6. News Bytes:

Filipino teachers win suit in Louisiana

The ABS-CBN News out of the Philippines reports that a Louisiana judge has ordered a California recruitment agency to refund $1.8 million, part of the funds that the agency illegally collected from 350 Filipino teachers hired by the state’s public schools. Universal Placement International (UPI) violated at least 5 Louisiana labor statutes.

The judge has ordered UPI to refund the teachers all unauthorized fees collected, plus $7500 in court fess, and a $500 fine for operating without a license in the state.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/04/17/10/pinoy-teachers-win-suit-louisiana

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Paterson Move May Help Immigrants Facing Deportation

The New York Times reports that New York Governor David Paterson has announced that the state will consider granting pardons to legal immigrants for old or minor convictions which could lead them to be deported. The move is in conflict with federal immigration officials that have increased deportations in recent years. “Some of our immigration laws, particularly in respect to deportation, are embarrassingly and wrongly inflexible,” Paterson said.

Federal immigration laws enacted in 1996 expanded the categories of legal immigrants subject to mandatory deportation, including people who had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drug possession. In the past, immigration authorities had neither the resources nor political will to detain legal permanent residents. As a result, many people, years ago, pleaded guilty to criminal charges in exchange for lesser jail sentences, without having been advised by their lawyers that the pleas subjects them to deportation. The Supreme Court recently ruled that lawyers must advise their immigrant clients of the immigration and deportation consequences of guilty pleas. Only a Governor’s pardon can prevent deportation in these cases, even if the immigrant is married to a US citizen and has citizen children.

Nationally, more than 97,000 non-citizens are deported annually based on criminal convictions, rather than for unlawful immigration status. There is no real precedent for the policy Gov. Paterson is seeking to enact. It is uncertain how Congress and the Board of Immigration Appeals will react to the proposed policy. The Governor plans to draw on existing state employees to serve on the five-person Special Immigration Board of Pardons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/nyregion/04deport.html

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U.S. extradites Bosnian Serb suspected of genocide

Reuters reports that the US has extradited a former Serb soldier under investigation for genocide during the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica to Bosnia. Marko Boskic was arrested in the US where he was convicted of immigration fraud for lying about his involvement in the military engagement in the Bosnian war.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/04/29/AR2010042900731.html

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