Comment

21st Century Workforce

A GAO Forum discussing issues on the 21st Century Workforce invited a select group of national leaders and experts on the dynamics of the U.S. workforce, where participants offered the following suggestions to change immigrant worker policies:

• U.S. policies should support more permanent immigrants and fewer illegal immigrants.
• The federal government's visa programs should not have fixed yearly limits on the number of people who may enter the country. Instead, the number of allowable visas should be given in a range that adjusts to meet workforce demands.
• The executive branch, not Congress, should be responsible for determining the number of temporary workers who can enter the United States. Another participant argued that Congress should be responsible because it represents the larger social interest.
• U.S. immigration policy should not differentiate between permanent and temporary workers; instead, foreign workers should be considered transitional.
• Non-native U.S. college graduates should be given green cards immediately after graduation instead of being sent back to their home countries.
• The U.S. visa program for foreign students to attend college and graduate school in the United States should be revised. Recent declines in the admission of foreign graduate students, especially in math and science, have implications for future U.S. productivity and innovation.

We welcome readers to share their opinion by writing to weeklyeditor@ilw.com.

Highlight

Curriculum For "The Three Rs: Removal, Relief and Review"

The curriculum for "The Three Rs: Removal, Relief and Review" is as follows:

FIRST Phone Session on July 28th: "Please release me, Let me go..."
(Arrest and Hearing; detention issues, removal grounds, burden, defenses, suppression)

• Reason to believe, warrant, arrest
• Detention standards, habeas and "custodian" Rumsfeld v. Padilla (S. Ct. June 21, 2004)
• Right to counsel, approach to practice, client representation, developing the case
• Immigration judge duties, bias and recusal
• Hearing rights and meaningful exercise
• Burden of proof, "arriving alien," FOIA, exhaustion/making the record
• NTA defects, notice & service, evidentiary insufficiency, res judicata
• Non-hearings: Stipulated hearing, expedited hearing, & reinstatement of removal

SECOND Phone Session on August 19th: "Crazy, these cases are making me crazy...."
(More Defenses and Challenges in cases involving domestic violence, inabsentia rulings, classified evidence, citizenship, adjustment options, alternate dispositions)

• Stops and incrimination: Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, Humboldt County, (S. Ct. 6/21/04)
• Alienage and 5th amendment suppression challenges
• Negotiating with ICE, prosecutorial discretion, stipulation
• VAWA cancellation, adjustment, exceptions, waivers and deferred action
• Classified evidence cases; closed hearings, no hearing
• Conviction "after admission," evidence of conviction, I-213, Jencks Act
• New charges, effect of grounds not charged or proved on eligbility and review
• Inabsentia motions, notice, exceptional circumstances, due diligence, reopening

THIRD Phone Session on September 16th: "Stay - Just a Little While Longer"
(Relief and review)

• Adjustment, voluntary departure, 212(c)/cancellation of removal, 212(h).
• Combined relief: Gabrelsky/Rainford adjustment, nunc pro tunc permission to reapply (I-212)
• Discretionary relief and Lopez v. Davis blanket standards
• AG mixing of statutory standards (Matter of Jean; Matter of K-A-; Matter of Y-L-, et al.)
• BIA appeal standards, summary dismissal, NOA and streamlining, remand
• Involuntary waiver of appeal; unlawful removal; self-deportation
• Petition for review jurisdiction and exhaustion standards under section 242
• Habeas petitions, stays of removal

Articles

Immigration Without Labor Certification: When And Why To File An EB-1 Or NIW Petition
Cletus M. Weber discusses four of the most common employment-based alternatives for obtaining permanent residency without going through the labor certification process.

Asylum Resource Series: Croatia
USCIS Asylum Resource Information Center offers asylum information on Croatia.

Joel Stewart's BALCA Review (July 20, 2004)
Joel Stewart presents a summary of recent notable BALCA decisions.

Targets Of Suspicion: The Impact of Post-9/11 Policies On Muslims, Arabs And South Asians In The US
Paul M. Sherer for the Immigration Policy Center writes on the impact NSEERS has had on the targeted communities and the fact that important aspects of the program continue to be enforced.

Chat

When	Attorney
Logon for chat Next Chat: Tue, Jul 27, 5:00 PM ET (New York Time) Questions will be accepted starting 15 minutes before the event.	To Be Announced
Tue, Aug 3, 5:00 pm Eastern	To Be Announced
Tue, Aug 10, 5:00 pm Eastern	To Be Announced
Tue, Aug 17, 5:00 pm Eastern	To Be Announced
Tue, Aug 24, 5:00 pm Eastern	Stuart J. Reich
Tue, Aug 31, 5:00 pm Eastern	Karen K Meade

Letters

Send your letters to weeklyeditor@ilw.com.

Dear Editor:
What are the expectatives of the approval of the law Dream Act, which will legalize the undocumented students of high school, that are willing to continue in college?

Jose Araque

Dear Editor:
One can only wonder, as we read the comment from Mary Ann V. M. Lopez, "proud to be a (legal) USC". If one were to follow her ancestry back, say, one or two generations, no one in the Lopez family arrived in the US undocumented, and was subsequently the beneficiary of an amnesty or other program allowing conversion of their status? I doubt it.

L. Gomez