News Update - August 4, 2007Another Congressional Recess Without Worthy Action on ImmigrationCongress will take its August recess from August 6 through September 3, guaranteeing inaction on any meaningful immigration reform. The recess was traditionally to allow lawmakers to return to their districts because it was too hot in Washington D.C. for the legislators to work. With the advent of air conditioning, the temperature in chambers may be lowered but the issues may be too hot for Congress to handle. All the more reason to belabor this line of thought by asserting the need to “turn up the heat” on meaningful immigration reform. At this point two pieces of legislation tucked into an appropriations bill can still bring relief to some workers and youth who are out of status. Agjobs and the Dream Act (S.Amdt 2237) still live on as amendments in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 currently before the Senate as HR1585. (We earlier pointed to these non-controversial pieces of legislation as the ones to push for with the collapse of the comprehensive immigration reform legislation – See News Update 6/28/07 “S1639 Falls – What’s Next?” on this website.) It appears action will have to wait until after summer vacation.
† The author is a 26+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. ‡ This article © 2007 Alan Lee, Esq.
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Copyright © 2003-2012 Alan Lee,
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