The following has been posted on the official U.S. State Department’s website regarding the initial results posted on their website at www.dvlottery.state.gov…
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Senator Gillibrand’s efforts to halt deportation of Dream Act youth
We wanted to make sure you were aware of Senator Gillibrand’s efforts to halt deportation of Dream Act youth.
Please read the New York Daily News article , as well as the below letter the Senator sent yesterday to President Obama.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, April 14, 2011
GILLIBRAND URGES PRESIDENT TO HALT DEPORTATIONS OF DREAM ACT YOUTH
Senator Calls on Administration to Grant Deferred Action for DREAM Act Youth
Gillibrand: “Every Young Person Deserves a Chance at the American Dream”
Washington, DC – U.S .Senator Kirsten Gillibrand joined Majority Leader Harry Reid, Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, and 19 of her Senate colleagues today in calling on President Obama to halt deportations of young people who qualify for the DREAM Act and grant those students and young people deferred action on deportation proceedings. Currently, tens of thousands of young people who were brought to this country by their parents and pose no threat to our national security face the prospect of being deported.
“Current law unfairly punishes thousands of young people who grew up here and know only America as their home, holding them back from making a contribution to our country’s military and economy,” said Senator Gillibrand, an original co-sponsor of the DREAM Act. “These young people deserve better. They deserve a chance at the American dream – to work hard, get a good education, serve in the military, earn their way to legal status, help grow our economy and keep our country safe. While we work to move this important bill forward, I urge the President to take action now by halting these deportations to strengthen our national security and our economy.”
The Senators wrote in a letter to President Obama, “We would support a grant of deferred action to all young people who meet the rigorous requirements necessary to be eligible for cancellation of removal or a stay of removal under the DREAM Act. We strongly believe that DREAM Act students should not be removed from the United States, because they have great potential to contribute to our country and children should not be punished for their parents’ mistakes.”
The DREAM Act is legislation that would provide 50,000 to 65,000 young people who were brought to America by their parents access to an affordable college education, U.S. citizenship, and eligibility to serve in America’s armed forces. The DREAM Act passed the House last year, but was blocked by a Senate filibuster in December 2010. Senator Gillibrand will continue to push for passage of this legislation in the 112th Congress.
Led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, the Senators are calling President Obama to take action now and authorize the Department of Homeland Security to grant deferred action for all DREAM Act students who meet the strict requirements needed to be eligible to stay in the United States.
The Senators also expressed strong support for a uniform, orderly system for handling DREAM Act cases, including allowing DREAM Act students to apply for deferred action, tracking DREAM Act cases, and deciding cases earlier in the process rather than after students have received a final deportation order.
The letter was signed by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Carl Levin (D-MI), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Mark Begich (D-AK), Jack Reed (D-RI), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chris Coons (D-DE), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), John Kerry (D-MA), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Bill Nelson (D-FL).
Full text of the letter is below:
Dear Mr. President:
We write to discuss our mutual interest in a talented group of responsible young people with the potential to further enrich our great nation: individuals eligible for immigration relief under the DREAM Act.
We know that you share our desire to enact comprehensive immigration reform legislation as soon as possible, and we appreciate your support for our efforts to find solutions to this critical problem facing our nation. While we continue to work toward enactment of comprehensive reform of our immigration system, we have also fought to enact the DREAM Act. This legislation would give a select group of students the chance to earn legal status if they arrived in the United States when they were 15 or younger, have lived in this country for at least five years, have good moral character, are not inadmissible or removable under a number of specified grounds, have graduated from high school or obtained a GED, and attend college or serve in the military for two years.
As you know, the DREAM Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives and received a bipartisan majority vote in the U.S. Senate in December. Unfortunately, the support of 55 senators was not enough to overcome a filibuster by the bill’s opponents. We greatly appreciated your strong support for the DREAM Act last year and look forward to working with you to enact it into law in the 112th Congress.
You are the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and are, of course, obligated to enforce the law. However, the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in light of law enforcement priorities and limited resources has a long history in this nation and is fully consistent with our strong interest in the rule of law. Your Administration has a strong record of enforcement, having deported a record number of undocumented immigrants last year. At the same time, you have granted deferred action to a small number of DREAM Act students on a case-by-case basis, just as the Bush Administration did. Granting deferred action to DREAM Act students, who are not an enforcement priority for DHS, helps to conserve limited enforcement resources.
We would support a grant of deferred action to all young people who meet the rigorous requirements necessary to be eligible for cancellation of removal or a stay of removal under the DREAM Act, as requested on a bipartisan basis by Senators Durbin and Lugar last April. We strongly believe that DREAM Act students should not be removed from the United States, because they have great potential to contribute to our country and children should not be punished for their parents’ mistakes. As you said in your State of the Union Address, “let’s stop expelling talented, responsible young people who could be staffing our research labs or starting a new business, who could be further enriching this nation.”
We would also support steps short of this that you can take to establish a more orderly and consistent process for handling individual DREAM Act cases.
For example, your administration could establish and publicize a process for DREAM Act students to apply for deferred action. Currently, there is no formal process for applying for deferred action, and many DREAM Act students are unaware of this option. Indeed, the Bush Administration’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsmen recommended establishing a process for applying for deferred action.
Your administration could also require reporting and tracking of DREAM Act cases. It is our understanding that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not have a process for reporting and tracking DREAM Act cases. As a result, there is no mechanism for ensuring consistent handling of cases by different field offices around the country; no one knows how many DREAM Act eligible individuals are in removal proceedings, how many have applied for deferred action, and how many have been removed. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field offices frequently deny requests for deferred action in DREAM Act cases without ICE headquarters’ knowledge. Headquarters often only learns about DREAM Act cases from Congressional offices, immigration advocates, or the media, and often requires a private bill or other Congressional action prior to granting deferred action. The Bush Administration’s USCIS Ombudsmen also recommended tracking and headquarters review of deferred action requests to help ensure that there is no geographic disparity in approvals or denials of deferred action requests and that like cases are decided in like manner.
Finally, your administration could decide whether to grant deferred action as early as possible in the process of each individual case. Under current practice, DHS typically will not grant deferred action in a DREAM Act case until an individual receives a final order of deportation and frequently not until days or hours before the removal date. This is an inefficient use of limited resources and is inconsistent with long-standing DHS policy. As then-INS Commissioner Doris Meissner explained in “Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion,” a November 17, 2000 memorandum that is still official DHS policy: “As a general matter, it is better to exercise favorable discretion as early in the process as possible, once the relevant facts have been determined, in order to conserve the Service’s resources and in recognition of the alien’s interest in avoiding unnecessary legal proceedings.”
Thank you for considering these and other measures that would help to provide a more orderly process for handling the cases of young people who would be eligible for relief under the DREAM Act. We look forward to working with you on ways we can enable this talented group of young people to contribute to this nation they call home.
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Diversity Visa Lottery (DV-2012) Entry Status Check
The online registration for DV-2012 began October 5, 2010 and ended November 3, 2010. Entrants who completed online DV-2012 entries can check the status of their entries by returning to the website at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov on or after May 1, 2011, through June 30, 2012.
Entry Status Check will be the ONLY means by which DV lottery winners/selectees will be notified of their selection for DV-2012. Additionally, Entry Status Check will provide you, the successful selectee, instructions on how to proceed with your application and notify you of the date and time of your immigrant visa appointment.
The Kentucky Consular Center will no longer mail notification letters to DV selectees. Those selected in the random drawing are NOT notified of their selection by email. The above procedures are explained in the DV Lottery 2012 Instructions. The “Selection of Applicants” section of the DV instructions provides information about the DV time frame and process.
It is expected that the next application period for the DV Lottery (DV-2013) will be between October and December this year. Official dates, rules and eligible countries should be announced by late September. For more information, go to the official US State Department website at www.dvlottery.state.gov. You may also contact our office in the early fall for more information and assistance to complete another application. Be aware that the application for the DV lottery is free and you do not need to pay any agency to enter.
Social Security Administration resumes issuing no-match letters to employers and employees
On April 6, 2011, the Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner issued a directive to resume sending letters to employers and employees when there is a mismatch between an employee’s name and their Social Security number. As before, the new mismatch letter cautions employers that it is not a basis in of itself for an employer to take any adverse action (laying off, suspending, firing, etc.) and makes no statement about an employee’s immigration status. A FAQ on the SSA website provides further information.
The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) has also published on its website revised guidance regarding how employers can respond to notices indicating that an employee’s name and Social Security number (SSN) do not match information on record. These notices include Social Security Administration (SSA) “no-match” letters, usually issued in response to an employee wage report, which advise that the name or SSN reported by the employer for one or more employees does not “match” a name or SSN combination reflected in SSA’s records. In addition, other organizations, including other government agencies, commercial businesses, and third party entities, issue notices or provide alerts similar to SSA no-match letters. SSA sends three types of no-match letters: (1) a letter sent directly to a worker at his or her home; (2) one sent to an employer about an individual employee when SSA does not have the employee’s correct home address; and (3) one sent to an employer about multiple employees when at least ten employees during the year, or one-half of one percent of the employer’s workforce, have mismatched records. This final type of letter was last issued by the SSA in October 2007.
Reports or alerts from other sources, such as commercial businesses that conduct employee background checks, third party identity theft inquiries, and health care providers, should be treated cautiously, because the organizations may not have access to current information contained in SSA’s databases. In responding to a no-match letter from a source other than SSA, an employer should, at a minimum, follow the same policies, procedures, and timelines as it does for SSA no-match letters.
OSC’s guidance is part of a packet of information developed with input from SSA, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The packet includes no-match information for employees, no-match information for employers, and “Frequently Asked Questions.” The guidance emphasizes that, on its own, the receipt of an SSA no-match letter is not a sufficient basis to terminate, suspend or take any other adverse action against an employee. Instead, upon receipt of a no-match letter, employers should periodically meet with employees and work to resolve the no-match, allowing a reasonable period of time for such resolution.
The guidance packet is available here. For more information regarding the receipt of a no-match letter, contact OSC at 1-800-255-8155 or visit our website athttp://www.justice.gov/crt/about/osc.
H1B Professional Visas
Each year U.S. businesses use the H-1B program to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields, such as scientists, engineers, or computer programmers.
USCIS starts accepting H-1B petitions subject to the fiscal year (FY) 2012 cap on April 1, 2011. Cases will be considered accepted on the date USCIS receives a properly filed petition for which the correct fee has been submitted; not the date that the petition is postmarked.
Read more about the H-1B Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 Cap Season. If you have questions please contact Emerald Isle and speak to our attorney or an immigration counselor.