News Update - August 17, 2007

By Alan Lee, Esq.^†‡

Administration and DHS to Step Up Immigration Enforcement Despite Comprehensive Immigration Reform Failing in Congress

The Bush Administration is on record as connecting both the need for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) with stricter enforcement of the immigration laws. Yet despite the recent collapse of CIR legislation, the Administration has elected to play to its conservative Republican base and to set out measures to make life immeasurable harder for illegal immigrants.

On August 10, 2007 DHS Secretary Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Gutierrez released a laundry list of reforms they claim “represent steps the Administration can take within existing law to secure our borders more effectively, improve interior and worksite enforcement, streamline existing guest worker programs, improve the current immigration system, and help new immigrants assimilate into American culture.”.

The list included increased border security personnel and equipment, increased funding for detention space for illegal aliens and maintenance of the “catch and return” policy. The Secretaries also stated that they expect the US-Visit exit requirement to be enforced by the end of 2008. In addition, the DHS is looking to work more aggressively with State and local law enforcement.

The DHS has already begun workplace enforcement having issued a no-match regulation placing the burden on employers to verify social security numbers and check with a national database “E-Verify” and promises to release a list reducing the number of acceptable identification documents for employment. The administration is also directing the DHS and Social Security to work together to ensure illegal aliens do not accrue Social Security credits.

This latest move shows an Administration with no plan trying to listlessly finish its term in office and having no regard for the health of the U.S. economy, which will be adversely affected by the lack of essential workers in the workplaces of America.

The new list was released on August 10, 2007, 11 days after large increases in USCIS fees took effect and after criticism from some in Congress and some advocacy groups that the fee increases were not justified given agency performance and backlogs.

† 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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