1. House votes on visas
2. AL speaker defends law
3. VA co. wants enforcement
4. CA candidate on issue
5. ICE arrests 15 in MI
1.
House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards
The Associated Press, November 29, 2011
Washington (AP) — The House voted Tuesday to end per-country caps on worker-based immigration visas, a move that should benefit skilled Indian and Chinese residents seeking to stay in the United States and the high-tech companies who hire them.
The legislation, which passed 389-15, was a rare example of bipartisan accord on immigration, an issue that largely has been avoided during the current session of Congress because of the political sensitivities involved.
The measure would eliminate the current law that says employment-based visas to any one country can’t exceed 7 percent of the total number of such visas given out. Instead, permanent residence visas or green cards would be handled on a first-come, first-served basis.
The bill, said its sponsor, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, “does encourage high-skilled immigrants who were educated in the U.S. to stay and help build our economy rather than using the skills they learned here to aid our competitor nations.”
Currently, the State Department issues about 140,000 such green cards a year to foreign nationals working in the United States, often after getting degrees from U.S. universities.
The bill also changes family-based visa limits from 7 percent per country to 15 percent per country, an adjustment that could slightly ease the backlog for naturalized citizens, particularly from Mexico and the Philippines, trying to bring relatives into the country.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who heads the Senate Judiciary panel on immigration, said he planned to move the bill as quickly as possible in the Senate, “where we expect it to find overwhelming support.” He said the legislation would “remove outdated constraints that prevent us from attracting the kind of innovators who can create job growth in America.”
The Obama administration in its first two years failed in several major efforts to change immigration law, and this year the issue has largely been off the table, with Republicans making clear that anything suggesting amnesty for those in the country illegally would be rejected.
The Chaffetz bill does not change the number of visas being issued, and groups representing immigrants said the bill would do little to resolve pressing immigration issues. However, they applauded Congress for showing it can act.
Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, said that while the bill won’t bring significant changes, “we think this is a positive step forward.” He said it was a good sign that “Republicans and Democrats are actually working on solutions.”
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-government/house-bill-end...
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2.
Immigration law will not be repealed, says Alabama House Speaker
By George Talbot
AL.com, November 30, 2011
Mobile, AL - The Alabama Legislature will not repeal the state’s controversial immigration law, and will consider only minor changes when lawmakers convene in February, House Speaker Mike Hubbard said Tuesday.
"Are we open to pulling the bill back and repealing it? Absolutely not," Hubbard said during a luncheon speech in Mobile. "We’re not going to back up on it."
Hubbard, a Republican from Auburn, said he was open to "tweaks" to a law that has become a lightning rod in the debate over U.S. immigration policy. House Bill 56, described by its backers as the nation’s toughest immigration law, was approved by the Legislature in June and took effect in September.
"We tweak bills all the time. We do it every year," Hubbard told an audience of about 200 local business and political leaders. "We’re always coming back and improving legislation, and we will do that with the immigration bill."
Hubbard said those changes could include "anything we find that is onerous to business, that takes time and money, that doesn’t serve a purpose."
He said lawmakers have met with business groups and law enforcement officials including Attorney General Luther Strange to gather input on how to strengthen the bill "to make it more defensible, to make it more enforceable."
Hubbard was adamant that the law should stand.
"In this country, we are a country of laws," he said. "It’s very simple. The federal government is doing a horrible job at policing (illegal immigration), and it does cause problems. It’s a national security issue and it’s also a jobs issue. We, in Alabama, among other states, are simply doing what we can do to enforce the law in our state."
Hubbard said it was "absolutely not right ... to select which laws you enforce and which ones you don’t."
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http://blog.al.com/live/2011/11/immigration_law_will_not_be_re.html
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3.
Prince William wants immigration policies adopted statewide
By Jeremy Borden
The Washington Post, November 30, 2011
Prince William County is asking state legislators to adopt its policing policies on illegal immigration on a statewide basis.
The Board of County Supervisors voted Tuesday to ask state legislators to adopt a law, passed in 2007 and modified in 2008, that mandates that local police check the immigration status of anyone arrested. Supervisor Frank J. Principi (D-Woodbridge) voted against sending the request on to the General Assembly and Supervisor Martin E. Nohe (R-Coles) was absent.
The illegal immigration measure, championed by Board Chairman Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large), was controversial and led to widespread protest in Prince William and elsewhere. But Stewart and others in Prince William consider it a common-sense measure that has had positive results for the county.
The original policy directed police officers to check immigration status only if there was probable cause to believe that they were in the country illegally. But the board changed that in 2008, and now police check the immigration status of everyone arrested.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/virginia-politics/post/prince-willia...
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4.
Running as a Pro-Immigration, Dream Act Republican
By Andrew O'Reilly
FOX News Latino, November 30, 2011
Joseph “Tony” Carlos has no interest in a career in politics.
The California Deputy District Attorney and Republican congressional candidate’s website makes that clear, as does Carlos himself. “I’m not a politician. I’m not going to tell someone to vote for me,” he said during a recent interview with Fox News Latino.
What Carlos is interested in is changing the attitude of the Republican Party and many conservative voters when it comes to the issue of immigration. In a state where 38 percent of voters are considered Latino, the pro-DREAM ACT GOP candidate sees it as not only immoral, but also as stupid to alienate a large number of voters with hard-line rhetoric on immigration.
“When the stats are like they are in California, you can’t go and push the hard-line rhetoric that comes at the national level,” Carlos said. “For many Mexicans, it is so obvious we don’t vote Republican because of the immigration issue.”
Carlos is a third generation Mexican-American. His great-grandfather crossed over the border in Arizona to work in the mines, while his great-grandmother arrived on board a cargo ship in San Francisco.
His grandparents - Eddie Carlos and Carmen Torres - met in Sanger, Calif in the 1930s shortly before his grandfather shipped off to fight in the Pacific during World War II. Upon returning from the war, the young family moved to the Yuba-Sutter area, north of Sacramento, where Carlos’ grandfather became of field foreman.
Thanks to his talent as a cook his grandfather eventually opened a Mexican restaurant, where a young Carlos worked at when growing up.
Carlos went from washing dishes at the restaurant in high school to dealing poker up and down California during his college years before eventually heading to law school and landing his job as a Sutter County Deputy District Attorney.
While the self-proclaimed “political junkie” said that he has always been interested in politics, he never considered running for office until the 2010 midterm elections when the Republican Party’s strict stance on immigration hindered their chances of winning many races in California. “Republicans hit the wall because of the immigration issue,” Carlos said. “I was hoping that Republicans could change but it didn’t happen.”
According to 2010 U.S. Census statistics, persons of Latino origin make up almost 39 percent of the state’s population with about 16.5 percent of businesses owned by Latinos. The group also accounted for 22 percent of ballots cast in November, according to Los Angeles Times exit polling.
California’s GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman did well among non-Latino white voters, but garnered only somewhere between 15 percent and 22 percent of the Latino vote in losing to current Gov. Jerry Brown, according to exit polls. Whitman also got herself embroiled in a political quagmire when it was revealed that she fired a maid because the maid admitted to living in the country illegally.
"When you deal with immigration, you run into quicksand," said California Republican Party Vice Chairman Tom Del Beccaro told the Orange County register back in January. "We need to connect with the Latino community on jobs and education and security, and build up some good will. We can't always lead with the toughest issue."
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http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/11/30/running-as-pro-immi...
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5.
15 arrested as U.S. immigration officials raid southwest Detroit box company
The Detroit Free Press, November 30, 2011
The federal government sent a stern message to employers following a raid Tuesday in Detroit: If you hire illegal immigrants, we're coming after you.
A raid of a box company in southwest Detroit Tuesday led to arrests of a plant manager and 14 people who are suspected of working there illegally.
Edward Schlacht, 48, a supervisor at Grigg Box, was charged with knowingly hiring undocumented workers, authorities said.
The arrested employees weren't charged criminally, but will begin immigration proceedings, officials said.
Authorities said the arrests and raid should be a warning to employers.
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http://www.freep.com/article/20111130/NEWS01/111300360/15-arrested-U-S-immigration-officials-raid-southwest-Detroit-box-company?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s
