1. Asylum acceptance rate varies
2. AZ donations may be deductible
3. IL Gov. signs DREAM Act
4. Suit filed against MD petition
5. Farmers oppose GOP bill

1.
Some immigration judges cruel, some kind in New York's chancy 'refugee roulette'
By Erica Pearson
The New York Daily News, August 1, 2011

For immigrants seeking asylum, winning the right to stay in the United States is often a game of chance that comes down to one thing: which judge hears their tale.

A report out this month shows two New York immigration judges with strikingly different records on granting safe haven - illustrating what experts call "refugee roulette."

"One of the most important issues you ask, if they're in court already, is, 'Who's your judge?'" said Zachary Sanders, a New York immigration lawyer.

At 26 Federal Plaza, lawyers hope for Judge Terry Bain, whose asylum acceptance rate is higher than that of any jurist in the nation. From October 2005 through this May, Bain approved 94.5% of applicants, well above the national rate of 46.8%, according to a new report by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

"I think Judge Bain is an excellent judge. She's compassionate, and she's learned at the same time," said Mark von Sternberg, a senior attorney with Catholic Charities Community Services, Archdiocese of New York.

Judge Alan Vomacka sits in the same court, but he's accepted just 28.3% of the cases he's seen.

Overall, the acceptance rate in New York over the last six years is 73.6%.

If a client is assigned to a judge like Vomacka, Von Sternberg said: "The only thing you can do: Prepare, prepare, prepare. And go in, and pray for the best."

Immigration judges are appointed by the Justice Department and barred from speaking with the media.

But former Miami immigration judge Mark Metcalf, who had a high denial rate for asylum cases when on the bench, said the report doesn't show judges' bias.

"What you have there is, you have a judge, because of his or her experience, because of his or her education, just sees the case differently," he said.

Asylum law requires that immigrants prove they are fleeing persecution. They must give evidence or provide a reasonable explanation for why they can't show proof. And they must be consistent. Some judges are more strict than others about demanding actual documentation. Approval ultimately depends on whether or not the judge believes an immigrant is telling the truth.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/08/01/2011-08-01_immigs_seeking...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Read the Center's report here: http://cis.org/Immigration-Courts

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2.
Feds’ roundabout path to share in fence costs
By Luige del Puerto
Arizona Capitol Times, August 1, 2011

Behind the state law allowing Arizona to raise money and build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border is a strong perception by politicians here that the federal government refuses to adequately secure the Southern border.

Now, it seems the feds will share, if indirectly, in the cost of building the fence.

“Why, I think it’s somewhat ironic, don’t you?” said Sen. Steve Smith,

R-Maricopa, who authored the law. Smith, like many illegal immigration hawks, perennially accuses the U.S. government of failing in its job to secure Arizona’s border with Mexico.

The website that was set up to receive border fence donations suggests the contributions may be tax-deductible.

Tax preparers told the Arizona Capitol Times they don’t see any reason why the donations wouldn’t be tax-deductible, and pointed to a provision of the Internal Revenue Code to back up the possibility.

Tax rules allow individuals to deduct contributions to charitable groups from their taxable income, and they count donations to a state or its political subdivisions as a charitable contribution.

There’s a qualifier: The contribution or gift must be made exclusively for public purposes.

For example, a donation to a city’s police department for a program to solicit information about crime from residents is tax-deductible. A check made out to Social Security trust funds also qualifies.

Now, it looks like donations to the border fence effort would also qualify as tax-deductible under federal tax rules, said Jack Wood, an enrolled agent based in Prescott. An enrolled agent is someone who is authorized to represent a taxpayer before the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

“I would think that the border fence probably constitutes an exclusive public purpose,” said Wood, a former president of a statewide group of tax practitioners.

“If that’s a valid legal purpose of the state — which apparently it is since it has been enacted — I would think it would be allowable as a deduction,” he said.

Stefanie Campbell, also an enrolled agent, agreed.

Campbell said donations to the border fence are clearly going to the state of Arizona.

“And if you make a contribution to the state of Arizona, it is deductible,” she said.

Individual circumstances, of course, vary and whether a tax deduction would make a dent in lowering someone’s taxable income depends on many factors, including the size of a contribution.

Others who are familiar with the tax code also make another caveat: a contribution may not satisfy its exclusive public purpose requirement if the contributor received a direct benefit from the donation.

Explaining limitations in general terms, the IRS website says if someone expected to benefit economically or financially from a donation made to a qualifying organization, he or she may only deduct the amount that is more than the value of the benefit.

It’s also unclear if the border fence project is set up to receive non-cash donations like land.
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http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2011/08/01/feds%E2%80%99-roundabout-path-...

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3.
Gov. Pat Quinn to Sign Illinois DREAM Act into Law
Fox News Latino, August 1, 2011

Illinois is about to become a DREAM state for immigrant students who are undocumented.

Gov. Pat Quinn is set to sign a bill that would give such students access to private scholarships for college and lets them enroll in state college savings programs.

Quinn will visit Benito Juárez Community Academy in Chicago on Monday to sign the Illinois Dream Act.

Students must have at least one immigrant parent in the country either legally or without documents and the student must have attended school in Illinois for at least three years to qualify for scholarship money. The legislation creates a panel to raise private money for college scholarships.
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http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/08/01/gov-pat-quinn-to-si...

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4.
Lawsuit to be filed on petition drive against illegal immigrant tuition
The Associated Press, August 1, 2011

Lawyers have scheduled a news conference to discuss a legal challenge against certification of a petition drive opposing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants in Maryland.

Attorneys will discuss the lawsuit on Monday in Anne Arundel County.

The Maryland State Board of Elections certified last month that opponents of the measure had gathered enough signatures to place the measure on the November 2012 ballot for voters to decide.

Lawyers say they will outline illegalities discovered in the signatures that were submitted. They say the signatures were incorrectly validated by the board.
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http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/453afc0d6700415d85c658316979358b/M...

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5.
Farmers Oppose G.O.P. Bill on Immigration
By Jesse McKinley and Julia Preston
The New York Times, July 30, 2011

Farmers across the country are rallying to fight a Republican-sponsored bill that would force them and all other employers to verify the legal immigration status of their workers, a move some say could imperil not only future harvests but also the agricultural community’s traditional support for conservative candidates.

George Bonacich inspecting dried apricots at the processing facility on his farm in Patterson, Calif., with Rosalba Ortega Barragan, a longtime worker at the farm and a new American citizen.

The bill was proposed by Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican who is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. It would require farmers — who have long relied on a labor force of immigrants, a majority here without legal documents — to check all new hires through E-Verify, a federal database run by the Department of Homeland Security devised to ferret out illegal immigrants.

Farm laborers, required like other workers to show that they are authorized to take jobs in the United States, often present Social Security numbers and some form of picture ID. Employers, many of them labor contractors providing crews to farms, have not been required to check the information and are discouraged by antidiscrimination laws from looking at it too closely. But it is an open secret that many farmworkers’ documents are false.

Supporters of E-Verify, an electronic system that is currently mandatory for most federal contractors but voluntary for other employers, argue that it would eliminate any doubt about workers’ legal status. But farmers say it could cripple a $390 billion industry that relies on hundreds of thousands of willing, low-wage immigrant workers to pick, sort and package everything from avocados to zucchini.

“This would be an emergency, a dire, dire situation,” said Nancy Foster, president of the U.S. Apple Association, adding that the prospect of an E-Verify check would most likely mean that many immigrant workers would simply not show up. “We will end up closing down.”

That sentiment is echoed by growers like George Bonacich, an 81-year-old apricot farmer who has been working the same patch of land in Patterson, 80 miles east of San Francisco, since 1969.

This year, Mr. Bonacich employed up to 100 farmhands to pick a total of 50 to 100 tons each day, often in triple-digit heat. He speaks passionately about his employees — “They’re good people, hard-working,” he said — and plainly about what would happen if E-Verify were to become the law of the farmland.

“If we don’t have enough labor at peak time, the fruit goes on the ground,” he said. “The fruit will only stay on the tree so long.”

While Mr. Smith’s bill seems to have a good chance of passing the House, the Senate, controlled by Democrats, appears more skeptical. Democrats have said they will point to a Congressional Budget Office report on a similar bill that concluded it would cost the federal government $22 billion over a decade, from lost tax revenues now collected from the paychecks of illegal immigrants ineligible for services.

In a May letter to the members of the Judiciary Committee, Bob Stallman, the president of the American Farm Bureau, cited a Labor Department survey placing the percentage of illegal workers in the fields at more than 50 percent. Other groups say the figure is closer to 70 percent. Denying farmers that labor supply, Mr. Stallman wrote, would cost them $5 billion to $9 billion annually.

Mr. Smith’s bill has attracted more solid support from nonagricultural business leaders, opening a divide between them and agricultural interests. Many nonfarm businesses have concluded that some form of employee verification is inevitable.

National organizations of restaurant owners and home builders gave their backing. The San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which unites Latino businesses in Mr. Smith’s district that have often been at odds with him, is leaning toward endorsing the bill, said Ramiro A. Cavazos, the president of the chamber.

Still, Mr. Smith, whose district includes parts of suburban San Antonio and Austin as well as a large part of the nearby Hill Country, recently acknowledged the surge of worry in rural areas. He said he would soon introduce a separate bill to “address the needs of the agriculture industry,” either proposing changes to the current federal temporary farm worker program, known as H-2A, or offering a new guest worker program.

Mr. Smith’s E-Verify bill also includes a three-year grace period before growers would have to comply. But such caveats have done little to quell opposition from farm groups, who have been pleading for years for an overhaul to allow a legal immigrant work force.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/us/politics/31verify.html