Author: SCwpadmin

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Día Nacional de Acción y El Proyecto de Ley de Reforma Migratoria

Emily Assunta White en D.C.

Una abogada de Stern & Curray, Emily Assunta White, recientemente viajó a Washington D.C. para reunirse con miembros del Congreso de Colorado acerca de la urgente necesidad de una reforma migratoria, incluso un camino a ciudadanía para las 11 a 15 millones de personas en los Estados Unidos sin estatus de inmigración legal. Emily ha asistido en años anteriores, pero informa que este año fue en gran medida el más productivo desde que cada oficina del Congreso parecía estar de acuerdo en que hay que hacer algo para arreglar nuestro sistema roto de inmigración y que debe hacerse pronto. Los informes en Capital Hill indicaron que el proyecto de ley del Senado “Gang of Eight” se introduciría esta semana y a finales de este miércoles, el proyecto de ley finalmente se introdujo.

A pesar de que la ley de inmigración del Senado (S.744) tiene más de 800 páginas, Emily ha identificado algunos de los cambios potenciales más importantes:
  • Legalización para algunos inmigrantes indocumentados. Esto permitiría darle estatus legal a los inmigrantes indocumentados que entraron a los Estados Unidos antes del 31 de diciembre de 2011 mediante la creación de una categoría llamada Inmigrante Provisional Registrado (Registered Provisional Immigrant-RPI). Aquellos que son elegibles para este estatus estarían dispuestos a pagar una multa e impuestos atrasados, y se les dará autorización de trabajo y viaje. Después de 10 años como un RPI, podrían solicitar una tarjeta verde, y más tarde, la ciudadanía.
  • La creación de un nuevo tipo de visa para trabajadores temporarios, llamada visas W. Un W-1 permitiría a los trabajadores menos calificados una manera de trabajar legalmente en el país, mientras que las visas W-2 y W-3tomarían el lugar del programa del trabajador agrícola H-2A.
  • Los cónyuges y los hijos de residentes permanentes legítimos se considerarían parientes inmediatos, y los derivados de parientes inmediatos se permitirían. Como resultado, se eliminarían los períodos de espera de varios años para el cónyuge y los hijos de los residentes permanentes legales. La compensación consiste en que la categoría preferente basada en la familia para hermanos y hermanas de ciudadanos estadounidenses sería eliminada, significando que un ciudadano de los Estados Unidos ya no podía solicitar a un hermano.
  • Estafar a sabiendas a un inmigrante, incluyendo fingiendo ser unabogado o representante de inmigración, se haría un delito.
En los próximos días, semanas y meses, sin duda, habrá muchos debates sobre lo que el proyecto de ley significará si se promulga y probablemente habrá muchas propuestas de enmiendas al proyecto de ley. Emily se quedará activa en esfuerzos de la defensa que ocurren alrededor de la legislación propuesta. Cuando haya actualizaciones significativas de la legislación o nueva información para compartir, enviará una actualización a través de nuestro boletín de noticias de la reforma de inmigración.
Los abogados de Stern & Curray también actualizarán nuestra blog y página de Facebook con frecuencia. Estén atentos para más información acerca de esta fascinante, legislación histórica.
¡Extienda la palabra y comparta este boletín de noticias con sus amigos y queridos quiénes son afectados por la reforma de inmigración!
by SCwpadmin SCwpadmin 612 Comments

National Day of Action and the New Immigration Reform Bill

Emily Assunta White in D.C.

Stern & Curray attorney, Emily Assunta White, recently traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with Colorado members of Congress about the pressing need for immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for the 11 to 15 million people in the United States without lawful immigration status.  Emily has attended in years past, but reports that this year was by far the most productive as every Congressional office seemed to agree that something must be done to fix our broken immigration system and that it must be done soon.  Reports throughout Capitol Hill indicated that the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” bill would be introduced this week and as of late last Wednesday, the bill was finally introduced.

While the Senate immigration bill (S.744) is over 800 pages long, Emily has identified some of the most important potential changes:
  • Legalization for some undocumented immigrants. The bill would give legal status to undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before December 31, 2011 by creating a category called Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI). Those who are eligible for this status would pay a fine and any back taxes, and would be given work and travel authorization. After 10 years as an RPI, they could apply for a green card, and later, citizenship.
  • Creation of a new visa type for temporary workers, called W visas. A W-1 would allow lesser-skilled workers a way to work in the country legally, while W-2 and W-3 visas would take the place of the H-2A agricultural worker program.
  • Spouses and children of legal permanent residents would be considered immediate relatives, and derivatives of immediate relatives would be allowed. As a result, several year waiting periods for spouse and children of legal permanent residents would be eliminated. The tradeoff is that the family-based preference category for brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens would be eliminated, meaning that a United States citizen could no longer apply for a sibling.
  • Knowingly defrauding an immigrant, including by pretending to be an attorney or immigration representative, would become a crime.
Over the next days, weeks, and months, there will no doubt be many debates about what the bill will mean if enacted and likely many proposed amendments to the bill.  Emily will be staying active in advocacy efforts taking place around the proposed legislation.  When there are significant updates to the legislation or new information to share, she will send an update through our immigration reform newsletter.
Stern & Curray attorneys will also be updating our blog and our Facebook page frequently.  Stay tuned for more information about this exciting, historic legislation.
by SCwpadmin SCwpadmin 80 Comments

Department of Labor Statistics for First Half of FY 2013


The U.S. Department of Labor has released its statistics for the first two quarters of FY 2013 and reports that during that time it received just over 36,0000 labor certification applications for permanent positions, of which 25,092 have been fully processed.  Of those processed, 84% have been certified and the remaining 16% have been denied. 
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H-1B Cap Reached Within the First Week

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that as of Friday, April 5, it had received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to reach the cap for this year and will not accept any additional cap-subject petitions. 

 

Since the cap was reached within the first week, all cap-subject petitions will be placed in a lottery.  Petitions eligible for the “master’s cap” will first be placed in a pool for random selection for one of the 20,000 available “master’s cap” H-1Bs.  Those not selected in that lottery will be placed with all others in the pool for the “regular cap” of 65,000 H-1Bs. Those who do not receive an H-1B in this year’s allotment will have their petitions and filing fees returned. USCIS has not yet announced a timeline for the selection process, but historically the process has taken several weeks.   It has also not disclosed the total number of petitions received.

by SCwpadmin SCwpadmin 703 Comments

Will Undocumented Immigrants Finally Obtain Relief?

In the aftermath of the 2012 presidential election, the possibility of comprehensive immigration reform has been resurrected. It is important to analyze the current movement to reform our immigration system in an historical context. Important questions include: Why did the last amnesty in the 1980s not resolve this problem? How have the government and the business community contributed to the growth of illegal immigration? What other efforts have been undertaken by the Obama administration to address the situation of undocumented individuals in the absence of comprehensive reform?

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which became law on November 6, 1986, had three major components: legalizing undocumented workers, creating employer sanctions, and enforcing protections against citizenship-based discrimination. In addition to IRCA-based sanctions, the legacy Immigration & Naturalization Service routinely conducted work-site raids and the Social Security Administration started sending “No-Match” letters to employers if they could not verify an employee’s social security number. Over time, however, employer sanctions enforcement and work-site raids dwindled to the point of becoming almost nonexistent. This change in strategy resulted, largely, from continuing protests from one segment of our society.

Interestingly, this “hue and cry” did not come from immigrant rights groups or the ACLU; it came from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other employer groups. The 1990s was a time of prosperity in the U.S. and the need for semi-skilled and unskilled workers greatly expanded. In past times, this need was filled by new waves of immigrants. Unfortunately, IRCA did not create a mechanism to expand immigration in the face of economic need and many of these jobs were filled by undocumented workers. Consequently, companies complained that stricter enforcement measures were creating hardships for many businesses.

For many years, an unspoken truce existed whereby the federal government did not aggressively enforce employer sanctions or conduct work-site raids, while at the same time no initiatives were created to grant lawful status to the millions of undocumented workers employed in the United States. This truce ended about the time of the 2006 Congressional elections which elevated illegal immigration to a major political issue along with the highly-publicized SWIFT work-site raids. These events are sometimes referred to as the “Bunker Hill” of a new war against undocumented workers.

With the election of President Obama, immigration reform activists hoped for the introduction and passage of comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants. During President Obama’s first term, however, comprehensive immigration reform was a non-starter. Behind the scenes, though, the administration has taken a number of unilateral steps to provide some relief to undocumented workers. Starting on August 15, 2012, young undocumented individuals, often referred to as “DREAMERS” could apply for deferred action status, which allows them to remain in the United States for an initial period of two years and obtain work authorization.

On January 2, 2013, USCIS instituted a “state-side” waiver program which allows undocumented immediate relatives of U.S. citizens to apply for waivers of inadmissibility in the United States. Previously, the application had to be presented outside the U.S. and, if denied, the undocumented applicant would be unable to reenter the country thereby dividing families. This new program protects families from this draconian outcome. Despite these limited benefits, most of the estimated 12 to 15 million undocumented workers, many of whom are children, siblings, or parents of U.S. citizens, must live in the shadows, unable to obtain work authorization, driver’s licenses, or benefits despite the fact that most undocumented workers pay taxes. Although a majority of Americans now favor granting legal status to undocumented workers, opposition to such measures in Congress has allowed this untenable situation to continue.

One of the main impediments to immigration reform is the conflict between principle and practicality. Most people would agree that it is both impractical and detrimental to our country to have 10 to 15 million people, who are overwhelmingly law-abiding and hardworking, and who are closely connected to the larger community, live as an underclass in our society. The possibility of deporting all of these people or encouraging them to self-deport is quixotic at best. At the same time, many people feel that, on principle, we cannot reward people who have broken the law. This sense of principle is one of the main impediments to crafting a practical solution to this issue.

Concerns about civil liberties also punctuate this issue. For example, the government could solve the issue of illegal immigration by creating a counterfeit-proof ID card that must be used by all individuals for a number of purposes, including applying for work. Many people fear that a national ID card would give “big brother” authority to the federal government.

If the truth be told, some people are also concerned that legalization, as well as any expansion of immigration, will accelerate the process of people of color becoming the majority population in the U.S. Finally, an overarching question remains as to whether our immigration policy should serve our historical mission of welcoming the poor, the oppressed, and the “huddled masses” or whether it should be a tool for nation-building with a focus on economic growth and development. Hopefully these issues will be fully aired in the upcoming debate on comprehensive immigration reform.

Perhaps, compassion, political reality, and even a sense of duty and history, will motivate law makers to provide relief to undocumented workers in a way that also provides for the future needs of our country, including finding innovative ways to mesh the needed flow of immigration with border security, discrimination protection, and effective employer sanctions.

 
By: Kenneth Stern and Emily Assunta White
This article originally appeared in the March 11, 2013 edition of Law Week Colorado.
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USCIS Releases New I-9

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released the new Form I-9 on March 8, 2013 and employers should start using it right away for new employees.  The form is now two pages long and has fields for the employee’s passport information, email address, and telephone number.  The new form can be found on the USCIS website.  

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Multinational Taxpaying

U.S. tax laws are almost as complicated as U.S. immigration laws. They are particularly complex for non-U.S. citizens who reside, even part time, in the United States. “Residence” in the U.S. has a different meaning under U.S. tax law than it does under U.S. immigration law.  The impact of U.S. tax law on foreign nationals varies depending on where the individual is from as the U.S. has tax treaties with many foreign countries, though not with all countries. Due to the complexity of U.S. tax law and the large impact it can have on individuals, we recommend that all of our non-citizen clients seek the assistance of a tax professional who is well versed in tax liability for multinational taxpayers.

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USCIS Releases Updated DACA Statistics

On July 15, 2012, the Department of Homeland Security announced a new deferred action program for certain individuals who came to the United States as children and who meet educational, continuous presence, and other key requirements.  Under this program, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, eligible individuals may request deferred action and work authorization for a period of two years, which is subject to renewal.  At this time, the program does not provide applicants with legal status, it simply places them in a period of authorized stay during which any removal action is deferred.


On February 15, 2013, United States Citizenship and Immigration Service issued updated statistical data on DACA cases processedbetween August 15, 2012 and February 14, 2013.  The data indicates that a total of 423,634 DACA applications have been accepted for processing, and that 199,460 applications have been approved to date.  The data also ranks DACA applicants in terms of their country of origin and state of residence; the top three countries of origin among DACA applicants are Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras, and the top three states of residences are California, Texas, and New York. 
Comprehensive immigration reform may provide avenues to legal permanent residence for DACA beneficiaries in the near future.  Please check our blog regularly for the latest updates on immigration reform.

 

 

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Comprehensive Immigration Reform on a Fast Track?

Undocumented immigrants have waited a long time for relief. Due to the political nature of comprehensive immigration reform and Congressional deadlock, Congress has not addressed this issue in decades. Recently, the Obama administration has created some stopgap measures like deferred action for dreamers and state-side waiver processing. Interesting statements made by key Republican congresspeople suggest that the Republican Party may now be on board for comprehensive immigration reform. Our office has been contacted to make a number of presentations about comprehensive immigration reform including looking at this issue from an historical perspective. We caution our clients, however, that this process is in its earliest stages and it will take, presumably, months before there is some type of reform. Clients should therefore be aware that there are unscrupulous individuals, such as notarios, who are trying to charge people fees to file applications for comprehensive immigration reform. There are currently no applications to be filed and our office, other lawyers, and community groups, will be providing alerts regarding this issue. Stern & Curray hopes that comprehensive immigration reform is passed in the near future.

by SCwpadmin SCwpadmin 48 Comments

The long awaited “state-side” waiver has arrived!

In January 2013, the Department of Homeland Security published a rule for how certain undocumented relatives of U.S. citizens apply for a waiver of the time they were in the U.S. without permission. The new state-side waiver rule will result in significantly shorter periods of family separation by allowing a green card applicant to apply for and receive an approved waiver before leaving the U.S. for the consular interview.  As a result, the time that the applicant for permanent residence will have to spend outside the U.S. could be shortened to as little as a week. However, not all foreign nationals who have a U.S. citizen immediate relative (spouse, parent, child over 21 years of age) will benefit from this rule.

To be eligible for the new waiver, an individual must meet the following criteria:

  • Be physically present in the U.S.;
  • At least 17 years of age at the time of filing;
  • Have an approved immigrant visa petition as the immediate relative of a U.S. citizen;
  • Have an immigrant visa case pending with the U.S. Department of State;
  • Be inadmissible based on unlawful presence in the United States;
  • Meet all of the requirements of the provisional unlawful presence waiver.

It is important to note that the program is only available when there is hardship to a U.S. citizen spouse or parent, not a lawful permanent resident spouse or parent. An individual may become eligible for the program even if they are in removal proceedings if they are able to successfully petition the government to administratively close their removal proceedings and they meet the other eligibility requirements.

Individuals are not eligible for an unlawful presence waivers if they meet the following criteria:

  • The eligibility requirements have not been met;
  • Have a pending application to adjust status to permanent resident;
  • Are in removal proceedings that have not been administratively closed or re-calendared;
  • Have been ordered removed, excluded, or deported from the U.S. or are subject to reinstatement of a prior removal order;
  • DOS acted to schedule your immigrant visa interview prior to January 3, 2013;
  • Have not proven extreme hardship to a U.S. citizen spouse or parent, or that your application should be approved as a matter of discretion;
  • USCIS has reason to believe that DOS may find you inadmissible for grounds other than unlawful presence.

Immigration will begin accepting applications for the new waivers on March 4.

 

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