January 2008 U.S. Immigrant Alert! Newsletter
Published by National Immigrant Solidarity Network

Please read the Newsletter, download URL: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Newsletter/Jan08.pdf
[Requires Adobe Acrobat, to download, go: http://www.adobe.com]

Immigrant Rights Movements for 2008
Latest Information, and What You Can Do

In This Issue:

1) Call to Immigrant Rights Actions 2008
2) 2008 Immigrant Analysis--Congress, Prez Election
3) e-Activism.org ActivistVideo.org
4) US Immigrant News Brief
5) REAL ID
6) NISN is Looking for Student Interns!
7) Please Support NISN! Subscribe the Newsletter!

2008 Analysis: Immigrant Congressional Legislation, Presidential Race
 
National Immigration Forum (January 14, 2008)

The second session of the 110th Congress begins this week, when the House convenes.  The Senate will be back next week.  This is going to be an ugly year for immigrants, as Republican presidential candidates compete with each other to show that they are tougher on immigrants than the next guy, and Congressional candidates try to make immigration a wedge issue.  But before we get into that, let’s review where we left off.

Congress Wraps Government Operating Funds into Giant Omnibus Package
At the end of last session, Congress and the President were deadlocked over appropriating money for various government agencies for the fiscal year that began October 1, 2007.  Democrats were unable to advance their priorities past the President who, since the Democrats have assumed command of Congress, has discovered his authority to veto legislation.  When political stalemate prevents appropriations bills from being completed individually, Congress will sometimes combine a number of spending bills into one giant “omnibus” spending bill.  Such was the case in December, when Congress folded 11 spending bills that it had not completed into the 2008 omnibus spending bill.  The omnibus bill was signed into law on December 26.

For the most part, the immigration enforcement measures favored by immigration restrictionists were kept off the final bill.  One exception was an amendment related to public housing.  This amendment restricts eligibility for homeownership assistance funds to U.S. citizens or to immigrants who are lawfully present and authorized to work.  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the restriction may go beyond barring undocumented immigrants, but may also prevent legal immigrants who are elderly or have disabilities (and therefore do not have work authorization) from receiving this assistance.

Efforts to obtain relief for businesses that rely on certain temporary workers were also thwarted, including a provision to continue exempting returning H-2B workers (seasonal, non-agriculture laborers) from the annual cap.  An increase in visas for the H-1B program was also set aside.  With various factions pushing for changes to the immigration laws—whether to open them up for businesses, tighten labor standards for workers, protect the undocumented, or increase restrictions on immigrants—the final outcome was that almost everyone went home empty-handed.   

There was a provision in the Defense Department Authorization bill (signed in December) that would authorize admission of up to 5,000 Iraqis per year as “special immigrants.”  This provision applies to persons who believe they are in danger as a result of aiding the U.S.  They do not necessarily have to have fled Iraq; they may be processed inside that country.  The provision also streamlines the process for admission of other Iraqi refugees and provides for better coordination of efforts to resolve the growing refugee crisis generated by the war.

The Presidential Race
While the Congress was away, Americans were hearing more about Iowa than we thought possible.  On the Republican side, candidates have been touting their tough-on-immigration plans.  Early in December, it looked like the only candidate who wasn’t repudiating an earlier compassionate view towards undocumented immigrants was Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee…but then he became a front runner.  In early December, he released his immigration plan that, among other things, would give undocumented immigrants a 120-day window to register with the government and leave the country; promote measures such as the CLEAR Act to have state and local police enforce immigration laws; and would eliminate the diversity visa lottery program and the family immigration category reserved for brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens.  His program was lifted—verbatim, in some cases—from a paper written by the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies.

For that he got the endorsement of the Minuteman border vigilante group.

Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), meanwhile, discovered that the populist anti-immigrant wave he rode in to the Presidential race wouldn’t lift his surfboard off the sand.  In Iowa, where immigration was a hot topic in candidate forums, he polled a consistent two percent.  On December 20th Tancredo announced that he was dropping out of the race and endorsing former Massachusetts Governor Mitt “get out of the country when you finish mowing my lawn” Romney.  As Dana Milbank of the Washington Post amusingly noted, Tancredo made his announcement in a hotel where, just steps away, there was a “South of the Border” lunch special being served.  Tancredo dropped out in advance of the Iowa caucuses and endorsed Romney in part because Mike Huckabee, who Tancredo said had an “abysmal” record of “inviting” undocumented immigrants, was surging in the polls. 

After getting Tancredo’s blessings, Romney promptly lost to Huckabee in Iowa.  He then went on to New Hampshire and…lost again.  To John McCain.  The guy who co-sponsored the comprehensive reform bill that all the candidates are now distancing themselves from.  Ouch! However, as Romney is fond of telling us, he did win in Wyoming, picking up eight of the 1,191 delegates he will need to win the nomination.

The results of these early returns are repeating a pattern we have seen in the Congressional elections in 2006 and local elections in 2007.  A candidate’s focus on immigration enforcement may please a segment of the electorate, but that is not necessarily good enough to actually win an election where voters with a variety of concerns come out to the polls.  For an analysis of the elections of November 2007.

Shuler Bill Gains Sponsors
As we noted last year, North Carolina Representative Heath Shuler (D), a former football player, teamed up with immigration restrictionist Congressmen Brian Bilbray (R-CA) and Tom Tancredo (R-CO) to introduce the enforcement-only “SAVE” Act, H.R. 4088.  That bill now has 132 co-sponsors, including a fair number of Democrats.  One of the political struggles this year in Congress will be to prevent the Democrats from favoring proposals that might be seen as “Republican lite”—that is, enforcement- and deportation-only proposals that may not be as draconian as last Congress’ “Sensenbrenner bill,” but might have the same effect of making our bad immigration policies worse while alienating the Hispanic and immigrant vote.

To read more, please go to the newsletter, download URL: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Newsletter/Jan08.pdf

Several Great Immigrant Rights Videos from ActivistVideo.org

T Don Hutto - America's Family Prison

(link to the video: http://www.activistvideo.org/views.asp?id=155)

11/11 2007 Border Patrol agents violently Attacks No Borders Camp

(link to the video: http://www.activistvideo.org/views.asp?id=21)

Useful Immigrant Resources on Detention and Deportation

Thanks for GREAT works from Detention Watch Network (DWN) to compiled the following information, please visit DWN website: http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org

Tracking ICE's Enforcement Agenda
Real Deal fact sheet on detention
Real Deal fact sheet on border

- From Raids to Deportation-A Community Resource Kit
- Know Your Rights in the Community (English, Spanish)
- Know Your Rights in Detention
- Pre-Raid Community Safety Plan
- Raids to Deportation Map
- Raids to Deportation Policy Map

More on Immigration Resource Page
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/resource.htm

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