This week a federal judge ruled that an unaccompanied immigrant minor from Guatemala be allowed to present his case to a juvenile court judge. Lawyers for Alfredo Lopez-Sanchez say this is the first time such a hearing has been ordered. Lopez, who is now 17, came to the US nearly two years ago, fleeing an abusive father. The INS detained him for 17 months, transferring him from facility to facility. Attorneys challenged his treatment, arguing that the INS was failing to abide by the terms of a 1997 court settlement on the treatment of unaccompanied minors.

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Lawyers for Samuel Kooritzky, a Washington, DC area immigration attorney accused of filing thousands of fraudulent labor certification applications, said in opening statements at trial that their client was the victim of a crime. They argue that Kooritzky was the dupe of the man the government alleges was his partner, Ronald Bogardus. Bogardus and Kooritzky were arrested in July, and Bogardus pled guilty and began cooperating with the government. He is expected to be the primary witness in the case against Kooritzky.

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This week the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidance on dealing with cases of job discrimination based on national origin. Under the rules, employers can establish English-only rules without incurring civil rights violations so long as the rules are not adopted with the intent to discriminate and clearly relate to specific workplace needs. Last fiscal year, the EEOC received just over 8,000 complaints of discrimination based on national origin, about 10 percent of the total number of complaints.

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A new report from the Pew Hispanic Center shows that the percentage of Hispanic immigrants completing high school has doubled over the past three decades, from 28 to 56 percent. Within the Hispanic community, there are differences in the graduation rate. Immigrants from Central American were less likely than those from South America to have graduated. The report is available online at http://www.pewhispanic.org/site/docs/pdf/Immig%20Ed%2012-04-02%20Final.pdf.

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A federal appeals court recently ruled that portions of an investigative report by the INS inspector general accusing former INS general counsel Paul Virtue of improperly influencing decisions on immigrant investor visas must be made public. The report was completed in 1999, the same year that Virtue resigned from the INS. Its topic is whether Virtue gave preferential treatment to visa applications made by companies run by former INS employees. According to the court, the seriousness of the alleged wrongdoing outweighs Virtue’s privacy interests. Many of the firms marketing investor visa services have been accused of setting up investments that did not comply with INS rules on the size and type of investment required for the visa.

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The Justice Department has ended an investigation of Sun Microsystems, which a laid off employee had claimed was discriminating against US workers in favor of H-1B visa holders. The investigation did not reveal any wrongdoing by Sun, and there will be no complaint filed.