Latest Updates: US immigration RSS

  • johnpi 12:10 am on December 28, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , US immigration, Visa Waiver program

    US Islamophobe Debbie Schlussel is really targeting UK Muslims when she calls for the end of the Visa Waiver program.

    Abdulmutallab–from a prominent, wealthy, religious Muslim Nigerian family–was recruited to become a jihadist, not in his native Nigeria, but in Great Britain, where he spent three years as a student at University College London.

    It’s yet another reason why the Visa Waiver program (granting certain designated Western countries an exemption from the usually more stringent visa process to travel to the U.S.) is a huge mistake. We know Muslims come to the U.S. from various assorted Western Visa Waiver countries, and even though Abdulmutallab did not, he was recruited and radicalized in a Visa Waiver Country, Britain, where British nationals are also recruited for Islamic terrorism.

     

  • johnpi 12:02 am on December 21, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , US immigration

    Things you think you’d never hear in America: ‘We can make him disappear.’

    “If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008.

    Also present was Amnesty International’s Sarnata Reynolds, who wrote about the incident in the 2009 report “Jailed Without Justice” and said in an interview, “It was almost surreal being there, particularly being someone from an organization that has worked on disappearances for decades in other countries. I couldn’t believe he would say it so boldly, as though it weren’t anything wrong.”

    Pendergraph knew that ICE could disappear people, because he knew that in addition to the publicly listed field offices and detention sites, ICE is also confining people in 186 unlisted and unmarked subfield offices, many in suburban office parks or commercial spaces revealing no information about their ICE tenants — nary a sign, a marked car or even a US flag.

    This is related to the previous post:

    In 2006 ICE punished several Iraqi hunger strikers in Virginia–they were protesting being unlawfully held for more than six months after agreeing to deportation–by shuffling them between a variety of different facilities, ensuring that they would not encounter lawyers or be found by loved ones.

     

  • johnpi 11:40 pm on December 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , US immigration,

    A US appeals court has ruled that Muslims and Arab non-citizens have no right “to be free of selective enforcement of the immigration laws based on national origin, race, or religion….”

    The plaintiffs initiated the lawsuit in 2002 on behalf of Arab and Muslim aliens who were held on immigration violations following the Sept. 11 terror attacks and subjected to abuse, mistreatment and lengthy detentions.

    The abuse included beatings, strip searches and sleep deprivation. The allegations have been substantiated by two reports by the Office of the Inspector General.

    Five of the men settled with the government in November. A sixth plaintiff withdrew his claims several years ago.

    Rachel Meeropol of the Center for Constitutional Rights served as lead counsel for the plaintiffs. She called Friday’s ruling a “mixed bag.”

    “By dismissing [the equal protection] claim, the circuit has endorsed using religion and ethnicity as a proxy for suspicion of terrorist activity. That’s the part of the decision we’re disappointed in,” Meeropol said.

    Case ruling here.

    (via)

     

  • johnpi 11:26 pm on December 14, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , HPV, , , , sexually transmitted disease, , US immigration,

    The HPV vaccine mandate for immigrant women has been eliminated.

    This week the reproductive justice movement is celebrating a significant victory. Effective December 14, immigrant women and girls will no longer be forced to get Gardasil, a vaccine developed by Merck and Company to prevent transmission of the strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) linked to cervical cancer. This marks the reversal of a harmful and discriminatory rule originally put in place in July 2008 by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that took away the ability of immigrant women and girls to make informed choices of whether or not to get the Gardasil injection.

    The regimen of shots for HPV, which is sexually transmitted, costs $360, creating additional financial and legal barriers for green card applicants. Also,

    …progressive groups acknowledged that the mandatory use of a medical procedure on a targeted population when it is not required of the general population is discriminatory. Like their U.S. citizen counterparts, all prospective immigrant women should have the opportunity to make an informed decision about their use of the HPV vaccine, weighing both the potential costs and health benefits of using the vaccine.

    The vaccine is recommended but not required for the general population.

     

  • johnpi 8:45 pm on November 11, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US immigration

    Inshallah, we can retire the Lou Dobbs tag now that the anti-immigrant ranter is quitting CNN.

     

  • johnpi 8:11 am on November 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US immigration

    Deportation case of N.J. Muslim cleric is sent back to immigration judge for rehearing.

    That would be the case of Palestinian Imam Mohammad Qatanani, whose application for a green card was stymied by questionable information provide by Israeli authorities that he had been arrested and convicted there. The imam maintains that he was detained by the Israelis, but never arrested and had never been the subject of a trial.

     

  • johnpi 5:36 am on October 21, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , law enforcement raids on employers, US immigration

    A hardline Israeli newspaper is reporting on a US raid on a “Muslim meatpacking plant” near Chicago. No other media outlets that provide copy to the wire services are reporting on it apparently.

    Approximately 100 armed federal agents, backed by a helicopter, 50 vehicles and sharpshooters, raided a Muslim meatpacking plant earlier this week but remain silent about the secret operation. Only half a dozen people work at the plant.

    No one was arrested, but one eyewitness said the huge police force indicates that the raid may involve criminal activity other than hiring illegal immigrants. Terror-related activity has not been ruled, but officials have refused all comment on the case.

    Chicago news sources said the plant’s owner, a resident of Chicago, was arrested at his home and that documents were seized from the plant.
    ….

    The Muslim meatpacking plant is operated by First World Management in Kinsman, Illinois, where government workers involved in the raid did not explain why Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents joined immigration officers in the raid.

    Several officers pulled their gun as agents surrounded an unidentified man in Middle Eastern garb. The plant processes and packs goat meat according to Muslim laws. A Muslim prayer room in the plant also was raided.

    I find it interesting that an Israel newspaper that calls itself “The voice of the settlers” is doing original reporting on domestic events in the US.

     

  • johnpi 6:30 pm on October 12, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , US census, US immigration

    Glenn Beck launched into a long rant the other night about ‘illegal immigrants’ – which he conflates with all non-citizens – and how the US Census bureau shouldn’t count them.

    …his argument — that we shouldn’t be counting people who can’t vote — doesn’t merely cut against the undocumented. It cuts against all immigrants — who, by definition, are also already non-citizens.

    Moreover, the Census Bureau isn’t charged with accurately counting the number of citizens living within the United States — it’s charged with counting the entire population.
    ….

    Beck would have the Census omit not just unauthorized migrants, but also lawful permanent residents, humanitarian migrants, and foreign-born residents here legally.

    Of course, he’s arguing for this because he believes counting the undocumented will give the eeeeevil SEIU more power in its quest for total global domination or something like that. You have to watch the video to get it all, and even then it never quite holds together, much less make sense.

    Video at link above.

     

  • johnpi 6:08 pm on May 28, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , US immigration

    Multiracial Americans have become the fastest growing demographic group.

    The number of multiracial people rose 3.4 percent last year to about 5.2 million, according to the latest census estimates. First given the option in 2000, Americans who check more than one box for race on census surveys have jumped by 33 percent and now make up 5 percent of the minority population — with millions more believed to be uncounted.

    Population figures as of July 2008 show that California, Texas, New York and Florida had the most multiracial people, due partly to higher numbers of second- and later-generation immigrants who are more likely to “marry out.” ….

    About 1 in 13 marriages are mixed race, with the most prevalent being white-Hispanic, white-American Indian and white-Asian.

     

  • johnpi 5:42 am on April 28, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , US immigration

    In its zeal to crack down on illegal immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining and deporting American citizens.

     

  • johnpi 4:00 pm on March 15, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , US immigration

    Associated press expose on the explosive growth of the US population of immigrants in detention – many of whom are not here illegally and have no criminal issues. There were 32,000 in detention as of January 25. Looks at the stories of a 20-year-old Bangladeshi honor student who was locked up for 20 months before being deported back “home.” She has lived in the US since age 5 and only speaks English. Also an Algerian imam with US born children who has been here 11 years, and an Iraqi who was actually begging ICE to “do their job” and deport him already.

    Immigrant advocates say ICE prefers incarceration for non-criminal immigrants, even though alternatives are available, for one major reason: to strong-arm people.

    “When you’re there for weeks and weeks or months or months, your determination to fight your charges is reduced,” said Judy Green, a policy analyst with Justice Strategies, a nonpartisan think tank on incarceration issues. The goal is “to keep intense pressure on detainees to agree to removal and not to fight on whatever grounds they have for relief.”

     

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