Friday, November 9, 2012

Immigration Roundup: Will Awaking the “Latino Giant” Lead to Immigration Legislation?

by Laura D. Francis

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Immigrant advocates and practitioners Nov. 7 agreed following President Obama’s re-election that a large measure of his success—if not the deciding factor—was the fact that Latinos, a growing segment of the voting population, overwhelmingly supported him. And that support derived from a comparison of the president’s actions on immigration, such as the deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) program, to statements made by GOP candidate Mitt Romney related to “self-deportation” and a refusal to grant “amnesty” to undocumented immigrants already in the country.

In the words of Service Employees International Union Secretary Treasurer Eliseo Medina, “the Latino giant is wide awake, cranky, and it's taking names.”

But the million-dollar question is whether the election results will translate to congressional action overhauling the country’s immigration system. Speakers at a Nov. 7 American Immigration Lawyers Association webinar weren’t so sure.

AILA Executive Director Crystal Williams said “there's still a fair amount of anti-immigrant rhetoric” in the House, where the GOP continues to hold a majority of the seats. And AILA Director of Advocacy Greg Chen suggested that some Senate Democrats may be unwilling to support broad immigration legislation out of fear of losing their seats in 2014.

Groups advocating for lower immigration levels also insisted that Latinos’ support for Obama was more a signal of their agreement with his economic policies than his immigration policies, and that most Americans support rigorous immigration enforcement, such as making the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification program mandatory for all employers.

Still, Chen pointed out that DACA is a lesson to lawmakers that they, like Obama, can take a bold move on immigration and not face negative political consequences, a sentiment echoed by America's Voice Executive Director Frank Sharry, who called a comprehensive immigration bill a “political imperative.” George Tzamaras, AILA's senior director of communications and outreach, also thought that immigration could be the one issue where Congress manages to achieve bipartisanship in the coming year. And the National Council of La Raza’s Clarissa Martinez believed the “environment is ripe” because of the negative economic consequences being felt in states that have taken a hard-line stance on immigration, such as Arizona and Alabama.

President Obama twice in recent weeks has said immigration is a priority for him—in an interview with the Des Moines Register and during his victory speech early Nov. 7. But will it come to pass? Only time will tell.

In Other News:

• The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Oct. 29 awarded over $11.8 million to a class of 4,000 H-2B workers who claimed that their employer cheated them out of their wages, but the workers are unlikely to see any of that judgment because of a bankruptcy agreement.

• The progressive think-tank Center for American Progress in an issue brief said the deferred action for childhood arrivals program is showing early signs that it will be a success because of its high participation rate and a “fair, efficient, and transparent process of receiving and adjudicating filings.”

• The owner of Los Angeles employment agency People's Resources International Services was indicted in federal district court Nov. 1 on 10 counts related to her filing some 100 fraudulent visa petitions that falsely claimed the beneficiaries had been recruited by prominent hospitals and nonprofit organizations.

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