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PIERCE'S IMMIGRATION LAW E-NEWSLETTER WWW.CPVISA.COM January 2011
 PIERCE'S IMMIGRATION LAW E-NEWSLETTER is free. It is published by the Law Offices of Curtis Pierce, Certified Specialist, Immigration & Nationality Law, The State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. 523 W. 6th St., Ste. 348, Los Angeles, CA 90014. (213) 327-0044. Email: curtis.pierce@cpvisa.com
Inside this month's issue: ICE Not Immune To Lawsuits  Dream Act Fails in Senate
A controversial bill that would have granted legal status to hundreds of thousands of undocumented students was blocked once again in the Senate Saturday, December 28, 2010.
The 55-41 vote in of the DREAM Act was five votes shy of moving onto the Senate floor, effectively killing its chances of passing this year.
The Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) sought to provide "conditional permanent residency" to undocumented young people who were brought into the country as children, provided they graduate high school, complete some college or join the military, and have a clean criminal record.
Although the House of Representatives had passed the DREAM Act last month, the Senators decided on Saturday, December 18, 2010, to end the debate on the measure in a 55-41 vote, effectively killing the legislation at least for the time being. The Senators voted mostly along party lines.
This bill is a law that at its fundamental core is a reward for illegal activity,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on the floor an hour before the vote. “It’s the third time we’ve tried to schedule a vote on it during this lame-duck session; it’s the fifth version of this legislation that has been introduced in the past five months.” One of the objections to the DREAM Act is that students and soldiers granted a path to citizenship would eventually petition their parents. Their parents are the ones who broke the law and brought them to the U.S.
One obvious solution to rewarding illegal behavior is to grant a path to citizenship to students and soldiers, but to add a stipulation that they could never petition their parents. Hence, the illegal behavior of the parents will not be rewarded and the young people who were brought to the U.S. through no fault of their own would be able to pursue citizenship. That solution has never entered the public debate, to the knowledge of the writers of this newsletter.
After years of Congress failing to deal with the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants, Hispanic leaders and immigration activists expressed frustration at the vote, vowing to target senators who cast no votes in 2012 and future elections.
For the lawmakers who voted against the bill, “it will be a defining vote in their career,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigrant advocacy group which has been fighting for the DREAM Act.
 ICE Not Immune to Lawsuits
A federal judge ruled late Thursday that the former chief of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and other senior officials could be held liable in a lawsuit claiming that federal officers violated the constitutional rights of illegal immigrants arrested in predawn raids three years ago in New Haven.
Julie L. Myers, the former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, could be held liable in the civil rights lawsuit.
A trial and a final ruling are still months away, but Judge Stefan R. Underhill of the United States District Court in Bridgeport ruled that the civil rights lawsuit could move forward, handing a significant victory to advocates of immigrant rights in a case that could have national implications.
The arrests drew wide attention, in part because New Haven officials had been adopting policies to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows. The raids began on June 6, 2007, two days after the city’s Board of Aldermen approved a plan to offer identification cards to all city residents, including an estimated 15,000 illegal immigrants.
Judge Underhill ruled that the lawyers representing 11 of the arrested immigrants had presented enough evidence that senior federal officials created an environment “under which constitutional violations occurred.” He also ruled that the roughly two dozen arresting officers could be held as liable as well.
The government and individual defendants, including Julie L. Myers, the former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sought to have the lawsuit dismissed on the grounds that senior officials were too far removed from the raids to be held responsible and that immigration agents could not be sued.
Judge Underhill disagreed with most of their arguments and allowed the core elements of the case to proceed.
In the New Haven raids, part of a national crackdown called “Operation Return to Sender,” federal immigration officers split into four teams and arrested 32 immigrants in their homes. The immigrants, most of whom were Mexican, were sent to jails in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine.
The arrests shocked many in New Haven, including Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who had supported efforts to issue city identification cards to immigrants, said he believed the raids were retaliation. The lawsuit claims they were meant to punish the city.
Federal officials have denied that. In his ruling, Judge Underhill mentioned the accusations about the timing of the raids but did not say whether he thought they had merit.
More than two dozen lawsuits have arisen from the New Haven raids, but the civil rights case, filed by the Workers and Immigrants Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School, has the highest profile — largely because of its strategy of holding senior officials responsible.
“The government has argued that ICE is immune from suits like this,” said Muneer Ahmad, the supervising lawyer on the case, about the immigration agency. “This is the beginning of a process of accountability to bring ICE as a law enforcement agency within the fold of every other federal agency.”
A spokesman for the immigration agency declined to comment because of the pending lawsuit.
Federal officials have argued that the raids were a legitimate part of a national effort to clear a backlog of “fugitive aliens,” immigrants with an outstanding deportation order. The officials have maintained that they had consent to enter the homes of immigrants they suspected were undocumented — the clinic’s lawyers dispute that — and that the operations been conducted properly.
The lawsuit contends that the federal agents arrested people without inquiring into their immigration status, informing them of their rights or explaining why they were being seized. Of the 32 immigrants arrested, five had deportation orders, and only one or two had criminal records.
The clinic’s lawyers say the quota system encouraged officers to violate the rights of illegal immigrants. Judge Underhill wrote that the lawyers had provided enough evidence for holding the officials liable “because their actions imposing intense pressure to make arrests, allowing bystander arrests, and providing inadequate training created a policy under which violations occurred.”
Judge Underhill ruled that there was not enough evidence to include at least three defendants mentioned in the lawsuit. He dismissed claims that the immigrants were forced to sign documents that they did not fully understand and were denied access to legal counsel.
NY Times, December 17, 2010
Sam Dolnick
 The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan Than Today's
by Heather MacDonald, Victor Davis Hanson, and Steven Malanga
Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, November 2007
Heather Mac Donald describes how an epidemic of crime, gangs, and illegitimacy is creating a new Hispanic underclass, and how the Mexican government aids and abets illegal immigration to the United States and thwarts state and local attempts to resist it. The Immigration Solution proposes the same kind of policy in place in other advanced nations, one that admits skilled and educated people on the basis of what they can do for the country, not what the country can do for them.
The authors believe that the United States needs a liberal and welcoming immigration policy, geared to the needs and interests of the nation. The Immigration Solution proposes a policy that admits skilled and educated people on the basis of what they can do for the country.
Editor's Note: In the Immigration Law E Newsletter, we try to present different points of view regarding the immigration debate.
 Attention employers, have you even been tempted to terminate an employee with a "No Match" result from the Social Security Administration? Think very carefully about the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act before taking action. Employers are required to give employees a reasonable period of time to address a "No Match" report with the local SSA. Further, employers may not follow different procedures for different classes of employees based on national origin or citizenship status. For more information, contact the Law Offices of Curtis Pierce.
All three are contributing editors of City Journal.
 IMMIGRATION LAW E-NEWSLETTERCurtis F. Pierce Attorney At Law Certified Specialist, Immigration & Nationality Law The State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization THE PACIFIC CENTER 523 WEST SIXTH STREET, SUITE 348 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90014
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