 NEWS BYTES
INS Headquarters has assured the American Immigration Lawyers Association that it will very soon changes its rules and allow simultaneous filings of I-140 and I-485 petitions in employment-based immigration cases. The move will be welcome by immigration advocates because it will speed up processing of cases and will assure that workers receive employment authorization documents much more quickly. Also, while the filing of an I-140 alone will not keep someone in status whose non-immigrant visa is set to expire, filing an I-485 will. ********* The INS has also indicated to AILA that it intends to change its rules and allow for longer validity periods for employment authorization documents and advance parole documents filed as part of an I-485 adjustment of status application. As green card processing times in some INS offices have stretched to beyond three years, so have the number of complaints about wasted time and money in having to renew documents two and three times during the course of processing. *********
Jim Burzynski, the head of the INS Texas Service Center, is taking on a new responsibility. He will head a new INS Service Center in Missouri that will be responsible for processing family unity cases, V and K visas and late amnesty cases. Whether Burzynski will continue to head the Texas Service Center is not yet known. *********
Authorities in Southern California say that the region is facing an increased threat from organized crime syndicates manned by immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The second largest Russian population in the US is in Los Angeles, and the city is also home to 300,000 Armenians. Experts estimate that as many as 1,300 people from Russia and Armenia belong to organized crime groups.
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The growing student population in Florida’s public schools has left the state’s legislature wondering how to budget for the students. The problem is exacerbated because officials do not know how many new students to expect. Earlier this year, Gov. Jeb Bush proposed a budget based on 30,000 new students, but now experts say there could be more than 50,000 new students. School administrators say the primary reasons for the change are lower drop out rates and increased immigration. Some legislators suspect school officials of falsely increasing the numbers to get more money from the state.
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Eleven people, including police community relations official, were charged last week with immigration fraud offenses. Officials are publicizing the indictments as part of an effort to prevent fraud in the weeks leading up to the expiration of section 245(i), which allows many undocumented immigrants to begin the greed card application process in the US. While the law provides relief for many, there is still a larger group that will not benefit, and many unscrupulous people are taking advantage of them. Most typically, they sell section 245(i) as an amnesty program, which, in fact, it is not. To qualify for permanent residence under section the immigrant must have a qualifying family member petition for them, must meet certain requirements, and in fact remains deportable until the green card application is filed. What section 245(i) does do is allows those who qualify to apply for green cards without leaving the US, when they would then become subject to a reentry bar of 3 or 10 years. Only two of those charged were charged with felonies, the rest, including the police official, were charged with misdemeanors. The police official, Chahe Kueroghelian, who has been on paid leave since the investigation began, is charged with 22 counts mainly dealing with violations of California’s Immigration Consultant’s Act.
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An executive order signed by former President Bill Clinton last September requiring government agencies to provide information in multiple languages and to take other steps to make their services available to people with limited English proficiency is now being reconsidered by Congress and President George W. Bush. Saying that the requirement could cost a substantial amount of money, many members of Congress say that the executive order should be reversed. It was one of the many executive orders signed by Clinton whose implementation was delayed when President Bush took office in January.
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The Suffolk County (New York) Legislature last week approved funding the construction of a center for day-laborer hiring. The facility, which will be run by Catholic Charities, will be a central location for people seeking day-labor, who are mostly immigrants, to wait for a job. Currently, many day-laborers look for work on the streets, which has generated many complaints.
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Frederic N. Tulsky, a reporter with the San Jose Mercury News, was awarded the 2001 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for his series entitled “Uncertain Refuge,” which documented some of the problems in the asylum system. Tulsky’s articles showed that whether a person is granted asylum depends perhaps more on the judge they appear before and which country they are from than on the facts of their claim.
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Four people, including an employee of the Texas Department of Public Safety, have been arrested on charges of conspiring to illegally sell driver’s licenses. According to officials, the conspirators would find people, mostly undocumented immigrants, who wanted to obtain a driver’s license, and take them to the Department of Public Safety employee. Two people were also arrested for attempting to purchase licenses. Officials say that the conspirators collected between 0 and 5 for the licenses, which normally cost for six years.
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