New Report Issued by NILC, ACLU of So. Calif., and Holland & Knight

Immigrant Detainee Rights Are Routinely and Systematically Violated

New on Our Website

Constitutional Violations Common by Immigration Agents Raiding Homes

U.S. Declines to Ask for Rehearing in Orantes-Hernandez v. Holder

Advocates Condemn Obama Administration’s Expansion of Program under which Local and State Agencies Enforce Immigration Law

HEALTH CARE REFORM: Immigrants Are Rightfully Entitled to Programs Their Tax Dollars Pay For

LANGUAGE ACCESS & LOW-INCOME HOUSING: HUD Makes Model Leases Available in Languages Other Than English

WORKPLACE ENFORCEMENT: What Worker Advocates Should Know About I-9 Audits

Validity of 02/02/09 Version of I-9 Form Extended Beyond June 30

NILC Decries Obama Administration’s Decision to Renew the Federal Acquisition Regulation Requiring Federal Contractors to Use E-Verify

Chart Summarizes and Compares Principal Federal Antidiscrimination Laws

Facts About Internal Revenue Service No-Match Letters

DREAM Graduation Event in DC Draws Over 500 Students from 15 States

Distorted Claims about Immigrants and Social Security Refuted

Reports and Articles of Interest Available on the Web

New Reports on Workplace Enforcement and Language Access in State Courts, and an Informative Article on “Birthright Citizenship”

Denied access to loved ones, lawyers and basic necessities, men and women within the nation’s sprawling and inadequately regulated immigration detention system find their fundamental rights routinely and systematically violated, according to a report released on July 28 by NILC, the ACLU of Southern California, and the international law firm of Holland & Knight, LLP.  The first nationwide comprehensive report of its kind, “A Broken System: Confidential Reports Reveal Failures in U.S. Detention Centers” (170 pages, available as a free PDF download) sheds new light on the conditions suffered by hundreds of thousands of people housed in detention centers around the country and offers policymakers specific recommendations to ameliorate the situation.
     Newspapers across the U.S., including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Boston Globe, ran all or part of the Associated Press’s article about the report, and reporters for the Los Angeles Times, The National Law Journal, La Opinión, and Notimex wrote articles summarizing some of its findings.  The report also earned mentions in the Washington Post and in a New York Times article and editorial.  Other coverage appeared in online publications such as the website Jurist and the magazine Facing South. 
     Besides the report itself, the news release announcing the report is available on our website, as are another recent report, by the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, on immigration detention conditions at the South Louisiana Correctional Facility in Basile, Louisiana, and compelling testimony by Jose Pop Macz, who was detained at that facility before being deported.  This week, we at NILC joined advocates across the country in condemning immigration detention authorities at the Basile facility for placing in solitary confinement detainees who had been reporting on conditions there.  The immigrant detainees were monitoring the facility’s compliance with the government’s own detention standards, and had lodged complaints, and finally declared a hunger strike.  The New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice reports that facility authorities retaliated by condemning seven perceived leaders of the human rights monitoring to solitary confinement for up to 60 days each.

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Arrest and Detention

A new report documents how common it has been in recent years for immigration agents to violate the U.S. Constitution by, among other actions, forcing their way into private residences during pre-dawn hours, without warrants or other legal authority, and seizing residents without legal basis, in a pattern suggestive of racial profiling.  Constitution on ICE: A Report on Immigration Home Raid Operations was prepared by the Immigration Justice Clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and released on July 22.  We provide a link to it on our Arrest and Detention webpage.

The Ninth Circuit issued its affirmation of the district court’s order on April 6, 2009, and on July 6 the U.S. Dept. of Justice notified the court that it would not be filing a petition for rehearing.  Information on our Arrest and Detention webpage about the Orantes case, a lawsuit originally brought in 1982 to challenge coercive practices by immigration agents that pressured nationals of El Salvador fleeing their country’s civil war to forfeit meritorious claims to asylum, includes newsletter articles, news releases, and court documents.

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Local Law Enforcement Issues

Civil rights and community groups, church leaders, academics, advocates and other activists from across the U.S. denounced Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s plans to expand DHS’s highly criticized 287(g) program to eleven new jurisdictions around the country.  The program, authorized in 1996 and widely implemented under the George W. Bush administration, relinquishes, with no meaningful oversight, immigration enforcement power to local law enforcement and corrections agencies.  Since its inception, the program has drawn sharp criticism from federal officials, law enforcement, advocates, and local community groups. 
     In the statement issued July 17, NILC Executive Director Marielena Hincapié is quoted as saying,  “When victims and witnesses of crime are afraid to contact police for fear of being jailed or deported, public safety suffers.”  And in a commentary published July 23 by New America Media, she provides a brief history of the 287(g) program and explains in more detail why involving local agencies in immigration law enforcement not only undermines public safety, but wastes public resources and encourages vigilantism and the trampling of cherished civil liberties.
     Much more information about issues arising from enforcement of immigration law by local law enforcement agencies, including a copy of the new standard 287(g) program memorandum of agreement that all local agencies wanting to participate in the program must enter into, is available from our Local Law Enforcement Issues webpage.

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Health Care

Immigrants authorized to be in the U.S. pay the same taxes as U.S. citizens and have a right to use the programs and services their tax dollars pay for.  It would be unacceptable to welcome people into the U.S. as lawful permanent residents, collect their taxes, and then refuse to let them buy affordable health insurance through a new health insurance exchange, if one were created by health care reform legislation currently being debated.  All Americans deserve health care they can afford.  We simply cannot afford half-measures and unfair exclusions in health reform that leave out millions more.
     This is our position, and our policy staff is working hard to make sure it is heard and taken into account as Congress and the president hash out how to address the growing health care affordability crisis.  The action alerts we send out (and post) provide tips for how advocates and activists can most effectively communicate, with their legislators and others, about this issue.  If you don’t currently receive these alerts and would like to, contact Sonal Ambegaokar, health policy attorney.

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Immigrants & Public Benefits > Miscellaneous Issues

To improve access to services by persons with limited English proficiency, the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development has had HUD model leases translated into Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, Farsi, French, Khmer, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.  The translated model leases are for the following:  Subsidized Programs (HUD-90105-A); Section 202/8 or Section 202 PAC (HUD-90105-B); Section 202 PRAC (HUD-90105-C); and Section 811 PRAC (HUD-90105-D).  They are available from www.hud.gov/offices/adm/hudclips/forms/hud9.cfm (we provide a link to HUD’s webpage from our Public Benefits > Miscellaneous Issues page).  And from that same HUD webpage, a document titled “Are You a Victim of Housing Discrimination?” also is available in Arabic, Cambodian, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

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Employment Eligibility Verification and
Antidiscrimination Protections

On July 1, 2009, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement publically introduced a new interior enforcement initiative by announcing that it was sending notices of inspection, in preparation for I-9 audits, to 652 businesses across the country.  The audits are of employers’ records “to determine whether or not they are complying with employment eligibility verification laws and regulations,” according to ICE. 
     In response, we have posted a new overview of the I-9 employment eligibility verification process and I-9 audits, and of workers’ rights related to each.

On June 26, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that the version of Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) currently on the USCIS website (Rev. 02/02/09) will continue to be valid for use beyond June 30, 2009.  According to the USCIS announcement, while the agency waits for the Office of Management and Budget to “approve the continued use of the current version of Form I-9” (i.e., Rev. 02/02/09), it “will not expire.”  The announcement concludes: “USCIS will update Form I-9 when the extension is approved.  Employers will be able to use either the Form I-9 with the new revision date or the Form I-9 with the 02/02/09 revision date at the bottom of the form.”
     Presumably, when it is ready, the new version will be accessible from the USCIS Immigration Forms webpage.

NILC is disappointed by the Obama administration’s decision, announced July 8, to renew the former administration’s rule requiring that federal government contractors and subcontractors use E-Verify, the Dept. of Homeland Security’s Internet-based pilot program for verifying new employees’ employment eligibility.  The Social Security Administration and Dept. of Homeland Security databases upon which E-Verify relies have unacceptably high error rates, and this vast expansion of the program will inevitably lead to the erroneous termination of thousands of workers. 

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Why the Federal Rule Requiring Government Contractors to Use E-Verify Is Bad Public Policy (July 15, 2009)

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Summary of Final Rule:  “Federal Acquisition Regulation; FAR Case 2007-013, Employment Eligibility Verification” (Revised July 9, 2009)

A new NILC chart provides a side-by-side summary and comparison of the six principal federal statutes that contain employment antidiscrimination provisions:  the Immigration and Nationality Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

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Social Security Administration “No-Match” Letter Toolkit

The Internal Revenue Service sends a notice to employers when the information they receive regarding tax withholdings for employees does not match information in the IRS database.  The two main reasons an employer might receive an IRS no-match letter are (1) missing or incomplete Social Security number or (2) missing or incomplete employer identification number.  Much as the Social Security Administration no-match letter is, this is an attempt by the IRS to reconcile the information an employer is submitting and the information the government has in its database.  An IRS no-match letter does not make any statement about a worker’s immigration status or the worker’s employment authorization.
     For more on this issue, read our new 2-pager and/or contact Mike Muñoz, NILC program coordinator.

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Immigrant Student Adjustment / DREAM Act

On Tuesday, June 23, the United We DREAM coalition hosted a graduation event in Washington, DC, in which over 500 students from 15 states participated.  Speakers included Hilary Shelton, NAACP vice president for advocacy; Josh Bernstein, SEIU director of immigration; Maribel Solivan, College Board associate director of advocacy; and Bill Kamela, Microsoft senior director of education and workplace policy.  Photos of the ceremony are available here.  In addition to the event in DC, solidarity events were held from coast to coast.
     Tuesday's events received unprecedented print, radio, and television coverage.  Check out the The New York Times editorial and reports by the Washington Post, Orange County Register, Univision, the Denver Daily News, and Education Week.  Television news stations present included Telemundo, teleSUR, CNNenEspañol, and several regional news networks.
     Press statements are available from the United We Dream Coalition, National Immigration Law Center, National Council of La Raza, National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
     If you would like to see DREAM become law, please make whatever use you can of our updated DREAM-related materials (see the list, below) and keep abreast of the latest developments by checking out our DREAM Weekly Updates.

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DREAM Act: Basic Information (updated 3/30/09)

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DREAM Act: Summary (updated 3/31/09)

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Why Enactment of the DREAM Act Would Aid the Ailing Economy and Generate Tax Revenues (3/26/09)

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Basic Facts about In-State Tuition for Undocumented Immigrant Students (updated 2/23/09)

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Employment & Public Benefits-related Issues in
Comprehensive Immigration Reform

“Legalizing undocumented immigrants sooner rather than later would help the Social Security system because it would enable these immigrants to earn more income and pay even more taxes,” Jonathan Blazer, public benefits policy attorney, writes in a blog entry refuting distorted claims made by Rep. Lamar Smith, the top-ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.  “But don’t take my word for it.  Read the letter [the Social Security Administration’s] chief actuary sent to Rep. Smith for the complete picture.  The chief actuary’s more balanced view is consistent with other official assessments.  The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 2007 Senate comprehensive immigration reform bill would have resulted in a $56 billion net increase to the fund over the next 10 years.  SSA itself estimated that implementation of the 2006 Senate-passed bill would have improved the long-term solvency of the Social Security trust fund.”
     The article in its entirety is available on Immigration Impact, the Immigration Policy Center’s blog.

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Raids on Workers: Destroying Our Rights, a report released June 18, offers an analysis of a key component of the Bush administration’s immigration policy and details how heavy-handed enforcement tactics led to systemic abuse of workers’ rights and a willful disregard for the rule of law.  The report was prepared by a national commission working under the auspices of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW).

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An introduction to a new report, Language Access in State Courts, by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, says:  “Nearly 25 million people in this country have limited proficiency in English, meaning that they cannot protect their rights in court without the assistance of an interpreter.  At least 13 million of those people live in states that do not require their courts to provide interpreters to [such] individuals in most types of civil cases.  Another 6 million live in states that undercut their commitment to provide interpreters by charging for them.  And many live in states that do not ensure that the ‘interpreters’ they provide can speak English, speak the language to be interpreted, or know how to interpret in the specialized courtroom setting.  Many of those states are violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which requires state courts receiving federal assistance to provide interpreters to people who need them.”  CONTINUE READING >

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In an article on the Long Island Wins Blog, Immigration 101: “Anchor Babies” and “Birthright Citizenship,” CARECEN’s Patrick Young explores an issue that has become increasingly visible as AM radio and cable “news” network talking (shouting) heads have flogged it and politicians of a certain stripe have seen, in playing it up, an opportunity to gain or hold onto power via the age-old strategy of divide and rule.