Global Immigration Counsel : Immigration Lawyer & Attorney : Littler Mendelson Law Firm : Permanent Residence, Labor Certification : Global Immigration Counsel

During a recent White House press conference, President Obama was asked whether he would veto a mandatory E-Verify bill that did not include immigration reform provisions. Without directly answering the question, Obama stated, “We may not be able to get everything that I would like to see in a package, but we have to have a balanced package.” Though Obama acknowledged that the E-Verify employment authorization system can be “an important [immigration] enforcement tool,” he added a caveat – “if it’s not riddled with errors.”

Skepticism surrounding E-Verify’s accuracy is not new. The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have been gradually making improvements to the E-Verify system, many of which are intended to improve its accuracy rate.

The need to attain an acceptable level of accuracy grows as the number of E-Verify users expands. Computerworld reports that more than 250,000 U.S. employers have already signed up for E-Verify, with another 1,300 new businesses enrolling each week. State and local legislation mandating E-Verify use is continually rising. Additionally, in June 2011 two bills were introduced in Congress that would require all employers to use E-Verify. 

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Politico reports that candidates in 20 (out of 37) of this year’s gubernatorial races favor tough anti-immigration measures, be they a Democrat, Republican, or third-party candidate. Not all initially campaigned in support; however, conversion is unsurprising given candidates’ desire to secure the confidence, and votes, of an electorate that, recent polling data suggests, increasingly favors tougher immigration laws.

Jobs remain scarce, benefits are decreasing, and supporters of strict immigration laws believe such measures will improve the outlook for both. Moreover, many voters are dismayed by the stalled federal immigration reform and, accordingly, are pressing state officials to take up the legislative mantle. Politico anticipates that, if these candidates prevail, there will be a surge of legislation mandating that employers use E-Verify to authenticate workers’ legal status, as well as of legislation concerning immigration status in relation to drivers’ licenses, public assistance, and education.

Image credit: 3dbrained

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The Hill reports that, although Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has been focusing on immigration reform on the campaign trail during the past few weeks, he predicts that the Senate will not address the issue until after Memorial Day. Instead, he stated that the Senate’s focus during the coming several weeks will be on legislation concerning jobs, food safety, campaign spending and financial regulation, as well as on moving forward with a number of stalled Presidential nominees.

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Last Thursday, Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) released a framework for comprehensive immigration reform. Although a bill has yet to be introduced, the Senators outlined their “four pillar” reform strategy in a Washington Post opinion column. This plan would include “requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.” For more information on this development, please continue reading at Littler's Washington D.C. Employment Law Update blog.

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Government officials and local businesses are uncertain whether Singapore, which is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, can maintain strong economic growth levels over the next decade. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the export-heavy Asian country is trailing other regional competitors in productivity and has been negatively impacted by the global financial crisis as its primary consumers, the United States and Europe, struggle to fully recover.

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Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-Tex.) and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) have introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity (CIR ASAP) Act of 2009 (H.R. 4321), an immigration overhaul bill they hope will receive serious consideration early next year. In October, Rep. Gutierrez outlined a set of core principles that he planned to include in his reform legislation. Continue reading about this development on Littler's Washington D.C. Employment Law Update blog.
 

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The UK Border Agency announced that the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has completed its review of Tier 1 of the UK’s points-based immigration system. The MAC report recommends that:

• salary multipliers used to convert previous earnings (from outside the UK) into a UK equivalent should be rapidly and thoroughly reviewed;
• migrants with a bachelor's degree but no master's degree should be allowed to come to the UK if their previous earnings are sufficiently high;
• professional qualifications (e.g., law or accountancy) should be considered the equivalent of a master's degree;
• the pay thresholds should be substantially increased, with no points for previous annual earnings below £24,000;
• migrants with previous annual earnings of at least £150,000 should not need to meet the education requirements;
• applicants should receive points for their age if they are 39 or under; and
• successful applicants should initially be allowed to come to the UK for two years -- not three years -- with the possibility of a three-year extension if they are in highly skilled employment.

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The Globe & Mail reports that the conservative-led Canadian government is expected to propose reforms to its refugee system in fall 2009. The reforms include adopting an application system that would fast-track asylum claims by individuals from countries generally considered safe. Under the current system, the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) is charged with hearing claims, issuing decisions and handling appeals. The reforms are aimed at expediting the process by allowing immigration officers to hear claims and issue decisions, leaving only appeals to the IRB. Canada has experienced an increase in asylum petitions, and seeks to curb unfounded claims while ensuring due process is afforded to qualified applicants.

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Anticipating greater restrictions on H1-B visas, Indian IT firms operating in the United States are considering utilizing NAFTA provisions to avoid staffing shortages. The strategy arose in response to proposed U.S. legislation that would, among other provisions, limit the number of employees on H1-B visas in a company to 50% of its total U.S. workforce. Indian IT firms would be impacted because the majority of their U.S. staff work under H1-B visas. 

As reported by Computerworld, instead of sending Indian professionals to the U.S., they would go to Mexico, and Mexican employees would work in the United States under a TN professional visa, which is easier to obtain than the H1-B. No limit applies to TN visas; they are valid for three years, and they are renewable.

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As reported by The Japan Times, representatives of municipalities and human rights groups have voiced their opposition to government-sponsored immigration bills, on the grounds that the bills will violate foreigners' rights and lead to “excessive control” over them. Under the current system, local ward offices handle alien registration; the new bills would transfer responsibility to the Justice Ministry. Hiroko Uehara, the former mayor of the city of Kunitachi in western Tokyo, stated that centralizing the responsibility for alien registration would lower the quality of service for foreign residents. "Municipalities have so far made an effort to provide, at their own discretion, services to foreign residents," Uehara commented. "But if immigration takes control of registration, all that effort will be lost."

For details of the immigration bills at issue, see our previous entry about the proposed changes.

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President Barack Obama plans to begin addressing changes to the U.S. immigration system this year, even though he acknowledges that the recession makes the politics involved in this divisive issue even more challenging. As reported in The New York Times, a senior administration official stated that Obama will frame the new effort as “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system.”

Without stating specific proposals, officials commented that the Obama administration favors legislation that would:

• bring illegal immigrants into the legal system by acknowledging that they violated the law and imposing fines and other penalties as deemed appropriate; and
• guard against future illegal immigration by strengthening border enforcement and being tough on employers who hire illegal immigrants, while creating a national system for verifying the legal immigration status of new workers.

Obama plans to speak publicly about immigration issues in May, and over the summer he will convene bipartisan working groups, composed of lawmakers and a variety of immigration groups, to begin discussing possible legislation. Administration officials are still debating the precise timing and strategy for the proposed legislation.

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Japan’s cabinet has signed off on a bill that, in an effort to prevent illegal entry, would transfer complete control of alien registration to the central government, according to The Japan Times Online. At present, the government is in charge of granting permission for residency, while municipalities are in charge of issuing alien cards. According to Justice Ministry estimates, municipalities have inadvertently issued registration cards to about 20,000 foreigners staying illegally in Japan, a problem that has been blamed on the state’s lack of legal authority to investigate registration data. Other features of the bill, which will soon be submitted to the Diet for enactment, include:

• harsher penalties for those living in Japan illegally;
• extension of the maximum period of stay for foreign residents from three to five years; and
• improved working status for foreign vocational trainees, who would be guaranteed legal protection for wages and labor conditions after engaging in on-the-job training programs for two months or longer.

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As reported at Workforce.com, Rep. Ken Calvert, R-California, who authored the bill that established E-Verify, was unhappy that a provision requiring companies receiving stimulus funding to sign up for E-Verify did not survive in the $787 billion stimulus package. Representative Calvert stated that “there is no assurance that the jobs created will go to American workers,” and asserted that E-Verify was “stripped out of the bill without discussion or debate.” A separate provision, which would have reauthorized E-Verify, also was excluded from the final stimulus package.

Even though E-Verify did not make it into the stimulus package, Congress is likely to find a way to maintain the program (due to expire on March 6, 2009) until it can be addressed as part of a comprehensive immigration bill.
 

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In comments to a small group of Hispanic journalists, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel cited a newly signed law that provides health benefits to legal immigrants’ children as a signal that, in the debate over immigration, “the arrow has begun to point in a different direction.” Emanuel’s comments, as reported at HispanicBusiness.com, refer to a law that increases the number of children covered by the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) from 7 million to 11 million, including--for the first time--children of legal immigrants. Emanuel would not say when Obama might propose comprehensive immigration reform.

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In the wake of the 2008 elections, the Immigration Policy Center issued a report titled The New Electoral Landscape and What It Means for Immigration Reform: Latinos, Asians, and New Americans Redefine 21st Century American Politics (pdf) analyzing voter turnout and voting patterns among Latinos, Asians, and “New Americans.”   Highlights of the report include the following findings:

• Latinos are a rapidly growing share of the electorate
• Republicans are losing ground among both Latino and Asian voters
• From 2004 to 2008, Republicans lost ground with Latinos in key states
• Even a small Latino electorate can make the difference between victory and defeat in a close election
• Obama won the overwhelming majority of Latino and Asian votes
• Voters in general, as well as Latinos, support comprehensive immigration reform and oppose deportation-only policies

The report concludes:

“Latino, Asian, and New American voter turnout was at an all-time high in 2008. The power of these voters is now undeniable, and immigrant-bashing has become a losing campaign strategy. All signs indicate that the incoming administration and Congress will tackle immigration reform, and that the leadership of the Republican Party is rethinking its position on the issue.”
 

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