California Immigration Attorney Blog

Arizona's tough new immigration law is taking heat from all sides. Signed into law less than a week ago, the unprecedented measure allows authorities to request identification from suspected undocumented immigrants and turn those in violation over to federal authorities for deportation.

As our Riverside immigration attorneys reported earlier this week on our California Immigration Attorney Blog, President Obama has requested that the Justice Department review the legality of the law. The historic measure has been compared to Proposition 187, which California passed in 1994. That law prohibited undocumented immigrants from receiving social services and public education but was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.

CBS News reports protesters are pushing for boycotts, including a request the Major League Baseball pull its 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix and relocate the spring training Cactus League.

In California's state capitol, lawmakers called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to review state contracts with Arizona and cancel them wherever possible. State Sen. President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg wrote in a letter to the governor that the Arizona law attempts to legalize racial profiling, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

"I think we have a moral obligation to deliver an unequivocal message to lawmakers in Arizona that California does not condone its conduct," Steinberg wrote.

Even an Arizona sheriff has called the new law "racist" and "stupid," according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Republic reports that Latina pop star Shakira will meet with Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who has vowed to sue on behalf of the City of Phoenix in an attempt to keep the law from taking effect.

On the national stage, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said the Arizona law is a throwback to the Jim Crow laws that mandated racial segregation in public, according to FOX News.

And, while Arizona Sen. John McCain supports the measure, things might be getting a little tense at home after his daughter, Meghan McCain, called it "a license to discriminate," according to the New York Daily News.

Everyone from Donald Trump (supported the law in a CNN interview) to U.S. Catholic Bishops (who slammed the law as "draconian" according to Huffington Post) has weighed in with an opinion. Just five days after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill into law, more than 16,000 news stories have been written and posted on Google.

Continue reading "California immigrant rights activists pressure Arizona as nation reacts in protest" »

President Obama called a tough new Arizona immigration law "misguided" and has requested that the Justice Department review its legality after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the measure into law on Friday.

The new law allows authorities in Arizona to question people's immigration status and ask for identification. Opponents say the measure is ripe for racial profiling and other civil rights violations that will target minorities. Arizona officers would be permitted to arrest those found to be undocumented and turn them over to federal immigration officers.

"The Arizona immigration bill is an affront to the civil rights of all Americans and an attempt to legalize racial profiling," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who promised visible protests against the measure.

Our Los Angeles immigration attorneys expect the measure to significantly ratchet up the pressure on the Obama Administration to push compassionate immigration reform. MSNBC noted on Monday that powerful lobbyists in the Hispanic community are out in force, pushing the Administration to take action against harsh tactics faced by hard-working immigrant families.

Economic consequences could follow, as USA Today reported that some travelers are indicating they will cross Arizona off their list of possible vacation destinations.

Strong parallels are being drawn between Arizona's new law and California's Proposition 187, a 1994 initiative which sought to deny health benefits and public schooling to undocumented immigrants. The measure was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.

"The state is powerless to enact its own scheme to regulate immigration," U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer wrote in the Proposition 187 ruling. "The authority to regulate immigration belongs exclusively to the federal government."

Since that decision, federal judges in Pennsylvania and Texas have issued similar rulings, overturning state regulations on immigration, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Continue reading "Tough new Arizona immigration enforcement measure could be impacted by California immigration reform history" »

A case brought by the Obama Administration before California's 9th Circuit Court, seeking to deport a middle-class Nevada couple, has infuriated California immigrant rights advocates, who are pushing the administration to live up to its promise to legalize hard-working, law-abiding citizens.

One judge criticized the government's case as "horrific," while another labeled it the "most senseless result possible" and a third called it "an extraordinarily bad use of government resources," according to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times.

While President Obama promised to "target enforcement efforts at criminals and bad-actor employees," critics contend the government is toughening immigration enforcement against hardworking people who pose no threat to the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security said it would indefinitely suspend action against the couple, Ulises Martinez-Silver and Saturnina Martinez, a carpenter and clerk, respectively. The couple were brought to the United States from Mexico as children, and now have American children of their own, ages 12 and 8. Neither has a criminal record.

Immigrant rights activists and California immigration attorneys say the case is illustrative of the fact that deportation levels continue to climb as the government pursues cases against students, nannies, janitors and other law-abiding immigrants.

A review by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University shows that the proportion of criminal immigrants in detention has increased from 27 percent in 2009 to 43 percent in 2010. However, the report found only a small number of serious criminals were included in that figure, while most were arrested for minor offenses, including traffic violations and disorderly conduct.

A memo from the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement reveals that the agency's goal is to deport 400,000 people this year, up from 349,000 in 2008 and 197,000 in 2005.

Continue reading "California court cites case of immigrant couple as abuse of government authority " »

A California Appeals Court denied a motion to vacate a defendant's guilty plea to a robbery charge, after the immigrant claimed he did not understand he would face deportation if convicted of a felony.

Frequently, our Los Angeles immigration attorneys and criminal defense lawyers work together to defend immigrants facing criminal charges in Southern California. Being convicted of a felony can impact an immigrant's rights to remain in the United States and frequently leads to a deportation order.

In this case, People V. Marquez, the U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service ordered the defendant to appear in May 2007 for removal proceedings, based on his 2003 conviction. In December 2007, following final review, he was ordered deported to Nicaragua.

In August 2009, he filed a motion to set aside the 2003 conviction, claiming his defense attorney and the trial court failed to adequately counsel him on the deportation consequences of entering a plea. The appeal was filed via a writ of coram nobis, which is generally used to bring factual errors to the court's attention. However, the court found no basis for factual error existed and the defendant was not entitled to relief under a habeas corpus petition.

Habeas corpus allows for relief from unlawful detention, however the court has previously ruled a defendant in custody while awaiting deportation for a criminal conviction is no longer under the custody of the State of California and is therefore not eligible for habeas corpus relief.

Continue reading "California immigrant denied appeal of deportation for felony criminal conviction" »

Continued problems with the government's employee identification system, used to uncover illegal immigrants in the workplace, have two U.S. lawmakers proposing biometric social security cards, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Our Los Angeles immigration lawyers and Southern California employment attorneys are appalled at the notion that U.S. citizens could be forced to submit fingerprints or subject yourself to eye-scanners to prove your rights as an American citizen.

The Tribune reports a Chicago-area UPS employee, who was born in the United States, was flagged for possible identity fraud because she had used her married name on a driver's license since 2007. She had been with the company for 25 years and was put at risk of losing her job until she proved her identity.

Such cases of mistaken identity continue to surface with the use of the government's E-verify software, intended to identify illegal immigrants in the workplace. Sen. Charges Schumer, D-NY and Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, are already at the center of the nation's immigration-reform debate. Now the two are suggesting high-tech social security cards, which would use fingerprints or some other form of biometric data to prove someone's identity.

Those refusing to cooperate would face fines or even prison time, according to the Tribune. Privacy groups call it chilling and at least 44 organizations have sent letters of protest to the White House and Congress.

However, lawmakers appear to be warming to the idea, in part because of the problems associated with E-verify, the 13-year-old federal program used to track employee status. Nearly 200,000 companies use the system, with about 1,000 new employers signing up per week. The system checks an employee's identification by matching it with records provided by the Social Security Administration. It is wrong in 4 percent of the cases and the Department of Homeland Security reported an evaluation determined it failed to flag illegal workers using Fake IDs more than half the time.

Continue reading "Biometric identification proposed for workplace; could violate civil rights, employment laws" »

Arizona's passage last week of a tough immigration enforcement measure would require people to carry proof of legal status and mandate that police check for it, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Arizona's governor is expected to sign the measure into law. The Times compares Arizona's current struggle with immigration to the battles wages over California immigration laws during the 1990s.

"In some ways, Arizona is a generation behind California," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in Los Angeles.

Much of the tough talk in California has waned since immigrants have become active in politics and vocal about immigrant rights. Our Los Angeles immigration attorneys have witnessed the power of the immigrant voice at all levels of California politics; the growing power of California's immigrant population is largely responsible for improvements in recent years, though much work remains to be done.

But the situation in Arizona is different, where an overwhelmingly white and conservative electorate dominates the political scene while Latinos, though growing in numbers, make up fewer than 12 percent of voters.

Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce, the Republican lawmaker responsible for last week's bill and a host of other hard-line measures targeting immigrants, said the crackdown will continue and said he foresees no political backlash.

"The people are consistently for this," Pearce said.

But, like California a generation ago, times are changing: nearly half of Arizona's grade school population claim some form of immigrant status. As we reported earlier this month on our California Immigration Attorney blog, that demographic shift has already occurred in California and continues to influence our immigration debate.

Continue reading "Arizona's tough new immigration laws a reflection of California immigration debate a decade ago" »

A 46-year-old Laguna Niguel man pleaded guilty this week to a visa fraud scheme in which he had impostors take tests on behalf of foreign students who wanted to remain in the country on student visas.

Our Los Angeles criminal defense attorneys and Southern California immigration lawyers aggressively defend the rights of clients facing criminal charges or deportation involving the U.S. immigration system.

In this case, the man faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty in Santa Ana federal court to a charge of conspiracy to commit visa fraud. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported finding evidence after executing a search warrant on his home.

Prosecutors contend he was the central figure in a ring that provided services to 119 students from Middle Eastern countries in exchange for payment of at least $1,000 per exam.

Foreign students who are temporarily granted admission into the U.S. on a student F-1 visa, are allowed to remain in the country as long as they are enrolled as a full-time student and attend classes at least 18 hours per week. Failure to comply can lead to the loss of a visa and deportation.

The scheme had been ongoing since 2002 and ended after a raid in December, when agents seized 60 California driver's licenses in the names of foreign students.

The students were enrolled at colleges throughout California, including: Irvine Valley College, Saddleback College, Coastline Community College, Golden West College, Orange Coast College, El Camino College, Santa Monica College; California State University in Los Angeles, California State University in Long Beach, and California State University in Dominguez Hills.

Continue reading "California man charged with visa fraud involving Middle Eastern college students" »

The proposed immigration reform measures being pushed by senators Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are recycled and inadequate measures that fall short of the comprehensive, compassionate reform promised by the Obama Administration, according to an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Our Los Angeles immigration attorneys are following Washington's reform agenda closely and expect the issue to increase in profile now that the nation's lawmakers have turned their attention from health care reform.

The opinion piece by David Bacon, author of "Illegal People - How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants," outlined what he said are a number of problems with the current proposal:

-It ignores trade agreements, including NAFTA and CAFTA, which increase the profits of U.S. corporations at the expense of continued poverty in Mexico and Central America.

-Workers without proper papers will be fired and may be imprisoned under the new proposals, and immigration raids are expected to increase.

-The proposed guest-worker program lacks rights and leverage to allow for better conditions.

-The legalization plan would impose barriers for the 12 million U.S. immigrants seeking legal status.

Bacon calls for putting aside old ideas and forging a new measure that would:

-Stop trade agreements that contribute to poverty and forced migration.

-Provide immigrants a quick and easy path to legal status and citizenship.

-End visa backlogs.

-Protect worker rights.

-Increase peace and civil rights in border communities.

-Close immigration prisons, end detention and stop raids.

-Allow for green cards that are not tied to employment.

-End guest-worker programs.

Bacon compares the current immigrant rights debate to the civil rights uprisings in the 1960s, saying without activism we might still be waiting for a Voting Rights Act.

Continue reading "Current proposals for immigration reform not enough to provide rights to Southern California immigrants" »

A federal immigrations officer who was caught on videotape demanding sex in exchange for a green card has pleaded guilty in Supreme Court in Queens, according to the New York Times.

Wednesday's plea is stark reminder of the discrimination, harassment, intimidation and other challenges faced by our immigrant population. Our Los Angeles immigration attorneys aggressively fight for immigrant rights throughout Southern California and urge anyone who has been subject to abuse to contact us for a confidential appointment to discuss your rights.

In this case, the officer is expected to receive a prison sentence of between 18 months and 4 years. The 48-year-old man coerced oral sex from the 22-year-old wife of an American citizen. The incident occurred in December 2007, after the officer hinted he could deny her a marriage-based green card and have her relatives deported.

He summoned her to a private meeting in a parked car on Queens Boulevard, where he demanded sex; she hid a digital camera in her pocket and made an audio recording of the meeting. He then forced her to perform oral sex before allowing her to leave his vehicle.

Authorities say the officer handled 8,000 green card applications during his three years with the office of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. While the agency claimed two years ago that it was inspecting the agent's former cases, a spokesperson said this week the review would only begin now that he was convicted.

He pleaded guilty to receiving a bribe, receiving a reward for official misconduct, sexual misconduct, coercion and official misconduct. Sentencing is scheduled for July 22.

The victim has yet to receive her status as a permanent resident.

Continue reading "Immigration officer pleads guilty to coercing sex from immigration applicant" »

A new poll released by the Los Angeles Times and the University of Southern California found that fewer than half of California voters favor the denial of services to illegal immigrants.

Our Los Angeles immigration defense attorneys point to an outstanding opinion piece published Thursday (April 8, 2010) in the Los Angeles Times. Dan Schnur, former communications director for Gov. Pete Wilson and an advisor to the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, likened the poll's results to a sea-change in opinion similar to the trend-setting shifts for which California is famous.

You see, the same electorate passed Proposition 187 in 1994 by a margin of nearly 60 percent. That law, which campaigned as the "Save Our State" initiative, refused social service, health care and public education to illegal immigrants in California, which was found unconstitutional in federal court.

Now, 1 in 4 of those voters apparently no longer feel that way, according to the Times/USC poll; only 45 percent still support denial of basic services to illegal immigrants.

Schnur argues that, as the nation's trend setters, the great immigration debate originated in California out of growing frustration in the 1990s and we may well be leading the shift to a softer stance that supports legal forms of immigration, guest-worker permits, and a path to citizenship for our immigrant populations.

Schnur writes that the poll found voter support for each of those initiatives and, while the growing number of immigrant voters has played a roll, the margins are much more striking when broken down by age rather than race.

California voters ages 18 to 29 oppose social-service restrictions by a margin of more than 20 points, while those over 65 support them by 12 points. As we reported over the weekend on our California Immigration Attorney blog, college students are participating in rallies across the state and across the nation in favor of humane immigration reform.

"Just as young people are more likely to have gotten to know a gay neighbor or co-worker, the growth in the Latino and Asian population in the state has given young Californians a much higher comfort level than their elders with those of different racial and ethnic backgrounds," Schnur wrote. "In both cases, exposure has brought familiarity, which has in turn brought tolerance."

Additionally, voters under 45 joined Latino and Asian Americans in responding that illegal immigrants offer a net benefit to the state.

Continue reading "California may sway national immigration debate toward social justice for illegal immigrants" »

The debate over immigration reform in California is making its way onto a UC campus, where it has become a prominent concern among students and young voters seeking to hold President Obama accountable on the issue, according to the California Independent Voter Network.

Our Southern California immigration attorneys share some of the concerns of students, who are angry over the separation of families and the difficulty immigrants face in obtaining education and other social services.

Students plan to participate in a nationwide rally today and have classified the issue of fair treatment of California immigrants as a "social justice" issue. If history is any indication, our nation's college students will play a key roll in reform, just as they have with social justice issues in the United States for most of the last century.

A smaller group of the students also participated in the massive immigration reform rally in Washington, D.C., which we reported about here on our California Immigration Attorney blog.

Joining with other immigration advocates, the students are seeking comprehensive reform, and an end to immigration raids, which they see as having no impact on national security.

While current policies, including California's DREAM Act, allow non-citizens in-state tuition, the same bill prevents them from receiving financial aid.

Continue reading "Students join fight for immigration rights in California" »

A major labor union and political backer of President Obama is slamming the use of deportation quotas and workplace audits being used as immigration enforcement tools by the Department of Homeland Security, according to the Washington Post.

Our Los Angeles immigration attorneys are closely monitoring the immigration debate; from California, where a candidate for governor is proposing sanctions against illegal immigraints, to the nation's capital, where protesters have taken to the National Mall to fight for immigration reform.

The Service Employees International Union wants Homeland Security "to stop these crazy irrational policies," according to Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina. Vigils are being held in Oakland, Scaramento, Los Angeles, San Franciso, San Jose, Boston, New York City and Minneapolis.

The union contends that Obama and Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano criticized the Bush Administration for factory raids and neighborhood sweeps. Yet, immigration advocates report that thousands of workers are being forced into the underground economy by electronic audits of company hiring records.

Advocates also point to recent information that U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is changing agent performance evaluations to emphasize caseload quotas and is widening whom it targets for deportation.

The union argues that Obama had promised to target dangerous criminals for deportation and is instead increasing the pressure on hardworking service workers.

"They said they were going after criminals. They need to do that," Medina said. "But instead, they are still going after meatpackers, janitors and cooks."

Continue reading "Union slams government over deportation quotas, workplace raids in fight for immigration reform" »

A study conducted recently by professors at UCLA and USC found allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the United States would have a huge economic benefit, while deporting them has cost federal, state and local governments billions of dollars in lost tax revenue.

Yet, as the Mercury News reports, the debate has actually heated up since those reports were published. And, as our Los Angeles immigration lawyers reported recently on our California Immigration Attorney blog, promises from President Obama to tackle the issue this year will likely propel immigration back into the national spotlight now that lawmakers are turning their attention away from the contentious fight over healthcare reform.

The professors and others insist that legalizing undocumented workers would increase wages, provide more tax revenue to the government, up the consumption of consumer goods upon which the economy relies, and help create more jobs.

Detractors continue to argue that undocumented workers take jobs from legal citizens.

Inherent in the debate is how much illegal immigration costs state and local government and how much undocumented workers actually contribute to the economy through consumption of goods, gas and property taxes, rent, utilities and other expenditures that we must all pay as part of our daily lives.

Anti-immigration parties argue illegal immigrants cost California about $7 billion a year for services such as public education and emergency medical care. Immigration advocates contend illegal workers often use fake Social Security cards to obtain jobs and pay an unknown amount of taxes each year, which they will never collect in the form of retirement income. Ironically, that means illegal immigrants are actually subsidizing the Social Security system to an unknown extent.

The UCLA/USC study found that legalizing the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants employed in the U.S. would have contributed more than $1.5 trillion to the economy over the last decade.

That amounts to about $12,500 per year, per immigrant. Legalizing the estimated 3 million illegals in California could immediately increase state and local taxes by about $350 million a year.

Whereas, deporting 360,000 Mexican immigrants, as the U.S. did last year, actually cost the U.S. economy an estimated $4.5 billion.

Continue reading "Deporting 360,000 illegal immigrants cost the U.S. economy $4.5 billion in 2009, study finds" »

Major Latino groups are releasing voting scorecards, which contend that nearly half of California members in the House of Representatives who have large foreign-born constituencies have not consistently supported pro-immigration positions, the L.A. Times reported.

As we reported on our California Immigration Attorney blog, the immigration debate is increasingly becoming an issue in the California governor's race even as California's immigrant population has become more of a force in local, state and national politics.

Nationwide, the organizations that are part of the National Latino Congreso, found that 41 percent of House members and 25.9 percent of senators with significant immigrant constituents did not consistently take a pro-immigration stance on key bills the group followed between 2007 and 2009.

The bills included those that would have granted legal status to students, expanded immigration enforcement to social service programs, denied automatic citizenship to children of illegal immigrants and granted immigration benefits to gay partners.

While stopping short of recommending the defeat of members at the polls, the group said the report was meant to alert the public to representative's voting records and allow a chance for change before the upcoming election in November.

"Either they change their behavior or the constituents will change their representatives," Antonio Gonzales of the William C. Velasquez Institute, told the Times. "That's the nature of democracy."

Here is the full California Immigration Report.

Continue reading "Immigrant rights advocates continue to pressure California politicians" »

Thousands crowded into several blocks of downtown Los Angeles over the weekend to rally for immigration reform, CNN reported.

Our Los Angeles immigration attorneys continue to monitor the reform movement as the debate heats up amid the California governor's race and promises made by the Obama Administration to tackle the issue this year.

Waving flags and carrying signs that read "Stop prosecuting our race" and "Reform not raids," the protesters urged lawmakers and Obama to move forward with promised reform legislation. As we reported on our California Immigration Attorney blog, the issue is expected to rise to the forefront of national politics now that politicians have put the contentious healthcare debate behind them.

The California rally followed a rally last week on the National Mall in Washington, where the issue of equality for women, African-Americans and gays has played out for most of the last century.

Rallies were also held in Denver, Colorado and Phoenix.

The rallies mark the return to high-profile status of the immigration debate for the first time since former President George W. Bush supported an immigration reform effort that would have provided a path to legalized citizenship for the estimated 11 million people living in the United States without legal status. Those measures failed after being criticized as providing "amnesty" to illegal immigrants.

The latest rallies come in the wake of a new plan backed by senators in New York and South Carolina, which they say would create a "tough but fair" path to legalization as well as create a temporary worker program and increase border controls.

Obama called the plan "promising" and said it should be the basis for moving forward in Congress at the earliest possible opportunity.

Continue reading "California immigration rally held in downtown Los Angeles as debate over immigration reform reignites " »