Zulkie Partners

The new Alabama law targeting undocumented immigrants has come under attack by advocate groups and federal judges, who have found key provisions of the law to be unconstitutional. In addition to being ruled as unconstitutional, agricultural interest groups have claimed the law has created labor shortages in the fields and business groups fear it is fostering a hostile economic climate throughout the state.

Recently, flaws of the immigration law were exposed when a Mercedes-Benz executive, visiting from Germany, was detained for hours by the local police, after failing to prove his legal status when his only identification was his German I.D. State lawmakers are undeterred and instead of repealing the law, they are tweaking it in hopes of avoiding future embarrassment. Unfortunately, throughout the process, they have made things much worse.

The modifications not only leave intact much of the law’s original features, but make some aspects even harsher. For example, a revision concerning the checking of legal status of detained individuals was changed to require police officers to conduct such checks only when issuing a traffic citation. The trouble is that police officers can almost always find reasons to issue traffic citations, if they are so inclined. Another provision of the law states that the legal status of passengers can be checked if the driver is believed to be an illegal immigrant. This invites racial profiling, and in some instances, even makes profiling okay.

Religious groups worry that the new laws will make it illegal for them to offer aid to struggling, undocumented immigrants. The existing law states it is illegal to offer aid to ten or more illegal immigrants, but the revision would lower this number to five. Virtually anything can be considered “offering aid,” even simply giving them a ride to work. Similarly, the revised law seems to favor large corporations over small or family-owned business when the law would allow firms’ licenses to be revoked if the revocation “serves the public’s interest.”

Although relatively few undocumented immigrants inhabit the state of Alabama, the thousands that did have since fled the state. Zulkie Partners, LLC, a business immigration law firm, boasts a team of attorneys, who are experts in corporate immigration law. If you feel you need assistance in navigating the complicated and convoluted immigration laws of the United States, Zulkie Partners, LLC, can help. The attorneys of Zulkie Partners understand that clients are looking for value beyond simple legal expertise and are dedicated to helping you every step of the way.

While the Justice Department efforts to protect individual rights and to preserve the right of the federal government to enforce immigration law have been laudatory, a number of other significant policies of the current Administration have angered pro-immigration supporters, not the least of which has been the record number of deportations that have transpired in the last three years. Some 1.2 million undocumented foreign nationals have been deported since President Obama took up office, compared to almost 1.6 million deported during the eight-year Presidency of George Bush. In FY2011 alone, an unprecedented 400,000 people were deported. However, just last month the Administration took real action to provide relief for the undocumented who pose no threat to the country and who commit no crime.

Prosecutorial Discretion

 A new DHS-ICE policy encouraging the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in appropriate cases was launched in mid-November – complete with fairly comprehensive guidelines and procedures – and is being piloted in Baltimore and Denver, December 4 through January 13, 2012. DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) had announced in June its intent to eliminate low priority cases from the immigration court dockets and instead focus its enforcement priorities on the removal of those who have broken criminal laws, threats to national security, recent border crossers, repeat violators of immigration law, and immigration court fugitives. In August, DHS and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) issued a directive to ICE attorneys to review pending court cases as well as cases where a charging document had not yet been filed to determine if the agency should decide not to prosecute the case. DHS also announced the establishment of a joint DHS-DOJ working group to review the approximately 300,000 pending cases and identify cases for administrative closure. The pilot program just launched was designed to identify cases most clearly eligible and ineligible for a favorable exercise of discretion. During a six-week period, USCIS, ICE, and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) attorneys are to review cases according to the agency’s general prosecutorial discretion guidance as well as by a set of more focused criteria. Ultimately, DHS expects to implement “best practices” on an ongoing basis nationwide.

While it is still too soon to judge the results of the pilot program and the impact of the agency’s new policy, in Baltimore, at least, removal cases normally set in December and January have been scheduled well into the future.  Stay tuned.

Other DHS guidance issued in November on when immigration charging documents should be issued dove-tails with its prosecutorial discretion policy.

Adjudications, Entrepreneurs, Small Business

More informally, the Administration has engaged the public and immigration stakeholders on a variety of issues and has done so more directly that ever before. Recently, the USCIS Ombudsman’s Office held an Annual Conference attended by 300 to discuss improving the delivery of immigration benefits and services. USCIS also has hosted a number of teleconferences with the public. A teleconference was held on USCIS’s then-changed policy on where and to whom I-797 approval notices are sent. (Feedback from the call contributed to USCIS changing its policy.) Another teleconference was held on small and start-up business immigration issues and involved not only immigration officials but those from the Small Business Administration and other federal agencies. On a related note, USCIS just launched an “Entrepreneurs in Residence” initiative and hopes to bring business experts in-house to work alongside USCIS staff to ensure that its policies are reflective of industry realities. This could be a valuable opportunity for business experts and immigrant entrepreneurs, especially those who have engaged in the U.S. immigration system through immigrant visa applications, to join USCIS’s tactical team and affect how the agency adjudicates cases. Business members, however, must be U.S. citizens. To apply for the Entrepreneurs in Residence program, see http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/careers/loaned-executive-business-expert-uscis.shtm

It’s anyone’s guess whether the Administration’s formal policy changes (prosecutorial discretion) or its informal meetings and public engagements will result is administrative fixes that have real teeth. At the end of the day, however, these changes represent only modest remedies to a system that cries out for wholesale reform.

In late September, a federal district court blocked certain portions of Alabama’s controversial immigration law, HB 56, from taking effect, ruling that there is a substantial likelihood that the U.S. government can establish that the provisions are preempted by federal law. The provisions upheld, however, include those that authorize local police to inquire about a driver’s immigration status during routine traffic stops or arrests if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the United States illegally; and requires public schools to verify students’ immigration status. The law also provides that undocumented foreign nationals can be charged criminally for willful failure to carry federal immigration papers, and any contracts entered into by an individual who is undocumented as well as transactions between any division of the state and an undocumented immigrant are legally nullifiable. The Department of Justice  (DOJ) sought an emergency stay of the decision at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on October 7^th.

While the status of the law remains uncertain, its effects are already being felt.  Many undocumented immigrants are fleeing the state, workers are no longer reporting to their jobs, and undocumented children (and children of undocumented parents) are no longer attending classes. In requesting the emergency stay, the DOJ claimed that the new law was highly likely to expose persons lawfully here, including schoolchildren, to new difficulties in their daily affairs, and that the legislation could impact diplomatic relations with foreign countries. DOJ set up a hot line to report potential civil rights concerns related to the impact of Alabama’s immigration law.  Call 1‐855‐353‐1010 or email hb56@usdoj.gov.

While clearly one of the most draconian new state laws, the National Conference of State Legislature reports that from January 1 to June 30, 2011, 40 state legislatures have passed 151 immigration-related laws and 95 resolutions.

In an abrupt change of approach to a key immigration enforcement program, ICE declared in early August that it would continue its “Secure Communities” program but without memoranda of agreements (MOA) with state or local law enforcement agencies because ICE deemed them unnecessary. MOAs already in place were unilaterally terminated.  Under the three-year-old Secure Communities program, the FBI shares fingerprint data of people arrested by local (or state) law enforcement authorities with DHS so that it, in turn, can check for immigration law violations. Procedurally, the program has been criticized by some state and local governments for lack of uniformity, inconsistency, and confusion. For example, local authorities have been led to believe that the program is “voluntary” when in fact there is no mechanism for them to opt out. More substantively, the program has been criticized for netting low-level or non-criminal immigration violators – 60% of those arrested are not serious criminals according to ICE statistics – at the expense of local community policing efforts. Indeed, as reported in the Washington Post, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino assessed the program more bluntly, and wrote to ICE Director Morton that “Secure Communities is negatively impacting public safety.” Despite the criticisms, ICE plans to have the program in place nationwide by 2013.

State and local governments continue to be the staging ground for real action on immigration reform while Congress does nothing. Conservative state legislatures have enacted draconian, restrictive immigration laws (Arizona, Alabama, Utah, Georgia, and South Carolina) that, in some cases, are winding their way through the courts, while other states have moved in the direction of enacting more liberal policies toward immigrants. Most recently, the governors of Illinois and California signed into law “DREAM Act” bills that would allow undocumented immigrants to receive private funds to attend state colleges and universities. The same issue will go before the Maryland electorate as part of a referendum in November 2011.  And the courts, state as well as federal, continue to enter the fray. In Texas, a district court recently barred the Texas Department of Public Safety from enforcing rules that denied driver’s licenses to immigrants living and working in Texas with valid work authorization.  In Georgia, a federal district court blocked key provisions of that state’s “Show Me Your Papers” law, granting a preliminary injunction in the suit filed by a coalition of civil rights groups and individual attorneys.

In the absence of a federal approach to immigration reform and continued congressional inaction which is expected until after the next presidential election, we can expect more of the same from state and local governments as they attempt to regulate immigration and address the strain our broken immigration system causes to their communities.