MyUSGreenCard.com Blog

NEW YORK, NY - Congress is headed toward approving a plan that would require employers to check every worker’s Social Security number or immigration work permit against a new federal computer database. Critics see the move - aimed at stemming illegal immigration - as the beginning of a government information stockpile that could be used to track U.S. residents.

‘We’re getting closer and closer to a national ID card,’ says Tim Sparapani, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. The goal is to make sure everyone working in the USA is doing so legally.

Eye opening as Friday’s massive pro-immigrant rally was for Chicagoans, it also caught the attention of activists on both coasts and on both sides of the debate over illegal immigration.

Coming at a key juncture in the congressional debate over immigration, organizers of rallies in other U.S. cities immediately began dissecting and analyzing the tactics of the Chicago march, hoping to deliver the same effect, or even improve upon it.

President Bush extended a temporary worker visa by 12 months for 300,000 illegal immigrants Friday, in consideration of natural disasters that have stricken Central America in the last year. Illegal Nationals from Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador — who at 225,000 are the largest beneficiaries — can take advantage of the extension of Temporary Protected Status, which allows them to renew a legal permit to work.

The extension applies only to Nicaraguans and Hondurans who have resided in the U.S. since Dec. 30, 1998, and Salvadorians present since 2001.

TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to address the needs of foreign nationals whose home countries were in turmoil, either because of armed conflict, the effects of a natural disaster, or other ‘extraordinary and temporary conditions.’.

Like too many states around the country, state governments are tired of waiting for Congressional leadership to stem the tide of illegal immigrants, and so they are taking matters into their own hands.

Oklahoma legislators decided to draft their own bill. Among the provisions of the bill is for state employees to report to immigration authorities anyone applying for services who can’t prove they’re citizens.

A contentious debate over immigration this month in Washington is echoing in Boston and around the country.

Immigrant and interfaith groups plan to march down Tremont Street on March 27, the day the US Senate is expected to vote on a bill dealing with the country’s illegal immigrant population, now estimated at nearly 12 million.

The US House of Representatives already has passed its own bill that would expand the fence along the US-Mexico border and increase and expand the legal penalties for living in the country illegally and for aiding illegal immigrants.

By noon, organizers estimated more than 500,000 demonstrators were swarming closed streets around City Hall as a series of speakers rallied the crowd, urging unity and denouncing the bill.

Among the speakers was Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who spoke to the cheering crowd for about two minutes this morning.

Protesters also came out to urge the state Senate to reject a resolution supporting a ballot issue that would deny many government services to illegal immigrants in Colorado.

The large crowd surprised police officers, who were expecting only a few thousand people at Civic Center Park next to the Capitol and Denver city and county buildings, said Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson.

Political pressure for an immigration crackdown seems to be building, with allegedly serious people even debating a 2,000-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. Meanwhile, in the U.S. economy, the demand for foreign workers continues, as shown by the collapse of the H-1B visa program. Since the restrictionists won’t tell you about this, allow us to explain.

Each year, the U.S. issues a set number of H-1B visas to educated foreign professionals with specialized skills. Earlier this month the Department of Homeland Security, which administers the program, announced that the annual H-1B cap of 65,000 already has been reached for next year. In fact, it was reached in record time, or 14 months prior to the fiscal year in which the visas would be used.

Hundreds of thousands of people demanding U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants took to the streets in dozens of cities from New York to San Diego on Monday in some of the most widespread demonstrations since the mass protests began around the country last month. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, wearing white shirts and carrying banners reading ‘We Have A Dream Too’ staged rallies Monday in cities across the USA to demand citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.

‘I would love to be a citizen,’ said Alex Vega, 45, at a rally in Santa Ana, Calif. ‘I’ve been in the shadows for a long time.’ He said he owns an auto repair shop that he keeps in someone else’s name.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., likened the rallies to the civil rights movement in the 1960s led by Martin Luther King Jr.

The White House is fast at work recalibrating how best to use the power of the presidency to save immigration legislation from languishing for the rest of the year.

Until a week or so ago, President George W. Bush had, at least publicly, stayed to the side of the warring between factions of his party, and the Democrats, as the Senate hashed out a compromise between sealing the nation’s borders and legalizing the illegal work force already here without granting what opponents could call ‘amnesty.’

Now Bush has placed himself at the vanguard of the issue, publicly lacerating the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, for blocking the legislation on procedural grounds.