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1. TPS is practically permanent
2. Restrictions on Haitians
3. Election hurts amnesty chances
4. Report: failure of 1986 law
5. Leaders call for amnesty

1.
Immigration reprieves can be long-lasting
350,000 foreigners in U.S. are under protected status offered to Haitians who already are here
By David Fleshler
The South Florida Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), January 22, 2010
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/haiti/fl-haiti-temporary-20100122,0,312...

In the winter of 1998, after Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America, the Clinton administration offered short-term legal residency to about 150,000 undocumented Nicaraguans and Hondurans already living in the United States.

"It is a temporary status," Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner told reporters in announcing the decision. "The work authorizations will be issued only for 18 months. It is breathing room."

Today about 83,100 of them are still here, as succeeding administrations granted extension after extension of their right to live and work in the United States. They remain under what's called Temporary Protected Status, the same program offered this week to an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Haitians in the United States at the time of the Jan. 12 earthquake.

About 350,000 foreign nationals already live in the United States under the program, created by Congress in 1990 to offer a haven to people who may not meet the legal definition of refugee. Critics say it amounts to a back-door way of letting people stay permanently, using administrative renewals that allow political leaders to evade the responsibility of actually announcing such a decision.

But whatever the implications, the Obama administration's announcement this week was greeted with joy in Haitian neighborhoods, where many people live lives of odd jobs, shared apartments, few educational opportunities and constant fear of deportation.

"I didn't think this day would come," said Georges Pierre, 23, of Hollywood, who came to the Oakland Park office of Catholic Legal Services with his sister on Thursday for help with the paperwork. With legal status, he said, he hopes to get a full-time job and save money for college. "We love the United States."

No one knows how many Haitians will apply. Initial turnout at assistance centers has been heavy, with several hundred a day lining up at a single Miami church. And in Haitian communities in Belle Glade, Delray Beach and Riviera Beach, more people are visible on the streets as the fear of deportation lifts, said Phillippe Louis Jeune, president of the Haitian Citizen United Taskforce Inc. of Lake Worth and a Haitian radio host.

"There's a big movement," said Jeune, who said 245 people have sought his help since Wednesday. "They used to stay in the house. They were afraid to go out."

Ana Santiago, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, said applications will be processed in Nebraska and California, with the work done in 90 days. She said most of the applications are being initially handled by charitable organizations, so the bureau has no sense yet of the volume.

Immigration advocate Steve Forester said temporary status offers those already here an opportunity to play a larger role in rebuilding Haiti.

"They're not asking for handouts," he said. "They're asking to be able to work and send money back to Haiti to help Haiti recover."

Those Haitians who do obtain permission to stay will join thousands of people from five countries living in the United States under Temporary Protected Status. Salvadorans account for the largest number, with 266,000 granted residency after a 2001 earthquake.

Others include Hondurans and Nicaraguans allowed to stay after Hurricane Mitch and 950 Somalis and Sudanese granted temporary residency because of their countries' civil wars.

In explaining the latest 18-month extension for Hondurans, announced Oct. 1, 2008, the Department of Homeland Security said thousands of houses destroyed by the hurricane still had not been replaced, many areas had a high risk of flooding and many communities lacked electricity and adequate drinking water. But as critics point out, this could describe conditions in many poor countries.

"When they talk about renewing, they say the things like, 'The country is still poor and disorganized,'" said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., group that favors tighter limits on immigration.

"And that describes those countries to begin with. The problem with temporary protective status is it's not temporary. It's dishonest. They should either resume enforcement of the immigration laws or else give them all green cards."

Although Krikorian supported the decision to grant temporary protective status to Haitians — "Their country is in ruins" — he said the critical test will come when it expires. "Do we resume enforcement of the immigration laws in 18 months?" he asked. "Because in 18 months, Haiti is still going to be a basket case."
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/haiti/fl-haiti-temporary-20100122,0,312...

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2.
Debate grows in aftermath of quake: Should U.S. let more Haitians immigrate?
By Amy Goldstein and Peter Whoriskey
The Washington Post, January 25, 2010

From morning until night, Dieula Celestin's cellphone rings in Miami's Little Haiti. It is her younger brother, Roger Paul, calling from Port-au-Prince, where he and their 65-year-old mother live with no food, no job and no money in the street outside the remnants of their house.

Celestin knows that federal immigration rules forbid her brother, her mother and half a dozen other people in her family who survived the earthquake -- as eight others died -- to enter the United States. Still, she flew to Haiti late Saturday, hoping that somehow she could find a way to bring them back.

Now that the earthquake's initial shock is giving way to the realities of trying to cope in the ruins, a growing number of Haitians -- and their relatives in the United States -- are starting to chafe under the Obama administration's edict to resist, as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has put it, "an impulse to leave the island and to come here."

The tension between U.S. policy and the desperation to leave is spawning a debate in Washington over whether the government should let more Haitians in. Immigration advocates and several members of Congress have begun pressing the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department to ease the rules. So far, the focus is on two groups: Haitians with relatives legally in the United States and a few hundred injured children who, in the judgment of doctors doing relief work in Haiti, could die without sophisticated medical care.

In the first days after the Jan. 12 quake, Napolitano announced that the government would admit Haitian children already on the cusp of adoption and that it would allow Haitians who were in the United States illegally to stay for 18 months. The administration has not eased restrictions for children newly orphaned or injured by the disaster, Haitians who had already been seeking U.S. visas, or any other earthquake victims who want to come.

Late last week, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said Homeland Security officials had told him the agency would grant "humanitarian parole" to about 200 severely injured Haitian children. Even after that, Nelson said, he got a late-night e-mail, with the subject line "HELP," from a Miami neurosurgeon doing relief work, saying the U.S. Embassy in Haiti would not allow three critically burned children to be flown to a Miami burn unit. Nelson also said the State Department had issued a memo saying that a 17-year-old named Samantha, with a broken back and a father in Michigan, "would be ineligible to board an aircraft to the United States."

"Typical bureaucratic crap that needs to be cut through," Nelson said in an interview.

While Nelson wants to admit only critically injured children for treatment, a groundswell is building in favor of letting certain Haitians emigrate. Advocates' immediate focus is Haitians who, before the disaster, had applied -- and in some cases been approved -- for a kind of visa available to foreign relatives of U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents.

About 19,000 Haitians have pending applications for such visas, according to DHS. Nearly 55,000 Haitians have been approved for family visas but are on waiting lists to enter because Congress has set limits on how many may come each year, the State Department says. Given the quotas, "it can take years and years for families to be reunited," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.

A spokesman for Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration Services said the agency would "put at the head of the line" applicants for relative visas from Haiti. But he and a State Department spokeswoman acknowledged that quicker visa approvals would not mean those Haitians could enter the United States more quickly unless Congress alters the quotas -- something lawmakers are not discussing.

Lavinia Limon, president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, said that letting Haitians join U.S. relatives would relieve at least some of the humanitarian burden in Port-au-Prince. The United States, she said, has airlifted foreigners out of other emergencies, such as Albanians from Kosovo and refugees from the Vietnam War.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors tighter controls on immigration, countered that "poverty and underdevelopment can't be criteria we use to pick immigrants. There are too many of them." And he said that Haitian earthquake victims could consume U.S. social services and displace American workers -- without generating enough income to send back to Haiti "to make a difference" there.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/24/AR201001...

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3.
Mass. immigration reforms in peril after Scott Brown win
The Associated Press, January 23, 2010

Boston (AP) -- For months, immigrant advocacy groups like the Chelsea Collaborative and Berkshire Immigrant Center have been gearing up to push lawmakers on state and federal immigration reforms.

They’ve held statewide forums, marched in Washington, D.C., and organized rallies with hopes of seeing the major immigration overhaul promised by Gov. Deval Patrick and President Barack Obama.

But after the historic election victory of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate, those illusions may be evaporating. Political observers say Brown, who ran on a platform opposing some of those reforms, has emboldened conservative voters, and they will likely table reforms in the near future.

"Much of the angry and frustration of voters, particularly those on the right, are clearly aligned with forces that oppose immigration reform," said Paul Watanabe, a political science professor at University of Massachusetts-Boston. "They are vocal opponents of anything other than enforcement."

Watanabe said it’s now doubtful that Patrick and state lawmakers will spend political capital pushing any controversial proposals in an election year shortly after Brown’s victory.

Patrick has said he is planning to seek re-election this fall, but is struggling with sagging poll numbers.

During his campaign, Brown said he opposed granting driver’s licenses and in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants — ideas Patrick vowed to support in November after receiving recommendations from an advisory panel. As a state senator, Brown also introduced legislation that would have required proof of citizenship or right to work in the U.S. for wage enforcement cases.

"His record is concerning," said Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrants & Refugee Advocacy Coalition, a group that represents 130 immigrant groups.

But Brown’s positions excited conservative voters and won him endorsements and praise from national groups like Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, who hailed him for opposing "amnesty."

It’s a dramatic shift from positions taken by his predecessor, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. The Democratic senator sponsored a 1965 immigration law that changed the nation’s demographic makeup by scrapping an immigration quota system that favored Western Europeans, and he remained for decades a "go-to" legislator for immigrant advocates.

After Brown’s victory over Democrat Martha Coakley, the Federation of American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, sent out a statement arguing that Brown’s win showed even Massachusetts voters oppose some of Kennedy’s ideas on immigration and that it would be "suicide" for any politician to support certain reforms.

"If support for amnesty and benefits for illegal aliens won’t fly in Massachusetts, it won’t fly anywhere," said FAIR president Dan Stein. "Democrat or Republican, any candidate who ’leans into’ amnesty in 2010, as some advocates advise, is likely to share Martha Coakley’s fate."

Massachusetts is home to around 1 million foreign-born residents, or 14 percent of the state’s population.

For their part, immigrant advocates in Massachusetts say they aren’t giving up on prospects for state and federal immigration reform. But Millona acknowledged, after Brown’s win, "It makes it harder for us."

Still, Millona said advocates hope to meet with Brown soon.
. . .
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1227692&for...

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4.
Amnesty Again?
By Tilla Bradley
Right Side News, January 23, 2010
http://www.rightsidenews.com/201001238317/border-and-sovereignty/amnesty...

Because Congress and the president are getting set to revamp immigration law, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) undertook a task few academics or policymakers have. The CIS looked at what happened the last time that the executive and legislative branches got together to relax border controls.

The study, done by researcher David North, had some interesting findings. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) not only had bipartisan support in the Senate and House, but was strongly advocated by President Reagan and Attorney General Ed Meese. The end result was a new statute that changed the immigration legalization process while granting amnesty to select immigrants.

Billed as the solution to the wide variety of immigration issues facing the United States, the bill had some unanticipated side effects. Key elements of the bill included language that favored farm workers by allowing them an intermediate form of legalization during the growing season when their labor was most required. In addition, the bill also required business owners and employers to verify the legal status of all employees who were hired and employed punitive sanctions if this was not done. Finally, the basic function of the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) was changed from law enforcement to benefit distribution.

North found that nearly a quarter of all immigrants granted legal status received it via fraud. While several individual INS offices took independent steps to prevent fraudulent claims, there was no standard, unified procedure that effectively prevented fraud. He also notes that due to the lack of foresight, there were many opportunities to administer basic vaccinations during the medical exams. While this oversight has been corrected in recent years, there are still a great many people who would have profited greatly from this preventative measure.

Under IRCA, employers could hire subcontractors without certifying the legal status of their employees. Moreover, while some of the changes IRCA brought about allowed INS workers who worked on a face to face basis with the applicants to escape the unpleasant tasks of informing applicants of bad news, it also eliminated the agency's first barrier to inappropriate applications.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/24/AR201001...

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5.
Arizona clerics call for immigration reform
Religious leaders use Scripture in argument
By Daniel González
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), January 25, 2010
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/01/23/20100...

Several Arizona religious leaders on Friday invoked Scripture in calling on President Obama and Congress to pass humane immigration reform based on principles of fairness, family unity and due process.

"In our holy writings, we are called to love sojourners and to integrate them into our communities," said Bishop Minerva Carcaño, who leads the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Carcaño cited verses from the Old and New Testaments and teachings from the Quran in addressing nearly 200 religious leaders from throughout the state who met in Casa Grande for a half-day conference to discuss immigration reform.

"Arizona is ground zero for our nation's broken immigration policies," Carcaño said. "At our borders and in our congregations, schools, workplaces and service programs, we witness the human consequences of our inadequate, outdated system."

Bishop Gerald Kicanas, who heads the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson, outlined eight principles for immigration reform, among them supporting programs that reduce poverty in developing nations so people won't have to leave, creating a process for undocumented immigrants in this country to earn legal status and citizenship, and reducing the detention of immigrants for non-violent crimes.

A recent Zogby poll suggested that religious leaders are often at odds with their members over the issue of immigration reform. Commissioned by the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that favors less immigration, the poll said 64 percent of Catholics and Protestants favor cracking down on illegal immigrants, compared with 23 percent of Catholics and 24 percent of Protestants who support a legalization program for undocumented immigrants.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/24/AR201001...