are broken. And, second, compassion. Wishing death on people who want a better life for them and their children is simply not the American way.

Take a moment today to comment on one of these articles and put the message out there–Congress, Fix Our Broken Immigration System!