President Bush was recently in Mexico at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. While there, inevitably, migration relations between the US and Mexico were a topic of interest. Bush said that the long-term answer to the migration issue is to help Mexico develop to a point where people do not feel they need to come to the US to find employment.  In the short term, Bush said, US policies need to ensure that Mexican citizens in the US are treated with respect. 

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One of the accused snipers whose recent rampage had the Washington, DC area gripped by fear is in the US without INS authorization.  John Lee Malvo, age 17, came to the US from Jamaica with his mother in June 2001 as a stowaway. In December 2001, he was detained by the INS after police responded to a domestic disturbance call. Malvo and his mother were placed in expedited removal proceedings, but were released on bond after determining that they had been smuggled to the US. The other accused sniper, John Allen Muhammad, was detained by the INS in April 2001 by INS inspectors at the Miami airport who suspected him of attempting to smuggle two Jamaican women into the US. He was released, and no charges were filed against him because of a lack of evidence.

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This week, the INS extended the designation of Sierra Leone for Temporary Protected Status.  It had been set to expire on November 2, 2002, and will now last until November 2, 2003.  People will have to apply for reregistration to receive benefits. The reregistration period will last until December 30, 2002. While the decade long civil war in Sierra Leone ended earlier this year, conditions remain unstable.

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The INS recently posted a notice to its website, http://www.ins.gov, warning people that some websites attempt to fool people into thinking that they are either an official government website or are somehow officially sanctioned by the INS. The INS does not support or approve of any website other than its own, regardless of the value of the information provided. The INS website has undergone tremendous improvement over the past couple of years, and now provides a great deal of information on all aspects of US immigration law.