March 2001 Newsletter
**U.S.
IMMIGRATION NEWS**
March 1, 2001
Published by:
ImmigrationLinks.com, Inc.
“Your Immigration Link to the World”
Copyright © 2001, ImmigrationLinks.com, Inc.
Email: info@immigrationlinks.com
Internet: www.immigrationlinks.com
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Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided for general information only. It is NOT legal advice, and should not be relied upon as such. For legal services such as representation, please contact an attorney who specializes in the area of Immigration Law, such as one of our attorney “Service Providers” whose businesses are promoted on our site.
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Welcome
to ImmigrationLinks.com, Inc., “Your
Immigration Link to the World”; and welcome to a New Year and a New
Century. Much has happened this
past year with new immigration laws and with a new President and a new Congress.
As the months pass, we can expect many more changes, and new and exciting
developments in the field of immigration law.
ImmigrationLinks.com has also grown tremendously since its beginning just
nine months ago. In this short time
we have become one of the top immigration news and information providers on the
Internet, servicing hundreds of thousands of viewers each month.
With the phenomenal growth of the Internet, nearly everything you need or want to know about US Immigration law is available at the touch of a button. We want to be at the forefront of this new technology and be able to provide instantaneous news and information on the immigration topics that affect those persons wishing to visit, live, or work in the United States. One way is through our monthly newsletters. The purpose of these newsletters is to provide useful and timely information about immigration-related topics that affect persons who come in contact with US Immigration laws. In conjunction with our News, Immigration Hints & Tips, and Legal Research pages, we want to provide you with extensive, up-to-date, and FREE information on US immigration laws and procedures. Soon, just about anything you need to prepare and process your immigration case will be available online. This includes access to immigration forms and information, as well as direct contact with attorneys and other service providers. For example, our Bulletin Board provides you with free answers to your immigration questions from some of the finest immigration attorneys in the country. Our goal is to be "The Portal Site" for everything having to do with US immigration law. We want to provide you with every service possible to increase your knowledge of the law and to make your online experience more useful and rewarding. We are constantly growing and expanding in order to meet your immigration needs, and many more features are coming soon.
How to Use Our Site?
- Immigration News Page: To get the latest immigration news, updated on a daily basis, go to this page. We have thousands of news articles covering every type of immigration petition or application. You can download free immigration and state department forms, get the latest fee schedules, list of immigration doctors, addresses and telephone numbers of immigration offices, the latest priority dates, current processing times, and much, much more. Check out the “NEWS FLASH” area for late-breaking immigration developments.
- Immigration Hints & Tips Page: Get useful immigration hints and tips that will make the filing of your immigration case easier and faster. Have access to forms and sample briefs and legal memorandum especially prepared by immigration attorneys that you can use with your applications. Attorneys listed in The Best Lawyers in America have prepared many of these documents.
- Immigration Research Page: Go here to get connected to thousands of public and private agencies and businesses related to US immigration law. You will have free access to copies of all of the immigration laws, all court decisions, agency memos and field instructions, forms, addresses and telephone numbers, and a lot more. We are constantly adding new links. No other immigration site has as many links as we have. (Feel free to look at all of our links and send us suggestions for any others that you believe are important).
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- Languages: Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese translations of our site are now available. Simply click on the appropriate language button on our Home Page. Other languages coming in the future.
- Bulletin Board and Chat Room: Post your immigration questions on our Bulletin Board and get answers from others who have faced the same types of problems, including free advice from some of the finest immigration attorneys in the country. Chat live online with others, including immigration law experts. Tune in for other special features and programs.
- Other Services: Sign up for our free monthly newsletter, including urgent updates as necessary. Look for free downloads of immigration materials including official immigration, state department, and labor department application forms; specially prepared forms to use with your applications; news articles; and insider tips written for ImmigrationLinks.com by some of the finest immigration attorneys in the country.
- Banner Exchange Program: If you have a web site and would like to exchange banner links with us, please send e-mail to info@immigrationlinks.com. We will contact you to discuss your site’s inclusion in our program.
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Top
Immigration Attorneys Answer Your Immigration Questions for FREE
ImmigrationLinks.com is pleased to announce that some of the top immigration attorneys in the country will be answering your “general” immigration questions for free on our “Bulletin Board” page. This month the law staff of ImmigrationLinks.com will be answering your questions.
We plan on having guest attorneys available to answer your questions at least once a month. This service, as are all other services on our site, is completely free. We hope you will take this opportunity to ask the questions that are important to you.
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New
LIFE and LIFE Act Amendments
For all the latest information on the new immigration laws, click on the appropriate link(s) below. Remember, now that the law has passed, we still need to know how the Immigration Service and the State Department will interpret the specific provisions of the law. As memoranda are issued, and new regulations proposed, we will immediately post all of this information to our site. If you check back on a daily basis, you will always have the most current information available on the new law.
Full
Text of Immigration Bill
INS Memo on LIFE Provisions as they affect NACARA Section 203
Relief (02/27/01)
INS Instructs on LIFE and NACARA or HRIFA for Persons With Final
Orders (02/14/01)
INS Advises on LIFE Provisions Relating to NACARA and HRIFA
(02/14/01)
245(i) Extension--Frequently Asked Questions in Different
Languages (02/14/01)
INS Implements Procedures to
Handle Section 245(i) Cases (01/26/01)
State
Department Notice to Consuls on V Visa Workload (01/19/01)
INS Publishes Advisory on New LIFE
Act (01/15/01)
Questions
and Answers on the New V Visa and the New K Visa Rules
(01/12/01)
LIFE
Act -- Final Summary from AILA (01/04/01)
Late Amnesty
Cases--Memo from the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional
Law (12/30/00)
Late Amnesty
Cases--Background Information from the Center for Human Rights
and Constitutional Law Foundation (12/30/00)
President
Signs LIFE Act and LIFE Act Amendments (12/21/00)
Extension of Section
245(i)--Frequently Asked Questions (12/21/00)
Diez
Preguntas Y Respuestas Sobre la Nueva 245(i) (12/21/00)
INS Publishes
Brief Summary of LIFE Legislation (12/21/00)
Information
on § 245(i) Provisions In New Immigration Bill (12/18/00)
AILA
Press Release on the Immigration Deal (12/15/00)
Immigration
Deal Reached -- Summary of the Key Provisions (12/15/00)
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INS Implements Procedures to
Handle Section 245(i) Cases
(Reprinted from Last Month's Edition)
January 26, 2001
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has issued instructions to its field offices on the procedures and standards for accepting and processing petitions and applications under Section 245(i), as recently extended by the LIFE Act.
The memo also discusses the evidence that is needed to prove physical presence on December 21, 2001, as required by the Act.
To view the entire memorandum, click here. 
Please Note: This is a very large PDF file and may take several
minutes to download. *********************************************************
Section
245(i) Misconceptions Section
245(i) is not an amnesty for all persons unlawfully in the US.
It benefits only those who are out of status and residing in the US
who have the requisite family or employer relationship, are otherwise eligible
for an immigrant visa, and are barred currently from adjusting their status in
this country. It allows such
persons to adjust their status here rather than having to return to their home
countries to acquire their visa, and there face the likelihood of the three and
ten year bars. To
preserve eligibility to file for adjustment of status under Section 245(i), an
individual must be the beneficiary of an immigrant visa petition (Form I-130,
Form I-140 or Form I-360) or an application for labor certification filed by
April 30, 2001. If the petition or
application was filed after January 14, 1998, the beneficiary must demonstrate
physical presence in the United States on December 21, 2000.
Although the deadline for filing these applications is quickly
approaching, INS has yet to indicate how it will interpret this new physical
presence requirement. ********************************************************* 2001
Poverty Guidelines Issued February 16, 2001 The Department of Health and Human Services has updated its poverty
guidelines to account for last year's increase in prices as measured by the
Consumer Price Index. These data are used in determining ability to
provide support in connection with the affidavit of support. Note: Keep in mind that for Affidavit of Support purposes, the
amount of income needed is 125% of the listed amounts. To view the guidelines for 2001, click here.
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Child Citizenship Act Takes Effect
February 27, 2001
The Child Citizenship Act, signed into law last year, takes effect today and grants automatic citizenship to foreign-born adoptees under the following conditions:
-The child is under 18.
-The child has at least one parent or legal guardian who is a U.S. citizen by birth or naturalization.
-The child resides permanently in the United States in the legal and physical custody of the parent or guardian.
-The child is a lawful permanent resident.
The law also grants automatic citizenship to the children of most U.S. citizens living abroad.
To read the entire act, click here.
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Department of Labor: Processing Times
and More
Now, get the latest information and
processing times for Labor Certification applications from many of the labor
offices around the country. Just
click on the link below.
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Department of Labor--Faxback Tips
The US Department of Labor has issued some tips on how best to utilize the new Faxback system. Click below for more details:
LCA
Faxback Tips (02/05/01)
Department
of Labor--Further Pointers on New H-1B LCA Faxback System (02/22/01)
LCA Form to Use if Filling Out by Hand or Typewriter
(02/23/01)
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Latest
Congressional News
Find
out what’s going on in Congress, and around the country, with prospects for
new legislation, in the latest AILA Advocacy Update.
Click
here for all the details.
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US
Supreme Court To Rule On Deportation Statute
February
21, 2001
Washington, D.C. – The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear the cases of two aliens whom the the Immigration and Naturalization Service would like to deport, but the countries where they were born will not take them back.
US authorities want to deport Kim Ho Ma and Kestutis Zadvydas back to Cambodia and Lithuania, respectively.
Ma is a Cambodian refugee who came to the United States with his family in 1985 at the age of 2, became a legal permanent resident and, the government contends, a gang member. He was convicted of manslaughter in a Seattle drive-by shooting in 1996.
Ma served just over two years in state prison and nearly three more years in the custody of the INS, which could not deport him to Cambodia because the two countries have no diplomatic agreement for repatriation.
Zadvydas was born in 1948 in a US-governed area of Germany that later became a part of Lithuania. Eight years later he came to the United States and became a legal permanent resident.
In 1992 he was convicted in Fairfax County, Va., of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute. After he served a two-year sentence, Immigration and Naturalization Service officials ruled in 1994 that he must be deported. Neither Germany nor Lithuania would take him, however, contending he was not a citizen of either country.
The cases grew out of a 1996 federal law that required deportation of non-citizens who committed a wide range of felonies, including most types of drug crimes.
After completing their prison terms, they were to be transferred to INS custody and deported within 90 days of a final removal order.
The law also said immigrants whose home countries refused to accept them "may be detained beyond the removal period."
The INS contends that exception means it can hold criminal immigrants for as long as they remain dangerous or until the government can find a way to deport them.
Lawyers for the two men say deportable immigrants still have their constitutional rights, and it is not fair to hold them in open-ended detention. “It allows the INS to lock somebody up just because their country of origin will not take them,” said Ma's lawyer, Seattle assistant federal public defender Jay Stansell.
Ma and Zadvydas don't challenge the government's right to deport them, nor do they object to remaining under INS supervision as long as they are in the United States, their lawyers said.
Approximately 3,000 deportable immigrants are currently jailed or under INS supervision because the United States cannot force them on an unwilling home country. The INS cites the potential that the immigrants may pose a danger to society or that they may flee INS supervision as the reason to keep them in detention.
"The important duty is to protect the public," Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler said. "It is reasonable for the government to assume future dangerousness based on the commission of a crime."
Both Zadvydas and Ma have been released from INS detention because they sued and judges ordered their release. They are still living in the United States, but the INS has not changed its view that the men should be deported.
Two US federal courts of appeal have disagreed on what to do with persons in this situation. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that federal law did not authorize Ma's indefinite detention. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, differed, however, saying that Zadvydas could be held beyond the 90-day period.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in part to settle that split among the lower courts.
The cases are Zadvydas v. Underdown, 99-7791, and Ashcroft v. Ma, 00-38.
For the appeals court rulings, go to http://www.uscourts.gov/links.html and click on 5th Circuit and 9th Circuit.*****************************************************
Democrats
Sponsor New Amnesty Bill
February
8, 2001
Representative Luis Gutierrez, (Dem, Illinois), introduced a bill in Congress that would make illegal immigrants who have been working in the United States for more than five years eligible for green cards, protecting them from workplace exploitation.
During the past several years, there has been growing support for a blanket amnesty, mostly from pro-immigrant organizations. Even so, this new bill faces heavy opposition from those who say such a policy will only fuel more illegal immigration.
''It sounds like he wants everyone to come in illegally and stay,'' said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigrant lobbying group. ''It's tantamount to a declaration to surrender.''
The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates there are about six (6) million illegal immigrants living in the United States, a majority of whom are Mexican and Central American. But a recent study conducted by a team of researchers at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies estimates that figure could be as high as eleven (11) million.
''This is preventive medicine to keep the economy going strong,'' said Billy Weinberg, a spokesman for Gutierrez. ''These are people, by and large, who are carrying out essential jobs. They're in construction work, restaurants, a lot of the service sector jobs. If they were to pull up stakes today and leave their jobs, the impact would have a devastating effect.''
The bill would legalize any undocumented person who had been working in the US continuously since February 1996. It would automatically continue to give residency to those who arrived in succeeding years up until 2001. That means people who arrived up until yesterday would be able to apply for a green card if they stayed and worked continuously in the United States for five years.
Gutierrez's bill is likely to face an uphill battle. A similar amnesty plan introduced in the last session was defeated. Instead, a compromise drafted by Republicans allowed 300,000 undocumented immigrants, who were part of a class-action lawsuit against the INS, to apply for residency.
Weinberg, speaking for Gutierrez, said that a majority of the undocumented workers living in the United States have been here for years, paying taxes and toiling in jobs that might otherwise go unfilled. They are part of the economy, he said. “Giving them a green card would allow them to come out of hiding and make employers less apt to exploit them.”*****************************************************
Have a Great Month,
and Keep Checking Back for All the Latest Immigration News and Information
Thank you for taking the time to read through this month's mailing. We hope you have picked up at least a few important pointers. Please feel free to send us your immigration-related article that you want us to include in our next monthly mailing. Click here for instructions. Your article will be sent out at the beginning of next month to all of our subscribers, and it can be viewed online by millions of prospective immigration applicants around the world.
We would also like to hear from anyone who has had either a positive or negative experience with the US Immigration Service, Immigration Court, or a US Consulate, as we would like to share these thoughts with our readers. Appropriate articles will be published in our monthly newsletters. We do need your name and e-mail address in order to obtain additional information if necessary, however this information will not be disclosed without your specific consent.
Even though Congress has remedied some of the harsh consequences of the 1996 Act, it has not gone far enough, and there is still much more that has to be accomplished. We will provide our readers with updates on what is still needed to bring fairness and equity to US immigration law. It is important that everyone contact their Senators and Representatives to let them know that we want fairness and justice when dealing with those seeking to join their family members, or prospective employers, in the United States. With your help, the rights of immigrants and their family members will be greatly enhanced.
The entire staff of ImmigrationLinks.com would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you the best in dealing with your immigration case.
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