Illegal immigrants who are injured at work may be awarded compensation for their accidents in spite of their illegal status.  Their legal status is irrelevant to their right to be compensated.  For example, at construction sites steel workers, plumbers, and roofers or any other workers who are injured have the same right as other employees.  Undocumented laborers have the right to fight against abusive labor practices and intimidation.

Before President Bush’s term ended in November 2008, his Attorney General Mukasey, ruled that immigrants have no Constitutional right to effective legal representation in deportation proceedings.  Before this preemptory ruling which was issued without public notice or hearing, an immigrant could move to reopen a case because of incompetent counsel.

President Obama’s Attorney General has just reversed this ruling, holding that the integrity of the law requires that an immigrant be entitled to effective representation, and in the absence of it, may request a reopening of a deportation order.  Ensuring the right of due process to immigrants in removal proceedings is a welcome change, a hopeful sign of immigration reform.

In China last year 8000 members of the spiritual group Falun Gong were arrested; more than 100 died under detention.  Adherents of Falun Gong have received long prison sentences solely for possessing the society’s literature.

Chinese authorities regard this group as a threat to China. Despite Falun Gong’s benign spiritual teachings of Buddhist meditation and traditional body exercises, the Chinese government continues to regard the group with hostility.  Torture and other acts of cruelty have been used to purge Falun Gong.

The Immigration Service is ambivalent about Falun Gong’s cases.  It has held that each case must be weighed separately based on the extent of a member’s activities for the Society and the degree of repression the member faced in China and the level of threat that the participant would face if he/she returned to China.

Under current law, the death of a spouse can result in an Order of Removal if the spouse dies before the completion of the processing of Permanent Residence. If the marriage took place less than 2 years, the surviving spouse is removed.

This situation has resulted in the exclusion of spouses and their children and also parents and grandparents, which is cruel and callous. Some courts have taken a beam of light to the corrupt bureaucracy slow processing times, which have resulted in painful separations not withstanding that the marriage was celebrated in good faith.

Last week, a federal judge ordered the INS to reopen the cases of 13 immigrants who were denied their residence because their spouses died. We hope that the new administration create a remedy for these wrongs in the near future.

Last week, the United States Supreme Court barred prosecutors throughout the U.S. from using the identity theft laws to intimidate immigrants who use false social security numbers to work.  The issue in the case was whether the user of the false social security number had to have known to whom the number belonged in order to be subject to an aggravated identity theft.  Prosecutors have been using this threat of severe punishment for aggravated identity theft to get alien workers to plead guilty to a lesser charges of document fraud.  These aliens had been facing at least a sentence of 2 years for identity theft and then summary deportation.  As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision the Immigration Service will not be able to press criminal charges against immigrants for using these false cards.  The Court held that the identity theft law was aimed at criminals who steal a targeted individual’s social security number with the intent of committing a fraud unlike alien workers who at random invent a number to allow them to work.

The new administration has proposed immigration reform for some time this year.  With more than 7,000,000 undocumented immigrant workers already employed throughout the U.S., the Unions feel that legalizing these workers would be the most effective solution to protect American working standards for all workers.  Workers’ rights are foremost in the minds of labor unions and in concert with congress may come about.  A reform bill that will be effective for the future now finally may succeed and provide businesses needed workers and also peace and humanitarian aid to the turbulent undocumented problem.

The two largest unions in the country, the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Federation, have teamed up to support reform of the Immigration laws.  In 2007 these two groups were not in accord and consequently immigration reform laws failed.  Now the two Unions want reform to proceed through a national commission to determine how many permanent and how many temporary foreign workers will be admitted to the U.S. each year depending on labor needs.

Cuban Americans who have desired to travel to Cuba were restricted except for visits to spouses, children or parents and these visits were restricted to only once in 3 years and only for 14 days.  Only $50 per day was permitted to be spent.  Humanitarian visas were never authorized.

On March 11, 2009 President Obama signed a new law, easing these travel restrictions.  Now visits to aunts and uncles and cousins are possible as well as spouses, parents and children once now for every year for an unlimited time.  Travelers to Cuba from America may spend up to $179 per day under this new regulation.  Humanitarian visas may also be applied for such as a visit to a close friend in the hospital.

In Colorado, state officials and the Sheriff have used confidential tax documents to arrest people for illegally using social security numbers that did not belong to them.  This is commonly done by undocumented aliens to enable them to work without them realizing they were appropriating a particular person’s social security number.

The American Civil Liberties Union brought an action to stop this practice because it was an invasion of the privacy of thousands of tax payers whose records were seized from a tax preparer.

This action by the Sheriff and state officials was an illegal fishing expedition, the Judge said.  The government requires residents in the U.S. to pay taxes.  Many undocumented aliens pay taxes to comply with obligations.  Further arrests are now barred until the Judge makes a final ruling.

As many as 30,000 desperate illegal Haitians who are in the U.S. have been ordered deported by Immigration.  This draconian program would separate them from their U.S. spouses and U.S. children.  Immigration has not extended temporary protected status (TPS) to Haitians although it has done so for Salvadorians and Hondurans.  TPS is granted to those nationals from countries in dire straits such as for disastrous mud slides, hurricanes or earthquakes. For Haiti to receive these deportees would render Haiti totally destabilized according to Haitian authorities.  The Bush Administration has denied TPS to Haitians notwithstanding that Haiti has recently been devastated by political instability and natural disasters.  The Immigration has maintained it has only been seeking criminals to deport.  Unfortunately the truth is that Immigration has been seeking the arrest of Haitians who only entered without visas or who overstayed.  In fact these raids and roundups have only resulted in tearing immigrant families apart: spouses from their U.S. citizen spouses and from their U.S. citizen children.  These raids and round-up program has not resolved any Immigration problem, it has only terrified the Haitian community and their families.  The Haitian government has refused to issue travel documents to Haitian deportees.  As a result of the natural disaster, there has been a surge of Haitians trying to enter the U.S. who are fleeing their country.  Haiti has said that tens of thousands of storm victims are plagued by a lack of facilities and shelter and that Haiti cannot sustain these refugees.

New York Assembly has recently passed legislation to restore judge’s discretion in cases that involve mere possession.  This would eliminate hearings to have the prosecutor’s consent to allow judges to send persons to drug treatment programs instead of prison.  The bill is now before the State Senate which is likely to approve it as well since the Senate is now controlled by Democrats.  Prisoners who have been already sentenced may be able to apply for relief as well.

This law may have an impact on immigration as well because under immigration law there are no provisions to allow a waiver for any controlled substance other than for fewer than 30 grams of marijuana.  This reform could be a turn-around for the stringent immigration code that separates U.S. citizen children and U.S. citizen spouses from their foreign parent or spouse for the possession of a controlled substance even though miniscule for people who are not violent.  Judges would have discretion to discriminate between hardened criminals or persons who should be in medical treatment.