Access Washington – Weekly Immigration Update
New America Media , News Digest, Wendy Sefsaf Posted: Jun 02, 2008
Editor’s Note: NAM’s Access Washington Weekly Immigration Update is a column summarizing key developments in the immigration debate. This column is produced by New America Media’s Washington, D.C., office and is available in Spanish, Chinese and Korean.
Traducción al español
Senate Drops Farm Worker Legislation
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced a guest-worker amendment to an Iraq war spending bill recently, which would have given temporary legal status to 1.35 million illegal immigrant farm workers, as well as their spouses and children. The United Farm Workers and immigrant advocate groups favored the legalization. “Virtually every farm organization in the United States is in support of this legislation,” Feinstein said at a committee debate on the bill.
Feinstein added the agricultural guest-worker plan to the $194 billion emergency war-spending bill. The revised measure would have given the farm workers and their families, potentially numbering more than 1 million, temporary legal status for five years. However, without debate, Sen. Menendez, D-N.J., cited a rule against legislating on appropriations bills and the measure was dropped.
Head of USCIS Outlines Agency’s Processing Goals
At a recent conference in Washington, D.C., U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) acting Director Jonathan Scharfen outlined some of the goals of his agency in processing naturalization applications.
He began by defending his agency who he says received 1.4 million naturalization applications in fiscal year 2006, up from the 740,000 they normally receive each year. He explained the surge in applications was likely due to the debate over comprehensive immigration reform and the anticipation of increases in application fees.
To help with the backlog, Scharfen said the agency would be hiring more than 3,000 new employees by the end of 2008. He said in 2007 they processed 750,000 applications and in 2008 they will process more than one million applications that now have a 13-14 month wait time.
He also noted they have cleared all cases that are over four years old and they are down to a few hundred that are three years old. By July 2008 anything older than two years will be cleared and by November 2008 anything over one year will be complete. He added that by February 2009 anything older than five months will be processed.
By June of 2009 he said 98 percent of cases will be processed in 30 days and the rest in 90 days.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Blasts Anti-Immigrant News Anchors
Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) recently held a press conference to discuss a report by media watchdog group Media Matters. The report “Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News” reviews prime-time news coverage of immigration and concluded that fear-mongering is being practiced by several anchors. The CHC believes these anchors are partly responsible for sabotaging last year's failed immigration reform.
According to the report, over the course of 2007, CNN anchors Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck and Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly perpetuated “a series of myths that feed viewers’ resentment and fears, seemingly geared toward creating anti-immigrant hysteria.”
Report coauthor Michael Waldman calls Lou Dobbs the “most obsessed” with immigration. Waldman said the CNN anchor, especially, pushes out a misperception that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes and is responsible for spreading urban legends regarding the trade relationship between Mexico and the United States.
CHC Chairman Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., said the report confirms what the CHC has long suspected, that these anchors provide “divisive, inflammatory and often misleading information that only creates fear, hatred and stereotyping of immigrants.”
To read the full report visit: mediamattersaction.org
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User Comments
RECALL RECALL RECALL on Jun 04, 2008 at 22:38:58 said:
Recall any elected representative that gives away the country to illegal aliens. Vote for America.
David Sternlight on Jun 04, 2008 at 18:30:11 said:
Correction: Due to a dropped comma in my previous post, the last point is subject to misunderstanding. For
cooperating with INS.
"Their political friends at the State and Local level also turned a blind eye to the legal status of those supping at the public trough, even in many cases to forbidding police and social service agencies from inquiring into the immigration status of those involved or cooperating with INS."
please read
Their political friends at the State and Local level also turned a blind eye to the legal status of those supping at the public trough, even in many cases to forbidding police and social service agencies from inquiring into the immigration status of those involved, or
Thank You;
David Sternlight
David Sternlight on Jun 04, 2008 at 18:21:07 said:
This \"report\" is one of the most dishonest documents I\'ve ever read. It lumps illegal with legal immigrants in many of its statistics attempting to \"prove\" something. In some cases it compares \"foreign born\" with \"native born\" which might be a good proxy for immigrants vs. native citizens but is no proxy at all for illegal immigrants vs. everyone else. It ignores that many, if not most opponents of illegal immigration support legal immigration; (I am the grandchild of legal immigrants myself.) It completely ignores the rule of law. It offers \"statistics\" on the number of times illegal immigration is treated by various radio and TV hosts as if having a particular special interest were somehow \"wrong\". In other words, the Hispanic Caucus seems to believe that \"power to the people\" means power to them and their friends, and freedom of the press only applies to those who agree with them.
As for their attempt to dismiss \"reconquista\" and \"Azatlan\" by hand-waving, they obviously haven\'t been to Los Angeles recently, nor seen the placards and banners in recent Hispanic demonstrations.
The report further lumps taxes paid at all levels of government, ignoring the massive impact of illegal immigrant net costs on many US cities both large and small, including Los Angeles. The situation has become so serious, even at State level that some States have passed (and enforce) legislation penalizing the hiring of illegal immigrants.
Let me remind the Caucus that America operates by social contract in which everyone gets something but no one gets everything they want. The last immigration law was a social compromise they agreed to in which, in return for regularization of immigration status of many, immigration and border law would be subsequently strictly enforced. The ink was hardly dry on the legislation when the Hispanic Caucus and their friends began a massive campaign to sabotage border enforcement and immigration law Their political friends at the State and Local level also turned a blind eye to the legal status of those supping at the public trough, even in many cases to forbidding police and social service agencies from inquiring into the immigration status of those involved or cooperating with INS.
By this report, the Hispanic Caucus has discredited themselves even in the eyes of those who until now have given them the benefit of the doubt.
David Sternlight, Ph.D.
Los Angeles
Pree Glenn-Graves on Jun 04, 2008 at 08:21:10 said:
Well this is not going to help their cause at all with American citizens. Lou Dobbs has always told us like it is, not only on ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION but on anything our Government does that we should know about. American\'s want our country back! We want these people to understand that while we are a people who believes in helping the world, we will do everything in our powers to protect the laws and our freedom\'s from people like this. Lou Dobbs had nothing to do with having the comprehensive illegal immigration bills stoped, the American Citizens did and boy you have seen nothing yet. \"We The People of the United States\" means just that!
carolcarol on Jun 02, 2008 at 17:16:03 said:
Blasting news commentators for anti immigrant stances? GET IT RIGHT. It's anti-ILLEGAL immigrant stances. And..your publication as well as the Hispanic caucas members are PART of the problem of inflaming the entire issue of ILLEGAL immigration.
So, when is the Hispanic caucus going to make a fuss over the OWNERS of the Agri Processing Plant NOT getting charged as yet? Let them scream and whine...and GET THE EMPLOYERS who exploited Illegal Immigrant to face the consequences.
Politics are disgusting. Tell it like it is...or don't bother putting this twisted and manipulated material out here.
Mandy on Jun 02, 2008 at 14:03:53 said:
Scharfen's statement is totally wrong! I've been waiting for the approval or just an update status for 5 years. Still waiting.
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