The Supreme Court agreed today to hear a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA prevents federal agencies like USCIS from conferring benefits to legally married couples if the partners are of the same sex. Overturning DOMA would likely mean that the Supreme Court would be able to grant immigration benefits to those married legally in one of the growing number of US states that marry people of the same sex or people legally married in a foreign country where such marriages are legal. There are many other types of cases that would also be affected. The First and Second Circuit Courts of Appeals have already struck down parts of DOMA. But USCIS is still enforcing DOMA until the Supreme Court settles the matter.
Bloggings on Immigration Law and Policy
by
Greg Siskind
Supreme Court Case Could Open Door for Same Sex Immigration Benefits
Alabama Deputy Sheriff Facing Deportation
This is an odd story that my friend Kenneth Levine, an immigration lawyer in Atlanta, sent me. Kevin Venhuis, the deputy sheriff in Abbeville, Alabama, is facing deportation because he lacks legal immigration status. He's Canadian and has apparently been in the US for 25 years and has apparently just blended in. He married a US citizen a few years back and tried to get a green card, but divorced before the process finished.
Alabama's new immigration law ensnared him. His problems started when he was pulled over in a traffic stop and his immigration status was checked. And being the deputy sheriff, he had various firearms which triggered being charged with various deportable offenses.
What struck Ken is the hypocrisy on display here. I've seen many people defend the tough crackdown on illegally present immigrants, but suddenly change their tune when someone they know is affected. Or someone from one of the "good" countries is affected. People love to be hawks on enforcement as long as they don't actually know much about the people they want to exile.
Census Report: Illegal Immigration Dropping
The US Census is confirming what other reports have already been showing. From Politico:
New census data released Thursday affirm a clear and sustained drop in illegal immigration, ending more than a decade of increases.Interestingly, new reports on the falling American birth rate and its long term economic implications are also circulating. Which just puts an additional onus on those opposing immigration to the US.The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. dropped to an estimated 11.1 million last year from a peak of 12 million in 2007, part of an overall waning of Hispanic immigration. For the first time since 1910, Hispanic immigration last year was topped by immigrants from Asia.
Demographers say illegal Hispanic immigration - 80 percent of all illegal immigration comes from Mexico and Latin America - isn't likely to approach its mid-2000 peak again, due in part to a weakened U.S. economy and stronger enforcement but also a graying of the Mexican population.
The finding suggests an uphill battle for the Republicans, who passed legislation in the House last week that would extend citizenship to a limited pool of foreign students with advanced degrees but who are sharply divided on whether to pursue broader immigration measures.
DeMint Resignation Marks Setback for Antis
From ABC News:
"In early 2007 DeMint also fought for common-sense immigration reform by leading the effort to defeat the amnesty bill and calling on government to first secure our borders, enforce the laws already passed, and streamline the legal immigration system," reads his official Senate biography.
DeMint continued to advocate for tough immigration enforcement measures in the next Congress. In 2010, he attempted to pass an amendment that would have required the government to complete 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border within one year. During one such effort to attach the amendment to a separate piece of legislation, he compared illegal immigration to an oil leak.
"If any member of the Senate stood up today and said that we should not seal the oil leak in the Gulf until we have a comprehensive plan to clean it up, we would all say that that is absurd. Certainly we need to seal that leak as quickly as possible to minimize the cleanup later," he said. "But that is exactly the kind of logic that the president and my Democratic colleagues are using when it comes to immigration."
Pro-immigration reform advocates cheered DeMint's departure, since he played influential role in rallying conservative opposition to the last immigration overhaul. "The chances for immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for 12 million undocumented people just went up," Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, told ABC/Univision. "It's good news for us.
December 06, 2012
Scott Walker Now Warning Wisconsin Lawmakers Against Passing Anti-Immigration Legislation
Just a few months ago he was pushing for an Arizona copycat law. But in the new environment, he's not so anti.
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