It seems unrelenting these days. Attacks by anti-immigrationists on the two of the most useful non-immigrant visa categories, the H-1B and L-1 visas. The most recent attacks are based either on junk science or no science at all. Recently we received at the AILA National Office a letter from Professor Ray Marshall. AILA had issued a statement critical of the AFL endorsed Ray Marshall “plan” regarding immigration reform. This “plan” was highly supportive of the destructive Grassley-Durbin Anti-H-1B legislation. We were critical of this “plan” (and the Grassley-Durbin legislative proposal) because both the plan and the legislation are without merit and based on a lack of understanding of how our current employment based non-immigrant and immigration system actually works, what motivates employers to use the H-1B and L-1programs, and the tremendous historic and future benefits of these program.

A key part of Mr. Marshall’s letter reads as follows:

“Although we have grossly inadequate data about the H-1B and L-1 Visa programs, the data we do have clearly support the conclusion that these programs are used to displace U.S. workers and suppress their wages. Moreover, little or nothing is done to to ensure that these visas are used to import workers to fill real labor shortages–which, unlike the current system, would indeed strengthen the competitiveness of the American economy and promote broadly shared prosperity. Indeed, we have no reliable information about how many workers there are (estimates vary between 600,000 and 800,000), where and under what conditions they are employed, or how their numbers relate to total employment in the occupations where they are employed. These programs also do not have adequate safeguards to protect domestic or the foreign indentured workers from abuses. The recommendations in Immigration for Share Prosperity: A Framework for Comprehensive Reform are designed to address these defects. In addition to the provisions of the Durbin-Grassley bill, we need realistic, objective prevailing wage standards that will prevent these programs from being used to suppress the wages of American workers. Supporters often argue that the H-1B program is needed to attract the “best and the brightest” foreign workers, but the evidence shows that most of the foreign workers are hired for entry-level positions for which there do not appear to be shortages of qualified American workers. The H-1B and L-1 programs clearly need much better data and transparency to enable more effective evaluations of their impacts.

It also is hard to see why a regular job, which most of those held by H-1Bs appear to be, should be held by “temporary” visa holders indentured for 3, 6, or even 10 years. If there are validated shortages of workers for regular jobs that cannot be filled at market wages with qualified U.S. residents, it would be better to fill them with immigrants with full legal rights, including the right to earn citizenship.” (emphasis added).

The stunning breath of ignorance of how the H-1B and L-1 programs operate and are used by U.S. employers is only matched by Professor Marshall ‘s own acknowledgement that he has no evidence to support his non-peer reviewed conclusions. A formal response to Professor Marshall has been sent, but it is important that we all realize that those who understand and support these vital U.S. non-immigrant visa programs must not only voice our support, but provide the evidence to back it up.

Our exceptional Business Immigration Committee worked on a substantive response to Professor Marshall’s letter, with the lead taken by our Past President Ted Ruthizer. A key part of our response reads:

For starters, the H-1B status and its predecessor H-1 status have been a valuable part of our immigration system for almost 60 years, and the L-1 status for almost 40. And you might be surprised to learn that most economists who have studied these provisions disagree with you that H-1B professionals are hurting the American economy and the American worker. Rather, the vast majority of economists and business leaders who have looked at this issue, including Alan Greenspan, Jagdish Bhagwati, Nobel prize winning economist Gary Becker, Jack Welch, Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Gates are convinced that H-1B professionals (they’re not “guest workers” and they’re hardly “indentured” as you refer to them) have increased employment opportunities for all Americans, and their creativity and knowledge have furthered our national interest.

Here are additional points not mentioned in you letter that are worth noting. H-1Bs are designed for professionals, not for low level unskilled workers. Professor Richard Florida recently reported, “[F]or management and business occupations – including hard-fit financial jobs – overall the unemployment rate is 4.0 percent; and for professional and technical occupations, it remains less than four percent (3.6 percent). . . .

Of grave concern is that three times in your letter you say you really do not have data to back up your conclusions. More importantly, the studies you cite to have not been peer reviewed and have not been subject to critical analysis. Surely you are aware as an academic that without reliable data, it’s rash and unfounded for you to condemn the entire H-1B program, particularly when the benefits of the H-1B status are so strong. These benefits are not just intangibly based on opinion. Peer-reviewed studies, such as those conducted by Vivek Wadhwa, Executive in Residence, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, support the conclusion that the H-1B visa programs are good for America.

A couple of other important points you failed to note: H-1B professionals aren’t just computer scientists. They are also physicists, mathematicians, financial analysts, lawyers, economists, teachers, physicians serving in health professional shortage areas, and, like you, professors at virtually all American colleges and universities. Most of these H-1Bs aren’t recent arrivals. They are products of our finest universities, including your University of Texas.

The good news is that there are numerous studies coming out virtually every day with positive, reenforcing data on the importance of the H-1b program. These studies will continue to come because business and academia understand the importance of these visa categories, and the need to vocally oppose these anti-immigrationists. I spoke rather strongly about this today in my weekly radio show. It is amazing how easy it is to get worked up about these issues!

There is much more to our response to Professor Marshall, which you can read on AILA Infonet. But, this much you need to know. The gloves are off. The attacks on important and vital parts of our immigration system are underway. The anti-immigrationists know they cannot stop positive, effective immigration reform from happening, but they still think they can structure the updated immigration system in a way that achieves their vision of restrictive immigration and a limited ability of American employers to hire the workers they want and need to thrive in a recovering economy.

The New York Times reports this morning that American and Mexican researchers have charted a marked decline in illegal crossings from Mexico into the U.S.—the result, they say, of the ailing U.S. economy. http://tinyurl.com/qnjmf7.

This trend suggests that the economy, not arbitrary and unworkable caps on temporary work visas, dictate the flow of immigrants into the U.S. Yet our current immigration system is plagued with random visa caps for both skilled and unskilled workers which do not correspond to economic trends. In good times U.S businesses are hamstrung by inadequate visa availability which directly impacts their ability to effectively compete in a global economy. Such caps also increase the flow of illegal immigration.

Hopefully, the Obama Administration and Congress will soon get to work fashioning a safe, orderly, and fair immigration system—one that meets the needs of U.S. families and businesses, protects immigrants’ rights, and promotes American competitiveness in the global marketplace. To be effective, immigration reform must take into account the economic realities of migration. This requires a more flexible, business friendly approach to the availability of visas for skilled and unskilled workers.

Admit it. Every now and then you veg out in front of the computer cruising the Internet. At least I do. Tonight was just such a night. But I ran into this immigration quiz. The purpose of this quiz is to point out how far we have come, or perhaps how far we have not come in our understanding of immigration. Go ahead, take the quiz!

Today marks the one year anniversary of the ICE raid at the Agriprocessors meat packing facility in Postville, Iowa. The raid, which was the largest worksite enforcement raid in U.S. history, resulted in the conviction and deportation of more than 300 undocumented immigrants, mostly uneducated Guatemalan farmers.

To the government, Postville was a cold clinical experiment. For the first time it sought to criminalize immigrants on a mass scale. In Postville, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa, using the federal identity theft statute as a hammer, forged serious crimes out of mere civil immigration violations. No longer would it be enough to simply arrest and deport undocumented immigrants. They had to send them home as felons.

But the government failed to gauge the public’s reaction. In the year since the Postville prosecutions serious legal and ethical questions have been raised about the tactics the U.S Attorney’s Office used to coerce the expedited convictions. Hearings were held in Congress and the new administration has stated that while it will not hesitate to arrest and deport undocumented workers, its priority will be to prosecute employers who break the law. And just last week, in a unanimous decision, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that the government has overreached in its use of the federal identity theft statute against undocumented workers, raising troubling questions about the fairness of the Postville convictions.

Surely, in the months to come, as President Obama makes good on his promise to reform our dysfunctional immigration system, advocates, legal scholars, and politicians will continue to try and make sense of what happened at Postville. If there is any good to come of this ugly experience, perhaps it is that Postville may mark a turning point in the struggle for comprehensive immigration reform—a moment when the abuses inherent in an “enforcement only” immigration policy became clear.

But one thing is for sure. Nothing will change the fact that the Postville operation separated mothers from their children and husbands from their wives. It destroyed countless families and ruined a community. Today, as I think about the lessons of Postville, I am moved by the simple plea of Pedro Arturo Lopez Vega, an eighth grader in Postville, to President and Ms. Obama. Pedro’s mother was convicted and deported after the raid:

The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Pedro Arturo Lopez Vega, I am the son of Consuelo Vega Nava, one of the workers that were caught in the May 12, 2008 Postville Raid at Agriprocessors, Inc. She was sentenced to five months in jail and then deported to Mexico on October 25th, 2008. She did not talk about me and my little sister because she was afraid that they would send us to jail with her. I don’t want anybody to suffer the way I did because it is very painful when they take away the one person you can always trust and count on.

The raid has affected me and my family in many ways. My nine year old sister Samantha would go into her room and “talk” to my mom while she was actually not there. My nephew who was eight months at the time, would always crawl to the front door and wait for my mom and after she would not show up, he would start to cry. As for me, instead of my mom waking me up, giving me a kiss, and sending me to school, my older sister Juanita has to do it. When I come back from school I don’t receive the warm hug that my mom used to give me and when I go to sleep I miss her goodnight kiss and her blessing for the night.

When we had mock elections in school I voted for you because I knew you were the change that this country and immigration population needs.

In school I read about a soldier in the Civil War who had to stand guard two nights in a row. On the second night he fell asleep and was sentenced to death for not doing his duty. Abraham Lincoln pardoned him and when the soldier offered to pay him with his savings Abraham Lincoln refused and told him to just do his duty.

Mr. President, I want to ask you to be like Abraham Lincoln and pardon my mother for three days so she can come to Postville on May 29, 2009 and see my graduation from 8th grade and allow me to show her that I kept my promise.

I cannot repay you with money but I assure you that I will always do my best and help people in need.

Respectfully yours,

Pedro Arturo Lopez Vega
332 North Reynolds Street
Postville, Iowa 52162

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Mrs. Michelle Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mrs. Obama,

My name is Pedro Arturo Lopez Vega, I am the son of Consuelo Vega Nava, one of the workers that were caught in the May 12, 2008 Postville Raid at Agriprocessors, Inc. She was sentenced to five months in jail and then deported to Mexico on October 25th, 2008. She did not talk about me and my little sister because she was afraid that they would send us to jail with her. I don’t want anybody to suffer the way I did because it is very painful when they take away the one person you can always trust and count on.

It has been almost a year since I last saw my mom. I know that as a mother, you can imagine how my mother must have felt spending days and nights without knowing anything about her children or her husband.

The raid has affected me and my family in many ways. My nine year old sister Samantha would go into her room and “talk” to my mom while she was actually not there. My nephew who was eight months at the time, would always crawl to the front door and wait for my mom and after she would not show up, he would start to cry. As for me, instead of my mom waking me up, giving me a kiss, and sending me to school, my older sister Juanita has to do it. When I come back from school I don’t receive the warm hug that my mom used to give me and when I go to sleep I miss her goodnight kiss and her blessing for the night.

I don’t wake up with the same desire to go to school as I used to but I get up, go to school, and do my homework because I promised my mom that I would get an education and try to be successful in life.

I would very much appreciate it if you could ask your husband to give my mother a three day visa, so she can come to Postville and see my graduation from 8th grade on May 29, 2009 and allow me to show her that I kept my promise.

Respectfully yours,

Pedro Arturo Lopez Vega
332 North Reynolds Street
Postville, Iowa 52162

Okay, we all know there are no visas available until October 1, 2009 for any third preference employments immigrant. It stinks. It makes no sense in how we grow the economy and bring in “legal” workers. And, we know there is a 5-9 year wait in this category.

We know that there are between 8-50 year waits for the assortment of family based immigrant visas (do the math for Mexican Brothers and Sisters–its not pretty). But we resign ourselves to fixing this disastrous, undocumented immigration causing problem as part of CIR.

But, in today’s Visa Bulletin we get this terrific surprise. India EB-2 has retrogressed to January 2000!

What the Heck? You mean if I am from India, and I have an ADVANCED DEGREE, and my work is in the NATIONAL INTEREST, that I have to wait 9 YEARS before I can even apply for permanent residence? No wonder these advanced degree, economy growing, job creating immigrants are deciding to go home. Vivek Wadwha, whom AILA is honoring with its Media Leadership Award at our Annual Conference, published an excellent study on the Brain Drain FROM the U.S. Foreign students who study and graduate from here with Master’s Degree and Ph.Ds are going back home to India. This is not good for America. This is not good for job creation, this is not good for our economy.

By AILA Board of Governors member Leslie Holman

Yesterday Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. told 11 new U.S. Prosecutors:

“Your job as assistant U.S. attorneys is not to convict people,” Holder said. “Your job is not to win cases. Your job is to do justice. Your job is in every case, every decision that you make, to do the right thing. Anybody who asks you to do something other than that is to be ignored. Any policy that is at tension with that is to be questioned and brought to my attention. And I mean that.” http://tinyurl.com/pteuty.

Timing is everything. Attorney General Holder has the opportunity to lead by example. May 12th is the anniversary of the Postville Raids. An investigation into the proceedings at Postville will make the now discredited trial of U.S Senator Ted Stevens seem tame and reasonable by comparison. There is no justice in exploding plea agreements, a ratio of 17 defendants to 1 CJA defense lawyer, a pre-reviewed and prepared “Defense Manual”, alleged ex-parte communications, and pre-ordained pretrial detention.

Interestingly, the Attorney General’s comments give public defenders and CJA’s the green light to do what Cedar Rapids CJA Attorney Rockne Cole was brave enough to do without prompting when asked to participate in the Postville prosecutions –just say no. We need to continue that, however, and do more than just ignore those who ask us to do what is not right. We need to stand up and stop those making these requests. Ultimately we must prevent the requests from being made.

Attorney General Holder asked to be informed when justice has not been done. AILA did that earlier this week when we asked him “to order a full investigation, including a review of the facts of each defendant’s case, with an eye on dismissing the charges against those workers for whom the threat of prosecution under the federal identity statute was a miscarriage of justice.” The ball is in the Attorney General’s court. He encouraged the new U.S. attorneys to “do the right thing.” We encouraged him to do the same. We even told him how.

Attorney General Holder should follow his own advice and AILA’s. He can rise to the occasion and show the new federal prosecutors that it is never to late to do the right thing and he can demonstrate that under his watch justice is truly the ultimate goal.

And I mean that too.

by AILA Board of Governors member Leslie Holman

“Hooking up” on the Internet may result in an unintended coupling that has nothing to do with finding love.

A few years ago my teenaged daughter was horrified when I asked her and her group of friends whether they were going to hook up with others after the movies. Her friends started to giggle and in one of those “you are so out of it voices” she said, “Mom, I don’t think you mean that.” I learned that hooking up had acquired another meaning, much in the same way that in the ghetto it is good to be “phat” and in the south bad to be “nice.”

According to Wikipedia, which is clearly more up to date than I am, “hooking up” has several meanings, the most recent of which is: To meet up. A slang term for courtship, especially of short duration. Those looking for love hope to, and often do, hook up on the Internet. Those of us practicing family based immigration law are all too familiar with these types of hook ups, although and with any luck, their duration will not be short. Because we must prove the legitimacy of the relationship to the CIS we explore the circumstances of the electronic connection. We also advise those who come to us before they solemnize their relationships to diligently explore them so that they know that the love connection is real.

Hooking up also means: Making a connection, especially an electrical connection.” Similarly, a hook up is an electrical connector. Like their clients, many immigration attorneys also use the Internet as matchmaker. However, their goal is to develop and spark a business rather than a love relationship. They can and do legitimately advertise their services on the Internet with or through an advertising service that promises to link them to sites that will promote their practices. They too are hooking up.

However, just as we caution our clients to be wary of their romantic links, immigration lawyers must also be wary of their business links. Not every site that promises immigration services or advice is one with which a legitimate immigration attorney would want to be linked.

Far too many are merely portals promoting the unauthorized practice of immigration law. It behooves those sites to be linked to legitimate AILA members because the implied association lends them legal credibility.

Links may appear automatically and without the knowledge of the legitimate practitioner by virtue of the fact that he or she paid for a web based advertising package that as stated by Ads by Google promises to link “people who are interested in information related to your products or services.” What does that mean? Not all immigration sites are created equal. To minimize the risk of ending up on an unsavory site perhaps it is possible to determine if:

· It is possible to opt out of a link

· The time it will take to remove an offending link

· The advertiser provides notice of all links once they are made

· You can designate certain sites or types of sites or tags to which you don’t want to be linked

I doubt that with the size and speed of today’s Internet we will ever again be completely free from the threat of guilt by association. However, taking adequate precautions before hooking up is clearly the best way to avoid accidents regardless of which definition of the term you are using.

A guest blog by AILA Board of Governors member Leslie Holman:

“Hooking up” on the Internet may result in an unintended coupling that has nothing to do with finding love.

A few years ago my teenaged daughter was horrified when I asked her and her group of friends whether they were going to hook up with others after the movies. Her friends started to giggle and in one of those “you are so out of it voices” she said, “Mom, I don’t think you mean that.” I learned that hooking up had acquired another meaning, much in the same way that in the ghetto it is good to be “phat” and in the south bad to be “nice.”

According to Wikipedia, which is clearly more up to date than I am, “hooking up” has several meanings, the most recent of which is: To meet up. A slang term for courtship, especially of short duration. Those looking for love hope to, and often do, hook up on the Internet. Those of us practicing family based immigration law are all too familiar with these types of hook ups, although and with any luck, their duration will not be short. Because we must prove the legitimacy of the relationship to the CIS we explore the circumstances of the electronic connection. We also advise those who come to us before they solemnize their relationships to diligently explore them so that they know that the love connection is real.

Hooking up also means: Making a connection, especially an electrical connection.” Similarly, a hook up is an electrical connector. Like their clients, many immigration attorneys also use the Internet as matchmaker. However, their goal is to develop and spark a business rather than a love relationship. They can and do legitimately advertise their services on the Internet with or through an advertising service that promises to link them to sites that will promote their practices. They too are hooking up.

However, just as we caution our clients to be wary of their romantic links, immigration lawyers must also be wary of their business links. Not every site that promises immigration services or advice is one with whi
ch a legitimate immigration attorney would want to be linked.

Far too many are merely portals promoting the unauthorized practice of immigration law. It behooves those sites to be linked to legitimate AILA members because the implied association lends them legal credibility.

Links may appear automatically and without the knowledge of the legitimate practitioner by virtue of the fact that he or she paid for a web based advertising package that as stated by Ads by Google promises to link “people who are interested in information related to your products or services.” What does that mean? Not all immigration sites are created equal. To minimize the risk of ending up on an unsavory site perhaps it is possible to determine if:

· It is possible to opt out of a link

· The time it will take to remove an offending link

· The advertiser provides notice of all links once they are made

· You can designate certain sites or types of sites or tags to which you don’t want to be linked

I doubt that with the size and speed of today’s Internet we will ever again be completely free from the threat of guilt by association. However, taking adequate precautions before hooking up is clearly the best way to avoid accidents regardless of which definition of the term you are using.