USA Green Card Immigration Blog

FOXNews.com – Fox News Poll: 72 Percent Say Government Not Enforcing Immigration Laws.

Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona has recently passed the state’s immigration bill into law. According to the Arizona immigration law, immigrants are required to carry their immigration documents with them all the time. The law authorizes police officers to demand suspected people for their alien registration documents, if they have even a slight suspicion about the individual. The Arizona’s law seems to be highly controversial and has raised a national debate among politicians, pundits, and citizens.

President Obama also expressed his disapproval to the Arizona immigration law, stating that this immigration law was “misguided” and could violate citizen’s civil rights. Further, he also said that the developments in the law would be monitored by the Justice Department.

At a naturalization ceremony that was held for 24 foreign-born U.S. military members, that Obama had first raised opposition to the Arizona immigration law. At the naturalization ceremony, President Obama had appealed to the fellow countrymen to opt for a different future and not the one that was envisaged through the Arizona immigration law.

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security Secretary was also present at the Rose Garden event along with President Obama. Previously, during her two term tenure as Arizona’s democratic governor she had repetitively refused to permit similar bills. She justified her act, saying that those bills would have refrained law enforcement forces from protecting their nationals from serious threats.

Immigrant advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona are of the opinion that the Arizona immigration law might cultivate racial profiling, since they believe that most police officers do not have enough training to look beyond race while investigating the suspected person’s immigration status.

The Arizona immigration law has reignited the national immigration reform debate. President Obama has urged the federal government to take steps to reform the national immigration law and prevent irresponsibility by others.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration services (USCIS) published an interim final rule in the Federal Register in early November, to create a new category of visa classification called the ‘Transitional Worker’. According to Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 (CNRA) a transitional worker is an alien worker who is currently ineligible for another classification under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and who performs services or labor for an employer in CNMI.

The CNMI-Only Transitional Worker Program is part of several steps taken to implement the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 (CNRA), expanding U.S. immigration law in the CNMI. This non-immigrant visa category has two admission codes CW-1 and CW-2 for the principal transitional worker and the dependents respectively. Nonresidents lawfully present in the CNMI and those abroad will be eligible for the CNMI-Only Transitional Worker Program.

Nonresidents lawfully present in the CNMI must be petitioned for by their employer and for them to be eligible for the transitional worker visa. (The employer should be engaged in legal business under federal or CNMI law.) This petition must be filed using Form I-129CW, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker in CNMI with the required fee of $320. Under certain circumstances wherein the employer is unable to pay the fee, it may be waived. However, the employer must prove he can pay the employee his wage.

Once a worker acquires the Transitional Worker visa, he can travel to and from CNMI, provided he has the visa required for readmission. The transitional period begins on November 28th 2009 and will be on till December 31st 2014. After this period, the transitional worker visa will no longer be valid. After this, such workers must change to another status under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

This interim final rule introducing the Transitional Worker Program will assist the orderly changeover of workers’ status, from the permit system to the Immigration Law.

Doing away with the `widow’s penalty’ – Editorials – MiamiHerald.com.

With a 79-19 Senate vote, Congress has corrected one of the more draconian immigration policies to be visited upon foreign-born spouses of American citizens.

Called the “widow’s penalty,”‘ the policy allows immigration officials to annul spouses’ applications for permanent residency when their American husbands or wives die before the marriage is two years old.

The new immigration measure will allow foreigners married to U.S. citizens to apply for permanent residency without waiting two years, and the death of a spouse won’t be a determining factor in the outcome.

The Associated Press: AP Interview: Leader has back-up immigration plan.

The head of the nation’s leading Latino legal advocacy group said if comprehensive immigration legislation seems unlikely in 2010, Congress should make down payments by passing smaller-scale reforms.

In an interview with The Associated Press Friday, Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said he fully expects work on rewriting immigration law to begin in Congress next year.

But if Democratic leaders delay, because of elections and a hostile political climate for immigrants, Congress should take up the issue gradually and in smaller ways, Saenz said. Lawmakers could address the need for foreign agricultural workers, provide legal status to high school graduates brought to the country illegally as children, and create equity for same sex partners who want to come to the U.S. or get green cards.

“As of right now, I have not been convinced that comprehensive immigration reform cannot move in 2010, so it needs to move. It needs to include all of these elements and many more,” Saenz said. “If that is not possible, then I’m interested in discussing this idea of down payments with a commitment to fulfill the obligation through comprehensive immigration reform that is not postponed indefinitely.”

Previously, immigration advocates have been reluctant to address immigration reform piecemeal to keep the various interest groups united on difficult issues, such as legalizing millions of people who are in the country illegally.