An immigrant whose American spouse dies before their paperwork for permanent residency has been processed by the government should not be ruled ineligible for that status. That the government has acted differently has always struck me as inappropriate (especially when such cases involve the widows of American servicemen killed in combat). Now a court has ruled that such a policy is, in fact, a violation of the law.

A federal judge tentatively ordered the Department of Homeland Security to reopen the cases of 22 people who were denied green cards because their American spouses died during the application process.
U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder ruled the so-called widow penalty doesnÂ’t necessarily require that immigrantsÂ’ permanent residency applications be denied when their American spouses die. Citing a 2006 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Snyder ruled this week that applicants donÂ’t lose their status as spouses of U.S. citizens if the death occurs before the government rules on their applications.
The decision, if made final, would be a victory for more than 200 people across the country who have been affected by the widow penalty, said attorney Brent Renison, who filed the class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles.
“This case is very significant because it’s the first that follows the circuit court decision and gives guidance to the agency on what it can and cannot do in these situations,” Renison told the Associated Press on Tuesday.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has argued the law requires that residency applications be rejected for immigrants whose American spouses die within two years of being married.

Now I realize that there could be fraudulent marriages with sick old folks that might qualify under these standards, but those should be easy to screen for. What is more common is for folks to die unexpectedly – perhaps in an accident – with the result that their immigrant spouse (who may have American citizen children) would no longer be eligible to stay in this country. The result is an injustice that compounds the tragedy of a family being rent apart by death. This decision goes a long way towards correcting that injustice.

Posted by: Greg at 10:10 AM | Comments (25) | Add Comment
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Just a reminder to those who argue that illegal immigrants are not criminals.

8 USC Sec. 1325

(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts
Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

Imprisonment doesn’t happen in civil cases – only in criminal cases. So would you care to come up with another explanation of why the border-jumping immigration criminals are NOT criminals, when federal law says differently.

H/T Hot Air, Stein Report

Posted by: Greg at 11:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I saw this from the New York Times this morning – and it certainly rings quite true for me. It is not the content that matters, but the kids.

ThatÂ’s the hard part, thinking more about the students than about the content. It is probably the biggest challenge for many career switchers. One doesnÂ’t have to be their buddy, but one has to build relationships of trust. Through that trust students become willing to try when they are struggling, or to go further even when at first it seems easy.

The most important thing I do, and the hardest, is getting to know the students, and building on those relationships. The pedagogical process of matching oneÂ’s instruction to the students is easy.

Building that relationship of trust is vital. If you canÂ’t do it then why should your students learn what you want to teach them? And if you can, become a teacher.

What does building a relationship accomplish? Usually, one hopes, higher grades. But it can be other things – like helping a kid redirect his or her life. And at times one gains the trust of students so that they will come to you with real problems – ill family members, for example, or unplanned pregnancies. Indeed, each year I tell my students that I want them to learn the subject matter I am teaching, but it is more important to me that they leave my class a better person than they entered it. After all, we teach the whole person, not just the brain.

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But I canÂ’t help but think we should see more of this in the United States.

The clicking of dozens of news cameras drowned out the sobs of the 13-year-old girl, but her face explained what was happening in the departure hall of Japan's Narita International Airport.

Noriko Calderon, wearing her school uniform, was being forced to make one of the most wrenching choices of her young life: To stay in the country of her birth rather than join her parents being deported to the Philippines.

The scene was the emotional climax to a story a decade and a half in the making -- one that has tugged at heartstrings in Japan, but ultimately failed to sway unyielding bureaucracy.

The problem, of course, is one that we face on a much grander scale in this country – illegal alien parents with a child (or children) who are citizens. How does a country deal with such situations, when enforcing the law means splitting children and parents – or when keeping a family together requires rewarding the illegal conduct of parents?

We don’t, of course, have any problem splitting up parents and kids when mom or dad (or even mom and dad) gets shipped off to jail for an extended period of time. We acknowledge that it is but one more sad consequence of a parent’s decision to violate the law. I frankly see no reason to treat immigration law any differently – exactly the decision that the Japanese government has made in this case. Rather than blame the government, why can’t we put the blame on the shoulders of the ones whose initial decision to violate the law is truly the cause of the problem? And if we are going to reward with legal status every set of parents who manage to get an anchor baby, then how can we be said to really have control of our nation’s borders?

Does my heart break for young Noriko Calderon? Yes it does – just as it would break for every youngster faced with the same decision if we truly enforced our nation’s immigration laws. But while I sympathize with the child, my anger is directed against the adults who created the situation rather than the government that is merely enforcing reasonable laws.

Posted by: Greg at 06:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Immigrants – at least the legal kind – are a great blessing to this country. They revitalize our nation from generation to generation, and enrich our nation in so many ways. The list of immigrants who have contributed so much to the United States is long and illustrious – it includes individuals like Albert Einstein, Andrew Carnegie, and Irving Berlin, just to name a few.

Over the course of more than two centuries, the countries of origin of immigrants have varied. Today it is individuals from Latin America who make up a large percentage of those becoming Americans.

Nearly half of the record-setting 1 million new U.S. citizens sworn in last year were Latino immigrants — a 95 percent increase among that ethnic group from the previous year, according to an analysis by an Hispanic advocacy organization.

Department of Homeland Security data shows the number of immigrants naturalized in the U.S. grew from about 660,000 in 2007 to more than 1 million in 2008 — an increase of roughly 58 percent. The Houston metropolitan area saw more than 28,000 naturalizations last year, an increase of roughly 54 percent from 2007.

Nationally, Latino naturalizations jumped 95 percent from about 237,000 in 2007 to 461,000 in 2008, according to the analysis released Tuesday by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. NALEO used data from the DHSÂ’ Office of Immigration Statistics, counting immigrants who hailed from predominantly Spanish-speaking countries as Latinos.

So let me reemphasize – I think this is great, and that it benefits our country in so many ways.

Now some of you may ask how I reconcile this view with my opposition to illegal immigration. Easy – it all boils down to welcoming those who follow the rules, not the race or ethnicity of the newcomers. After all, I work with many students who are themselves immigrants or the children of immigrants from Latin America. So let me again offer a loud “hurrah” that we are bring into our nation so many wonderful new citizens who walk the same trail as so many of our ancestors.

Posted by: Greg at 12:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The bill they have passed in Colorado is shocking enough.

A proposal to grant in-state tuition to illegal immigrants passed out of a Colorado state Senate committee this week after Democrats moved up a vote on the bill to coincide with a Republican opponent's absence from the state on a family emergency.

* * *

Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter has said he will sign the bill, which would give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants who have attended a Colorado high school for at least three years. The students must also attend college within one year of graduation or earning their GED.

On the other hand, legal immigrants and US citizens who are not from Colorado will pay out of state tuition while these immigration criminals get rewarded for their ability to evade the law for a sufficient period of time.

But what is even more disgusting is the parliamentary stunt pulled to pass the bill out of committee.

Republican state Sen. Ted Harvey's father-in-law has Alzheimer's disease and his health began deteriorating so rapidly early this week that Mr. Harvey was forced to take a few days off to transport the ailing man from Florida to Colorado.

Even so, Mr. Harvey had planned to return to the state legislature in time for Friday's Appropriations Committee vote on Senate Bill 170, the in-state tuition bill. He had also planned to vote against it, which would have resulted in a 5-5 tie that would have killed the legislation.

Instead, the committee's Democratic chairman, state Sen. Abel Tapia, seized the opportunity and rescheduled the vote for Wednesday. Without Mr. Harvey, the bill passed 5-4 and now heads to the Senate floor.

Talk about your seedy political gamesmanship – make sure an opponent of the bill is unavailable to vote so that it can be passed. In this case it was clearly dishonorable to move the vote up. The US Congress has long had a practice called “pairing” to avoid such situations – when a critical piece of legislation is before the body and a situation like the one faced by Sen. Harvey arises, another member of the body who would have otherwise voted the opposite way abstains from the vote in order to avoid taking unfair advantage of the personal crisis. Would that the dishonorable Albert Tapia had done the same – or simply have had the decency to hold the vote when it was previously scheduled.

Posted by: Greg at 11:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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