Got Immigration? The World’s Best Damn Blog About U.S. Immigration

While I was away, I saw a post on my listserve from a concerned immigration attorney.  It seems that one of her clients received a letter ostensibly from John Salter, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Chief Counsel for the Los Angeles area.  The letter stated, and I quote:

“Due to resolution pass in Congress E, you are obligated to verify all employees legal status for: 1. Social Security Number, 2. Citizenship, 3. Green card or temporarily permit, 4. Report all illegal and illegal activities”

That’s basically the entire letter, slighly reformatted when I retyped it.  The letter is then signed “John W. Salter, Chief Counsel.”

If I wanted to forge a letter from ICE, the first thing I would do is make sure that I could actually write a sentence in English.  The second thing I would do is probably check ICE’s letterhead stationery, so my fake letter would be more believable.  Third and finally, I would maybe think twice about my scheme.  ICE is, after all, the Immigration Service’s enforcement arm.  Their job is to arrest people, and they seem to enjoy stretching the limits of what their congressional mandate and the Constitution allow them to do.  I can almost guarantee that ICE will do whatever it can to find out who sent these letters, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.

So why do this in the first place?  Companies have long been known to report their competitors to ICE, especially in industries where undocumented labor is the norm.  Reporting a rival disrupts their business, forcing them to fire existing workers and hire new ones, giving the “reporter” company a temporary competitive advantage.  Some unscrupulous companies would love to see their competitors raked over the ICE, so to speak – and it’s a very small step from enjoying an ICE investigation from a distance to starting one of your very own, both of which carry the same business advantages.

Just to tie this story up, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) contacted Mr. Salter for comment.  According to AILA’s website, Mr. Salter’s office stated that “(1) he did not author such a letter, (2) that they are aware of these letters, (3) that the ICE Office of Investigations will be reviewing this matter, and that (4) he would request that we advise any businesses that receive such a letter to please save the letter and accompanying envelope. He also said that pending more detailed information, our members should send the letters and accompanying envelopes to the office of the ICE Special Agent in Charge.” 

Great, there’s already a Special Agent in Charge.  I’d recommend that this letter-writer find himself a good attorney – and soon.

Well, as anyone who reads this blog can probably tell, I haven’t added much content for about three weeks.  Why, you might ask, have I taken a hiatus from the battle for U.S. immigration reform?  I spent 18 days in Malaysia and Indonesia for a wedding/vacation, which I think more than justifies a break from the battle.  I promise that from now on, though, I will fight on - doing my part to expose the crapulence of America’s immigration bueaucracy.  Look for more posts in the coming days.

The CDC just announced that it intends to remove Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) from its list of “communicable diseases of public health significance.” This isn’t official yet – the period for comments on this new proposal ends on August 17, 2009 – but if this becomes law, HIV-positive foreign nationals would no longer need a waiver in order to enter the United States. In practical terms, this means much less hassle for thousands of people that would normally need an approved waiver in order to enter or acquire legal status in the U.S. The CDC’s announcement is also a striking example of the strides that science has made in the treatment of HIV, and of an accompanying societal change of attitude. With better treatment available (at least in the U.S.) and a better-informed public, it was only a matter of time until the goverment’s health watchdog/bureaucracy caught up. Way to go CDC!

I keep waiting for the H-1B numbers to run out, but so far, so good.  USCIS just announced that it has received 44,800 cap-subject H-1B petitions, meaning that there are about 10,200 visa numbers left as of today.  For anyone that dealt with H-1B visas last year – and saw how twice the maximum number of H-1B petitions were received in the first day of the application period – this is indeed a nice change, even though it does show how bad the economy truly is.  I suppose that if I had a choice, I’d choose a better economy over 10,200 H-1B numbers…but if the economy has to be bad, this is a welcome side effect!