Legalization

Published on Tue, Aug 23, 2011

The implementation of a case by case review of at least 300,000 deportation proceedings, announced by the Department of Homeland Security last week, has left room for questions among immigrant advocate groups.

With this announcement, Homeland Security said it will implement prosecutorial discretion measures laid out in a June 2011 memo issued by John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka ICE).

Melissa Crowe, director of the Legal Action Center at the American Immigration Council, said on a conference call Monday, ”We are not sure how” Homeland Security’s commitment “will play out in practice” and what recourse individuals will have “if they believe their cases have been mischaracterized as high priority.”

Crowe added that in an ideal world, Homeland Security “officers throughout the country would stop issuing charging documents on low priority cases so they never enter the system to begin with.”

Mohammad Abdollahi of DREAM Activist writes in an email that “the decision from [Homeland Security] and Obama was nothing new, it pretty much just spelled out what they already had on the books.”

Last week’s announcement, based on the June 2011 memo issued by Morton, lays out a path to implement immigration law enforcement priorities put forward in a 2010 memo also issued by Morton that prioritized the detention and deportation of three groups: “aliens who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety,” “recent illegal entrants” and “aliens who are fugitives or otherwise obstruct immigration controls.”Read more...

Published in the Florida Independent

Published on Fri, Oct 28, 2011

Alabama politicians told the people that illegal immigrants cost the state $112 million a year, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform. But the Immigration Policy Center also reports that illegal immigrants spend $130 million a year. Why was this not brought out?

 People say they are tired of illegal immigrants taking Alabama jobs, but how many state contracts have been awarded to out-of-state companies?

 How much money and how many teachers, farmers and other workers will lose their jobs? We get so much money per student and the state is already cutting back. How much more will they cut?

 We need to take a minute and look at Detroit and remember that that city once relied heavily on the auto industry; now some parts of the city have empty buildings. The auto industry is wonderful, but how many people do you know who are buying new cars in this economy?

 We need to protect our farmers and help our neighbors. If we are going to be immigration officers, are we going to start paying the Coast Guard and the federal employees, or are we going to let the federal government do it? They are not perfect, but if we start taking matters into our own hands, then we are no different than the immigrants. Breaking the law is the same for everyone, states included.

Published in the The Anniston Star

Published on Thu, Dec 08, 2011

A decision by the American Heritage Dictionary to revise its definition of "anchor baby" -- labeling it an offensive and disparaging term -- is an attempt to manipulate the "linguistic landscape" and push a leftist agenda, some opponents of illegal immigration say.

"Anchor baby" was among roughly 10,000 words -- including "hoodie" and "babydaddy" -- added to the dictionary's fifth edition last month. The hot-button term, a noun, was initially defined as: "A child born to a noncitizen mother in a country that grants automatic citizenship to children born on its soil, especially such a child born to parents seeking to secure eventual citizenship for themselves and often other members of their family."

That definition caught the attention of Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Washington-based Immigration Policy Center, who heard American Heritage Dictionary executive editor Steve Kleinedler read it during a radio interview last month. Giovagnoli blasted the definition on the organization's blog last Friday, saying it masked the "poisonous and derogatory" nature of the term.

By Monday, the term had been changed. It is now defined as such: "Offensive  Used as a disparaging term for a child born to a noncitizen mother in a country that grants automatic citizenship to children born on its soil, especially when the child's birthplace is thought to have been chosen in order to improve the mother's or other relatives' chances of securing eventual citizenship."

The revision is now a "well-crafted" definition of how the term is used, Giovagnoli said.

But not everyone agrees.

"That's a political statement and it's not even accurate," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "[An anchor baby] is a child born to an illegal immigrant."

Krikorian said the revised definition makes a political statement and is much more than neutral, "just the facts" reference material.Read more...

Published in the Fox News