VisaVisions!Demystifying the Visa Process

Supreme Court Ruling: Postville Raid Immigrants Not Criminals!Filed Under: E-Verify, General Frustrations, Uncategorized

Victory: Immigrant Meat Packers Not Criminals!

The Supreme Court unanimously decided today to overrule the Bush Adminstration’s tactics to criminalize the immigrant workers it prosecuted on charges of aggravated identity theft during the May 12, 2008 Postville raid on the basis that the government must prove knowledge as an element of aggravated identity theft. 

The Court said that it is possible to prove knowldege where a defendant digs through someones’ trash to find discarded credit card receipts, and equivalent evidence should be used to prove knowledge in cases of aggravated identity theft even though the government claimed that it would be too hard to prove a defendant knew the identification belonged to someone else.  

The Postville, Iowa kosher meatpacking plant was raided by ICE, the enforcement arm of the DHS, who were on the hunt for unauthorized workers.  They found their booty, and arrested nearly 400 immigrants who were working with false work authorization, mostly from Guatemala.  At hearings, which were often conducted “en mass,” the accused immigrants were counseled by attorneys who encouraged plea agreements through a scripted speech, who explained that aggravated identity theft carries a minimum two years in prison, and encouraged the Postville defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges.  The defendants were not counseled by immigration attorneys when they accepted the guilty pleas.

Ignacio Flores-Figueroa’s case came before the Supreme court, the government had charged him with misusing immigration documents and of aggravated identity theft, even though the government did not prove that the Postville worker had actual knowledge that  the social security number belonged to someone else.  According to today’s ruling, the government must establish that the individual charged must have known that the identification belonged to another person.  

I hope that this decision signals a turning point in the trends and direction of our country to move toward comprehensive immigration reform to create policies that decriminalize immigrants, and more importantly provide pathways to legality for all those hiding in the shadows of our workforce. 

Tags: E-Verify, Postville, raids

100,000th Customer! E-Verify Addresses Unlawful Employment but Undocumented Workers are OverlookedFiled Under: Advocacy, E-Verify, General Frustrations, Uncategorized

April 2006 - Undocumented workers and supporters protest a bill which would criminalize undocumented workers

USCIS announced today in a press release on the headlines of the USCIS.gov website that “The Bratton Corp., a construction products supplier from Kansas City, Mo., employing about 200 people in Kansas City and Pasadena, Calif., is the 100,000th employer to participate in E-Verify.”

Congrats Bratton! It’s interesting to see the marketing tools that the government is employing to hype up E-Verify.  Although I write about and research the shortcomings and dangers of an electronic verification system which could negatively affect human resources  departments and employees on a grand scale, I do think that the program has its virtues.  If employers have a reliable, quick, and easy way to verify the identity and authorization of their employees, and are held accountable for staffing unauthorized workers, they are more likely to comply.  That said, I am frusterated that DHS has invested so much in designing this well-structured verification program without devising an equally well-structured program to address the heart of the problem:   creating pathways for the 12 million shadow immmigrants to integrate legally into our workforce. 

Even if every employer in the US is enrolled in E-Verify, there will always be an underground workforce of unauthorized workers unless Congress addresses them directly.

Tags: E-Verify