In Utah speech, U.S. immigration chief says system is unjust

Leon Rodriguez, top administrator of the nation's immigration and naturalization system, says one key word is absent from the vast U.S. laws and regulations on immigration. "You will never once see the word 'justice,' " Rodriguez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), told a convention of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network at the Salt Lake City Sheraton Hotel on Wednesday. The son of Cuban immigrants said it is time to change that, and called for Congress to make the immigration system more just. He also defended President Barack Obama's executive orders seeking to defer deportation of millions.

Read full story

How Immigrant Entrepreneurs Move the U.S. Economy Forward

This week, National Small Business Week, which has occurred each year since 1963, recognizes the contributions of entrepreneurs and small business owners in the United States. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), more than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, which SBA defines as an independent business having fewer than 500 employees. Small businesses created about two out of every three (63 percent) net new jobs in the U.S. from 1993 to 2013, and 60 percent of net new jobs since 2009. Behind these broad numbers is the critical role immigrant entrepreneurs play in America’s small business environment.

See more at: http://immigrationimpact.com/2015/05/06/how-immigrant-entrepreneurs-move-the-u-s-economy-forward/#sthash.eEyWhP1R.dpuf

What GOP Presidential Hopefuls Fiorina, Carson, and Huckabee Have Said on Immigration

This week, three GOP candidates entered the 2016 race. Here’s what we know about their stance on current U.S. immigration policy:


See more at: http://immigrationimpact.com/2015/05/07/what-gop-presidential-hopefuls-fiorina-carson-and-huckabee-have-said-on-immigration/#sthash.1xlAKJtM.dpuf

Actually, Immigration Can Create Jobs

The traditional view that an influx of new workers takes work away from native-born Americans is only part of the story.

When critics of immigration make their case, they often point to the labor market. The argument goes something like this: An increase in the supply of workers creates additional competition for jobs, and if immigrants are willing to accept lower wages than American-born workers, then it's the American workers who will suffer.

Read full story from The Atlantic

McClatchyDC: "The Beginning of the End" for Obama's Migrant Family Detention?

McClatchyDC reports that a U.S. District Judge in California distributed a 22-page tentative ruling on Friday that concluded that the Obama administration's family detention policy violates parts of an 18-year-old court settlement regarding the detention of migrant children. According to memos that outline the tentative ruling, which has not been officially filed, children and mothers in family detention cannot be held in unlicensed secure facilities such as those in the towns of Karnes City and Dilley, Texas. The tentative ruling also states that it is not appropriate to hold a child and accompanying parent in detention unless there is a flight or safety risk.

Read this story

Thousands Of Dreamers Are Losing Their Work Permits

The federal government is struggling to renew work authorizations for thousands of undocumented immigrants temporarily protected from deportation by the Obama administration.

Thousands of undocumented immigrants who gained work permits as part of an Obama administration effort to shield young people from deportation are suddenly losing their ability to work legally as the federal government struggles to renew their authorizations on time.
Exactly 11,028 young immigrants have had their Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status and work permits expire in spite of having applied on time, according to numbers released for the first time to BuzzFeed News by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that handles the permits. The number of lapsed cases represents roughly 5% of the total number of DACA renewals that USCIS has approved so far.

Yael Pineda, a 19-year-old undocumented student at UCLA, owes her job to DACA, the Obama administration’s 2012 program that gave her a work permit and protected her from deportation because she had arrived in the United States as a child. When her DACA status started nearing the end of its two-year term, Pineda applied to renew well within the window of time recommended by USCIS, according to documents she shared with BuzzFeed News.

Read more

DHS FY2015 Mid-Year Border Security Update

DHS press release with a status update on border security efforts mid-way through FY2015. During the first six months of FY2015, the number of total apprehensions along the southwest border, was 28% lower than total apprehensions during the same period in FY2014.

Read more

Think of Undocumented Immigrants as Parents, Not Problems

LOS ANGELES — SOMETHING happened while the immigration system in the United States got broken, something that should change the way we talk about fixing it. Years went by, and nature took its course. More than 11 million unauthorized immigrants settled into our communities; many formed families and had children. Now at least one of every 15 children living in the United States has an unauthorized parent, and nearly all of those children are native-born United States citizens.

Think of that statistic, one in 15, the next time you drive by a school or a playground. Think of those children living with the knowledge that the federal government can take their parents away. Common sense tells you that the threat of a parent’s deportation will exact a terrible price.

Read more from NY Times

How Much Do Undocumented Immigrants Pay in State and Local Taxes?

Undocumented immigrants—and their family members—are adding value to the U.S. economy; not only as taxpayers, but as workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs as well. If they had legal status, they would contribute even more

Read more

Attorneys at David F. Vedder, P.A. Assist Survivor of Spousal Battery and Extreme Cruelty Obtain Permanent Residence.

On April 14, 2015, after two years of legal procedures, a Jamaican national immigrant woman who previously had been granted deferred action under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) finally obtained permanent residence in the United States.  

VAWA was enacted to provide immigration protection for abused spouses, children and parents of United State citizens or lawful permanent residents, allowing the victim (or survivor) to self-petition based on the abuse they have endured. VAWA self-petitioners may also concurrently or subsequently apply for lawful permanent status.

Attorneys David F. Vedder and Silvia Manzanero prepared a compelling VAWA self-petition for their client, demonstrating that she had suffered both battery and extreme cruelty by her U.S. citizen abusive spouse.

However, this was only the first step in the two-part process.  In this particular case, an old agency error jeopardized this immigrant woman’s chances of obtaining permanent residence.  At an adjustment of status interview, attorney Manzanero persuasively explained the factual and legal arguments to the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services officer, who rightly approved her client’s permanent residence application.

As a self-petitioner spouse of a U.S. citizen who has been battered or subjected to battery and extreme cruelty, Manzanero’s client will be able to apply for citizenship after three years as a permanent resident.

Attorneys Commitment to Pro Bono Legal Service at AILA’s 2015 Citizenship Day Event, in Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville, Florida:

For the second consecutive year, Attorneys Silvia Manzanero and Daniel Ross of David F. Vedder, P.A. volunteered at the Citizenship Day event at Florida Coastal College of Law in Jacksonville on April 18, 2015.  The event was sponsored by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), in conjunction with Florida Coastal School of Law and Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.
Over the course of the day, approximately 100 individuals completed the paperwork necessary to become United States citizens.  Attorneys Manzanero and Ross assisted several lawful permanent residents by reviewing their applications and assisting with fee waiver requests.  The duo also helped train other attorneys less familiar with the nuances of naturalization law.

We would like to express our gratitude to everyone at Florida Coastal School of Law and Jacksonville Area Legal Aid for once again hosting a stellar event and for providing a venue for attorneys to deliver pro bono legal services.

At David F. Vedder, P.A. we pride ourselves in serving the community.  We currently plan on hosting a Citizenship Day event in the Daytona Beach area in September of 2015.














David F. Vedder, P.A. attorneys Silvia Manzanero and Daniel Ross, with Florida Coastal
School of Law Adjunct Professor and Jacksonville Area Legal Aid staff attorney Kara Roberts.

Report: Private Prison Lobbyists Spend Millions To Keep Immigrants Locked Up

In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security adopted a bed quota that required Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain about 34,000 individuals on any given day. The quota certainly did not benefit immigrants -- but it did prove to be extraordinarily lucrative for the private prison companies that picked up the new business. 

A report released last week by Grassroots Leadership, a Texas non-profit, details how private prison companies have spent five years lobbying the government, not only to maintain the quota, but to enact conservative immigration reform that would continue to ensure a steady flow of inmates into its detention centers.

Read more

Leaders From Across U.S. Urge Court to End Injunction in Immigration Action Case

Multiple legal briefs are being filed today in support of ending the injunction against the Obama Administration’s expansion of deferred action. On February 16, 2015, a Texas federal judge issued a preliminarily injunction against the implementation of the expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Legal Permanent Residents (DAPA) initiatives. The Obama Administration is appealing that decision and has requested expedited consideration of the appeal. In anticipation, attorneys general, 181 members of congress, 73 mayors and county officials from 27 States, civil rights, and business leaders are all filing legal briefs in support of the Administration’s appeal.

Overall the briefs argue the case challenging executive action, led by the State of Texas, is based on unproven or incomplete presentations to the court and should be reversed

Read more

Four Myths That Sen. Sessions Believes About Immigration to the United States

Nativist ideology is filled with falsehoods, half-truths, and distortions. From the impact of immigrants on the economy to the pace of their integration into U.S. society, the nativist creed more often than not gets it wrong. For example, consider the current chairman of the Senate’s immigration subcommittee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, titled “America needs to curb immigration flows,” Sen. Sessions displays four fundamental misunderstandings of the economic and social dynamics of immigration to this country: -

See more

Marco Rubio’s Complex History with Immigration Policy

This week, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) became the latest candidate to announce his 2016 presidential bid, which he did from the Freedom Tower in Miami, Florida. Known as the Ellis Island of the South, Freedom Tower served Cuban refugees seeking political asylum from 1962-1974 and his presence there sought to highlight his immigrant roots, his parents’ journey from Cuba in the 1950s and their ability to achieve the American Dream. Yet, based on his legislative history and public statements, it’s difficult to determine which policies a President Rubio would advocate for.

See more at: http://immigrationimpact.com/2015/04/17/marco-rubios-complex-history-with-immigration-policy/#sthash.t22Uag8U.dpuf

ICE Director Saldaña Faces Critics in Congress

On Tuesday, new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Sarah Saldaña, responsible for immigration enforcement inside the United States, testified for the first time to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee. Saldaña defended ICE’s implementation of its new enforcement priorities, promised to convince local jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE, and received sharp questioning regarding ICE’s detention of Central American families and children fleeing violence, among other issues.

See more

H1-B Cap Filled in a Flash, Underscores Need for Immigration Reform

Today, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that USCIS reached the “H-1B cap” for fiscal year 2016—meaning that in seven days, U.S. employers filed more petitions for an H1-B visa to hire a skilled foreign worker than the entire year’s allocation of visas available under current law.

Every year, U.S. employers seeking highly skilled foreign professionals submit their applications for the pool of H-1B visas USCIS makes available starting on April 1. Congress has set a statutory limit of 65,000 visas for new hires, and 20,000 additional visas for foreign professionals who graduate with a Master’s or Doctorate from a U.S. university. In recent years demand for H-1B visas has outstripped the supply and the cap has been quickly reached. This year is no exception. USCIS also noted that it received more than the limit of 20,000 H-1B petitions filed under the U.S. advanced degree exemption.

USCIS will use a lottery, on a date yet to be determined, to randomly select the petitions needed to meet the caps of 65,000 visas for the general category and 20,000 for the advanced degree exemption. However, first USCIS will complete initial intake for all filings received during the filing period, which ended today, April 7.

Read more

Four Things We Know About Rand Paul’s Immigration Policy Views

Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) has entered the 2016 presidential race with the campaign slogan “defeat the Washington machine.” Yet his views and past legislative actions on immigration show that he is more likely to maintain the status quo of leaving reform in limbo rather than push forward meaningful reforms that harness the skills and talents immigrants bring to the U.S. Despite Sen. Paul’s public statements that the GOP needs to “welcome” immigrants, Sen. Paul’s actions during his first-term in congress highlight how he would rather put his energy behind enforcement measures than backing realistic, sensible policies to improve the well-being of all immigrants. Here are four things we know about Sen. Paul’s views on immigration

Read more

How Families Are Kept Apart by Current Immigration Laws

Family reunification has stood as a central pillar of the U.S. immigration system, dating back to 1965. Despite this, a new study by researchers Cecilia Menjivar and Maria Enchautegui shows that current immigration laws actually work to keep many families apart. Not surprisingly, the authors’ analysis reveals that immigrant households have a “high incidence of persons married with spouses absent, a high share of male-headed households, and high proportions of children not living with their parents or separated from the parents.”

In principle, our immigration law recognizes the right of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to be reunited with close family members born abroad. By doing so, the law embraces the value of family life as a “matter of personal intimacy as much as physical support, of giving and receiving ‘care’ in the broadest sense.” However, a closer look at the actual impact of current immigration laws on families reveals that family reunification is threatened by various legal provisions, some of which reflect competing principles.

Specifically, the authors found that the following provisions sometimes frustrate the goal of family reunification:

Read more: http://immigrationimpact.com/2015/04/10/how-families-are-kept-apart-by-current-immigration-laws/

Firm Update: Attorneys Vedder and Ross Represent Albanian Asylee in Signifigant Immigration Court Case

Our attorneys represented the respondent in Matter of E__F__ which commenced in Immigration
Court in Miami; venue was transferred to Orlando.  DHS filed charges seeking our client’s
removal for a conviction of a crime involving a controlled substance and a drug trafficking and
illicit trafficking aggravated felony.

The attorneys successfully argued that the conviction, conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent
to sell, is neither an aggravated felony nor a particularly serious crime and therefore respondent’s
asylum status could not be terminated.  After spirited advocacy, the Immigration Judge agreed
and ordered proceedings terminated.

We anticipate our client’s release from detention at ICE/Baker in the near term.