New York Democrat Calls For Immigration Reform

By Leah Valencia, University of New Mexico- Talk Radio News Service

Over 100 clergy members joined Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.) Wednesday to urge Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, calling the current policies discriminatory.

“For all we are doing for this nation, health care reform, economic redevelopment … for those that are here undocumented, it means nothing,” Clarke said.

Clark said that although Latinos are often at the forefront of demanding immigration reform, the reality of immigration consists of people from a diverse background and the bureaucracy of immigration needs be stratified to include all of them.

“There are faces we don’t often associate with the challenge of being undocumented,” she said. “But that community is really suffering with lack of mobility, and fear of how this country is dealing with enforcement.”

Clarke said there is no consensus in Congress on immigration reform, but she plans to push to have it addressed this year.

“There are people who have been here and have lived in this nation longer than they have in their nation of origin and have basically become American in their contribution,” she said. “Those people deserve the opportunity to be heard and to have their status adjusted.”

Clarke represents a large immigrant community in Brooklyn, New York.

Supreme Court Considers Effects Of Bad Legal Advice

When Jose Padilla was arrested in Kentucky in 2001 for drug trafficking, his lawyer advised him to plead guilty in exchange for a shorter sentence. Padilla is a legal permanent resident, having immigrated from Honduras 40 years ago, and his lawyer advised Padilla that the guilty plea would not affect his immigration status. Padilla pleaded guilty in October 2002 and was sentenced to 5 years in prison and 5 years of probation.

The lawyer's advice, unfortunately, was wrong. Drug trafficking is an "aggravated felony," meaning Padilla lost any benefit of his immigration status and would have no defense should the government choose to deport him. In 2004, Padilla filed a motion in court in Kentucky asking to withdraw his guilty plea, arguing that he would not have plead guilty if he had known about the immigration consequences.

The general rule for legal advice at trial is that a lawyer must fully inform a client of the direct consequences of a guilty plea, such as jail time, but the lawyer has no duty to explain "collateral consequences" like losing the right to vote or own firearms. The Supreme Court Tuesday heard arguments that loss of immigration status is such an important issue—and was so important to Padilla's decision to make the plea—that a lawyer's incorrect advice warrants overturning the conviction and possibly bringing a new trial.

The Supreme Court Justices seemed to primarily be concerned that if Padilla is allowed to take back his plea it would expand the job of a court-appointed attorney to include giving all sorts of legal advice rather than letting them focus on getting a favorable verdict in the specific case for which they are assigned. Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito asked the attorneys several times whether incorrect advice on child custody and confiscation of property could lead to new trials. Padilla's lawyer argued that, if that advice was key to the defendant's decision to plead guilty, it could be grounds for a new trial. He further pointed out that a lawyer is always free to say that he simply does not know or refuse to answer entirely.

The lawyer for Kentucky, at one point comparing the collateral issues to land mines, nevertheless argued that the Sixth Amendment, which provides the right to an attorney at trial, only provided that attorney for the purpose of countering the government's prosecution. In other words, anything the lawyer says about collateral consequences is outside of his mandated role under the Sixth Amendment and is therefore not grounds for reversal.

The Supreme Court will hand down its decision in the case later this year.

Immigration Analysts Call For Employee Identity Verification

By Leah Valencia, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service

Tuesday immigration policy researchers stated that illegal immigrants are responsible for the majority of identity theft crime and that little is being done by the Obama administration to stop them.

“What is striking to me... is how astonishingly uninterested in this crime the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration is,” said Stewart Baker, the former Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy. “There is no inclination on the part of either of those institutions to enforce the rules.”

The remarks came during a panel discussion hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies at the National Press Club. Panelists urged employers to verify the identity and citizenship of it’s workers by using government systems such as E-Verify and Social Security Number Verification Services, explaining that 75 percent of working-age illegal aliens use fraudulent Social Security card to obtain employment.

“We are finding that foreign born individuals commit more varieties of identity frauds than Americans do,” CIS National Security Policy Director Janice Kephart said. “E-Verify is snuffing out counterfeiters relatively well.”

E-Verify, which is a voluntary online system operated by the DHS and SSA where employers can verify the identity of new hires by comparing information from an employment eligibility form to a database, has been a centerpiece in current immigration reform debates. Lawmakers have considered mandating all employers use E-Verify as opposed to the brute force of mass deportations.

However, when E-Verify was written into the Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act in 2007, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the system would have cost at least $12 billion over 10 years to implement. In 2005 the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that E-Verify could not detect identity fraud if, “An unauthorized worker presents an employer with either valid identity documents belonging to another person, or reasonably well-made counterfeit documents containing valid information about another person.”

“If I were to take your name, your social security number and your date of birth... I could steal your identity through E-Verify and get through, It is not totally fool-proof,” Author of a CIS backgrounder Ronald Mortensen said.

E-Verify was scheduled to expire September 30, 2009 but on Monday Congress passed a Short-Term Funding Resolution that included a 31-day E-Verify extension.

“The difference between now and the future will be that the administration is behind it,” Kephart said. “They have now been convinced that it is a good program and they are willing to go forward with it.”

Mexican Drug Cartels Pose Threat To Journalists

By Meagan Wiseley - University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News Service

“I was threatened to die because I was trying to do my job”, said Emilio Guiterez Soto, a Mexican journalist who was forced to flee Mexico after threats from the Chihuahuan government over his coverage of corruption in the army. Soto reflected on his journey from the Mexico to the U.S. in a press conference on the dangers drug cartels are presenting to journalists in Mexico hosted by the organization Reporters Without Borders

Soto and his son crossed the border into the U.S. knowing that they would be arrested by immigration officials. Soto spent seven months in a homeland security detention camp, and his son was in a custody for two months.

“I had to be in prison for seven months...and that was better than the situation [I was in] in Chihuahua”, said Soto.

According to a report released by Reporters Without Borders on Monday, Mexico is the most dangerous country for the media in the western hemisphere. Since year 2000, 55 journalists have been killed and eight are still missing.

“The Mexican government is reporting that eighty percent of the arms, or weapons, are coming from the U.S.”, said Jose Luis Sierra, a Mexican investigative reporter who works in the Rio Grande River Valley along the border of Mexico and Texas.

Sierra said, “nearly 70% of the local authorities are corrupted by drug traffickers”, and he believes this violence will not end without federal investments from both Mexico and the U.S.

Reporters Without Borders is urging the U.S. Senate to ratify the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in the Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials, knows as CIFTA.

The future of Emilio Guiterez Soto and his son remains unknown. An immigration hearing is scheduled for March 2010. Soto and Reporters Without Borders are confident that immigration will give them refugee status and allow them to stay in the U.S.

Baucus Bill Could Delay Legal Immigrant Health Care Access

By Travis Martinez
University of New Mexico- Talk Radio News Service

Today, four immigration advocacy organizations urged the Senate Finance Committee Monday to provide legal and illegal immigrants with healthcare access. The National Immigration Law Center, the Center for Community Change, the National Council for La Raza and the National Immigration Forum are asking members of Congress to include provisions for legals in the recently unveiled America's Healthy Future Act. The Senate Finance Committee is slated to begin markup of the plan tomorrow.

Sonal Amegaokar is a health policy attorney of the National Immigration Law Center. She said that the glut of eligibility provisions currently in place could inadvertently block millions of eligible immigrants from receiving the benefits provided through the legislation. “At worst, the (healthcare reform legislation) will make it more difficult for eligible people from getting the coverage they deserve,” she said. “Health care reform today is progressing but is clearly not reflecting the reality of our society today... The more people you have covered and the more people you have paying into the system, it’s a better system for all of us."

"The exclusion of immigrants creates a serious racial justice concern for the center of community change,” said Kate Kahan of the Center for Community Change.

The bill was released last week by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. The bill would create tax credits for small-businesses to offer insurance for their employees; allow people to maintain their existing coverage; standardize Medicaid coverage to people living 133 percent below the poverty level and create tax incentives for health care providers to use electronic medical records. The plan would cost $856 million over the next ten years.

Baucus said that his plan would not add to the federal deficit and would be funded "through increased focus on quality, efficiency, prevention and adjustments in federal health program payments" according to his website.

http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG 2009/091609 Americas_Healthy_Future_Act.pdf.