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1. VP says no to amnesty during recession
2. DHS to shift focus to employer sanctions
3. NJ Gov. backs select recommendations
4. US employers expect fewer worker visas
5. Obama aunt becomes emblematic

1.
Immigration reform tough during crisis, Biden says
Reuters, March 30, 2009

San Jose, Costa Rica (Reuters) -- The economic slump and soaring unemployment in the United States mean this is not a good time to push immigration reform, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told Central American leaders on Monday.

"It's difficult to tell a constituency while unemployment is rising, they're losing their jobs and their homes, that what we should do is in fact legalize (illegal immigrants) and stop all deportation," Biden told a news conference in the Costa Rican capital.

President Barack Obama said during his election campaign that he supported comprehensive immigration reform, as countries like Mexico have been urging for years.

Some 12 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, many from Mexico and Central America. The economic crisis has made many U.S. workers more hostile to legalizing those without papers.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52T7SE20090330

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2.
Homeland Security shifts focus to employers
A new policy will aim enforcement efforts at those who hire illegal workers. But immigration raids will continue, sources say.
By Josh Meyer and Anna Gorman
The Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2009

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington — Stepping into the political minefield of immigration reform, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano soon will direct federal agents to focus more on arresting and prosecuting American employers than the illegal laborers who sneak into the country to work for them, department officials said Monday.

The shift in emphasis will be outlined in revamped field guidelines issued to agents of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, as early as this week, several officials familiar with the change said.

The policy is in line with comments that President Obama made during last year's campaign, when he said enforcement efforts had failed because they focused on illegal immigrants rather than on the companies that hired them.

"There is a supply side and a demand side," one Homeland Security official said. "Like other law enforcement philosophies, there is a belief that by focusing more on the demand side, you cut off the supply."

Another department official said the changes were the result of a broad review of all immigration and border security programs and policies that Napolitano began in her first days in office.

"She is focused on using our limited resources to the greatest effect, targeting criminal aliens and employers that flout our laws and deliberately cultivate an illegal workforce," the official said.

Homeland Security officials emphasized that the department would not stop conducting sweeps of businesses while more structural changes to U.S. immigration law and policy were being contemplated.

Agents, however, will be held to a higher standard of probable cause for conducting raids, the officials said, out of concern that at least one recent raid in Washington state and another planned sweep in Chicago were based on speculative information that illegal workers were employed.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the coming policy changes.

The new guidelines would mark a fundamental shift away from what was happening at the end of the Bush administration, said Doris Meissner, who served as commissioner of ICE's predecessor -- the Immigration and Naturalization Service -- under President Clinton.

The law governing employer enforcement requires proof that a business knowingly hired illegal workers. So without an effective way for employers to verify workers' status, Meissner said, "It is very easy for that 'knowingly' to be a big loophole."
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration-raids31...

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3.
Corzine Backs Some, Not All Immigrant Recommendations
By John Ostapkovich
The KYW News (Philadelphia), March 31, 2009

New Jersey Governor Corzine has mixed reactions to a report on how to best deal with immigrants.

The reason Governor Corzine requested a report from his Blue Ribbon advisory panel on immigrant policy is no surprise to its academic advisor, Rutgers-Camden public policy professor Christine Brenner:

"I think we need some more formal policies at a state level."

Which the panel proposed. These include issuing drivers licenses to illegal immigrants which the governor finds problematic, to a big "yes" on an issue Professor Brenner applauds:
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http://www.kyw1060.com/Corzine-Backs-Some--Not-All-Immigrant-Recommendat...

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4.
US cos expect fewer worker visas amid downturn
By Kim Dixon
Reuters, March 30, 2009

Washington, DC (Reuters) -- The annual flood of applications for visas for highly skilled workers is expected to ease this year, though companies say they will still push to eliminate a cap on the number awarded by the government.

Immigration officials have been overwhelmed in recent years for applications for so-called H-1B visas, which let U.S. companies employ foreign guest workers in highly specialized jobs for three years.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services begins accepting applications for 2010, with a cap of 65,000, on Wednesday. In recent years the number of applications has reached that ceiling within days.

But this year, amid the most dire economic recession in decades and major layoffs at companies including International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the industry expects more a stream than a flood.

"We certainly don't expect to see the same number of applications that we've seen in the past," said Robert Hoffman, a vice president at Oracle Corp (ORCL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). "In this economic environment we don't expect to hit the cap on the first day," as has happened in the past.

Hoffman is co-chairman of Compete America, a coalition of tech companies including Oracle, Microsoft and Intel Corp (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) that for years has lobbied for the right to employ foreigners freely.

Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has criticized Microsoft, which announced 5,000 layoffs earlier this year, for not explicitly committing to preserve U.S. jobs over those of foreigners.

Last week, sources told Reuters that IBM would cut about 5,000 jobs in the U.S., adding to similarly large cuts in the past few months.

"Moving jobs overseas is becoming all too common of a practice and it's especially demoralizing when U.S. employees being laid off have to train their overseas replacements," Grassley said of IBM's plans.

Grassley, with Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, is expected to introduce a bill again this year to require that companies pledge to make a good-faith effort to hire Americans for a job, before they seek a visa for it.

As it stands now, only companies that employ a certain threshold of foreign workers have to attest that they made such efforts.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSN30424670200...

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5.
Obama's aunt becomes symbol in immigration debate
By Denise Lavoie
The Associated Press, March 31, 2009

Boston (AP) -- Barack Obama's Kenyan aunt lost her bid for asylum more than four years ago, and a judge ordered her deported. Instead, Zeituni Onyango stayed, living for years in public housing.

Now, in a case that puts the president in a tough position both personally and politically, Onyango's request is being reconsidered under a little-used provision in U.S. immigration rules that allows denied asylum claims to be reheard if applicants can show that something has changed to make them eligible.

Such as the ascension of her nephew to the presidency of the world's most powerful country.

"If she goes back to Kenya, she is going to be much more in the limelight, and that, in and of itself, could put her at a greater risk. The chances of her going back and keeping a low profile are gone at this point," said Boston immigration attorney Ilana Greenstein.

Onyango, 56, the half-sister of Obama's late father, moved to the United States in 2000. Her first bid for asylum was rejected, and an immigration judge ordered her deported in 2004; she continues to live in public housing in Boston.

In December, a judge agreed to suspend the deportation order and reopen her case. An initial hearing is scheduled Wednesday in U.S. Immigration Court in Boston.

Obama has said repeatedly that he didn't know his aunt was living in the United States illegally and believes that laws covering the situation should be followed. If she wins asylum, he could look soft on immigration enforcement. If she loses, he could face criticism from immigrant advocacy groups.

The White House says Obama is staying out of it.

"The President believes that the case should run its ordinary course, and neither he nor his representatives have had any involvement," spokesman Ben LaBolt said last week.

Over the past decade, relatively few Kenyans have sought asylum in the United States: 223 in fiscal year 2007 — compared with 7,934 asylum requests from China and 10,522 from El Salvador — and only 50 Kenyans that year were granted asylum. From 1998 through 2007, about 20 percent of Kenyans who applied were granted asylum, according to an Associated Press review of immigration records.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ix0bDGZsyyFxorqqZSmhWG...