Court Rules for Immigrant on Deportation in Drug Case
WASHINGTON — “The social sharing of a small amount of marijuana” by immigrants lawfully in the United States does not require their automatic deportation, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday. “Sharing a small amount of marijuana for no remuneration, let alone possession with intent to do so, does not fit easily into the everyday understanding of trafficking, which ordinarily means some sort of commercial dealing,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a seven-justice majority, partly quoting from an earlier case. The case arose from a traffic stop in Georgia in 2007 during which Adrian Moncrieffe, a Jamaican citizen, was found with…
US Hospitals Quietly Deport Undocumented Immigrants
DES MOINES, Iowa — Days after they were badly hurt in a car accident, Jacinto Cruz and Jose Rodriguez-Saldana lay unconscious in an Iowa hospital while the American health care system weighed what to do with the two immigrants from Mexico. The men had health insurance from jobs at one of the nation’s largest pork producers. But neither had legal permission to live in the U.S., nor was it clear whether their insurance would pay for the long-term rehabilitation they needed. So Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines took matters into its own hands: After consulting with the patients’…
Tempers flare at Immigration bill hearing over Boston attacks
Tempers flared at a Senate hearing on immigration legislation Monday as a Republican senator objected to a Democrat’s criticism of attempts by some to link the Boston Marathon bombings to the immigration bill. “I never said that! I never said that!” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, interjected as Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., suggested that some were using the Boston bombings as “an excuse” to slow down or stop the bill. Schumer said he wasn’t talking about Grassley, who said last week that the bombings raised question about gaps in the U.S. immigration system that should be examined in context of the…
What to expect in the unveiled Immigration Bill 2013
By Susan Kivuvani, On 04/16/2013 the Senate Gang of Eight introduced a bill “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” that, if enacted, would represent the largest-scale change to the nation’s immigration laws in more than 25 years. The plan includes a road to citizenship for immigrants who have been in the country without authorization since before Dec. 31, 2011, and proposes to reduce visa backlogs for those who have been waiting for years to be reunited with their loved ones. The bill will now be sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee and will go through a mark-up procedure, where any…
Republican: Boston Bombings Should Delay Immigration Reform
The Boston Marathon bombings show that immigration reform could endanger the public, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said Tuesday, speculating that the attack might have been perpetrated by an immigrant. In fact, law enforcement authorities have not named any suspect so far. “Some of the speculation that has come out is that, yes, it was a foreign national and, speculating here, that it was potentially a person on a student visa,” King said to the National Review’s Robert Costa. “If that’s the case, then we need to take a look at the big picture.” King, who has previously vowed to block a pathway to…
Senators finally unveil immigration reform bill
(Reuters) – A group of Democratic and Republican senators on Tuesday unveiled long-awaited landmark legislation to remove the threat of deportation for millions of illegal immigrants and give them an opportunity to eventually become U.S. citizens. Under the proposal, undocumented immigrants who came to the United States before December 31, 2011, and had stayed in the country continuously could apply for “provisional” legal status as soon as six months after the bill is signed by the president. But beyond that, they would have to wait a decade or more for full citizenship which would entitle them to federal benefits, while…
Senators Set to Unveil Immigration Bill Today
WASHINGTON – A sweeping immigration bill that a bipartisan group of eight senators plans to introduce on Tuesday seeks not only to fix chronic problems in the system and bring an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants to the right side of the law. It would also reorient future immigration with the goal of bringing foreigners to the country increasingly based on the job skills and personal assets they can offer. The bill, by four Democrats and four Republicans, is the most ambitious effort in at least 26 years to repair, update and reshape the American immigration system. The part of…
AP source: Immigration bill could exclude many
WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan immigration bill soon to be introduced in the Senate could exclude hundreds of thousands of immigrants here illegally from ever becoming U.S. citizens, according to a Senate aide with knowledge of the proposals. The bill would bar anyone who arrived in the U.S. after Dec. 31, 2011, from applying for legal status and ultimately citizenship, according to the aide, who was not authorized to discuss the proposals before they were made public and spoke on condition of anonymity. It also would require applicants to document that they were in the country before Dec. 31, 2011,…
Broad Outlines of Senate Immigration Agreement Emerge
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators has largely agreed on a broad immigration bill that would require tough border measures to be in place before illegal immigrants could take the first steps to become American citizens, according to several people familiar with drafts of the legislation. But in a delicate compromise worked out over weeks of negotiations, the bill does not impose any specific measurements of border enforcement results that, if they were not met, would stop the immigrants from proceeding toward citizenship. Instead, the bill allows a period of 10 years for the Department of Homeland Security to…
Senator Schumer: Immigration Plan Ready This Week
WASHINGTON – As the Senate returns from recess this week, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he thinks the bi-partisan Gang of Eight will have its immigration plan completed by the end of the week. “We hope that we can have a bipartisan agreement among the eight of us on comprehensive immigration reform by the end of the week,” Schumer said today on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Over the last two weeks, we’ve made great progress. There have been kerfuffles along the way, but each one of those, thus far, has been settled.” Schumer said that the staffs of each Gang…
