2015 Old Blog

Yesterday afternoon, the office of U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) released a statement disavowing any support or relationship with DREAMer and immigrant activist organizations NIYA (National Immigrant Youth Alliance) and DREAMActivist.org after one of their own was arrested in Gutierrez’ office. Up until recently, Gutierrez was tangentially involved with these DREAMer activist organizations in an attempt to help a group known as the “DREAM 30.” Just a few weeks ago, these thirty or so undocumented DREAMers voluntarily walked back into Mexico and tried to re-enter to request asylum at the U.S. border. Not surprisingly, all were detained immediately.

The DREAM 30 controversy

The DREAM 30 stated their goal in leaving and attempting to re-enter the U.S. was to bring awareness to the plight of undocumented immigrants in the United States, but also to finally obtain their own legitimate status in the U.S. through a lesser-known route: asylum. When granted, asylum protects immigrants in extremely dangerous circumstances from having to return to their country of origin, even if they don’t have legal status. As we outlined in a recent post, asylum has a specific set of restrictions and can be very difficult to obtain. The odds were very slim that most of the DREAM 30 would get it.

As it currently stands, 21 members of the DREAM 30 have been released, one was deported, and eight are still in detention and waiting for a decision. Several members of the DREAM 30 were eligible for deferred action but chose not to apply, in some cases as another act of protest. Many of them still have legal immigration issues to be sorted out, but it seems that most fared far better than current U.S. immigration policy would predict. Self-deportation as a form of protest is an extremely risky (and controversial) move that many prominent pro-immigrant groups have already declared detrimental to the immigration reform cause.

DREAMer arrested in Rep. Gutierrez’s office

The ideologies of the DREAM 30, NIYA, and DREAMActivist.org, and Rep. Gutierrez collided yesterday after a member of the DREAM 30 staged a protest in his office by demanding the congressman obtain pardons from President Obama for all the remaining members still in detention, not a small request by any measure. Gutierrez’s office summarized the incident on his Facebook page yesterday:

“This afternoon, representatives of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), DREAMActivist.org, and the #DREAM30 sat-in at the office of Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) in Washington, D.C. One activist, who was recently released from detention in El Paso, Texas at the request of Congressman Gutiérrez, was removed from the office of Congressman Gutiérrez for refusing to leave until the Congressman spoke personally with President Obama and secured the release of other detainees. The activists were asked to leave by U.S. Capitol Police. Two activists left the office. A third refused and was escorted out by U.S. Capitol Police.“

Members of DREAMActivist.org and NIYA have also boasted publicly on social media that they secretly recorded Gutierrez in private meetings with parents of the DREAM 30 detainees, where they allegedly caught him making disparaging remarks about their leaders, and have continued on a smear campaign throughout the day claiming Gutierrez is a traitor to the cause. This highlights a somewhat surprising division among immigration allies, since most will agree no other member of Congress has so consistently, publicly, and emphatically been in support of comprehensive immigration reform as Rep. Gutierrez.

United we stand; divided we fall

Over the past few months, NIYA and DREAMActivist.org have already garnered a reputation for being abrasive and disrespectful, especially online, often resorting to name-calling and harassment. Their supporters have called Gutierrez a phony and a liar, claiming he is an immigration activist for fame and recognition. It’s a bold claim to make, especially after the Congressman was arrested in an immigration reform protest just a month ago and has a longstanding reputation of being one of immigration reform’s strongest allies. It’s interesting to note that another member of the DREAM 30 was arrested in Rep. Ruben Hinojosa’s (D-TX) office that same day for the same reason, and he has escaped scrutiny from these groups. Being the more famous of the two congressmen, it makes sense to choose Gutierrez as a target if their goal was to get the most media attention.

Blaming Gutierrez for not obtaining pardons for the DREAM 30 (who all knew they were going to get arrested before they crossed the border) makes the entire movement look bad and doesn’t put DREAMers in a flattering light. Their demands were extreme and extremely misguided, and most likely based on poor legal advice and misinterpretation of current U.S. immigration laws.

Nobody wins when activist groups viciously attack each other just for the chance to prove one single faction is “the most right.” (Nobody wins except maybe in this case… the House Republicans and anti-immigrant groups.) Gutierrez himself will admit recent immigration reform proposals are not perfect, not even close, and nobody will get everything they want in one single piece of immigration legislation. If these groups are not interested in working with other viewpoints to get a comprehensive bill passed, they should be at least be able to admit they are in fact not true advocates of immigration reform and their mission is something else entirely.

Did you know that USCIS officially took over immigration service duties of the federal government only on March 1, 2003? On that date, USCIS was formed to “enhance the security and improve the efficiency of national immigration services by exclusively focusing on the administration of benefit applications.” (http://www.uscis.gov/about-us/our-history) In addition to USCIS, you have probably heard of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). These elements of the Department of Homeland Security deal with immigration enforcement and carrying out actions in order to ensure border security.

Did you know that scheduling an appointment for your non-immigrant visa can differ vastly from consulate to consulate?

Chief Executive Officer

As Chief Executive Officer of VISANOW, Robert Meltzer leads his company in the pursuit of revolutionizing immigration and employment compliance process management and improving the legal services experience. After practicing law for 15 years, he realized the potential to streamline the immigration process by using technology and founded VISANOW. For over a decade, VISANOW has helped guide thousands of clients navigate the immigration process in the U.S. and abroad in more than 95 countries.

At VISANOW, we have revolutionized the legal immigration experience through technology, professional expertise, and innovative thinking. It only makes sense to have a modern, innovative website to match. We have taken our website to the next level with a redesign and restructuring that will continue to improve the overall immigration experience for our visitors and clients.

UPDATE: Following the Boston Marathon bombing, the Washington Post and others reported that the bombers were refugees. Other reports, however, have indicated that the Tsarnaev brothers were not refugees — they arrived in the United States as young children of an asylee. As a State Department official told Bloomberg, their father came to the United States on a tourist visa and applied for asylum.

After over two weeks of the U.S. government in partial shutdown, the United States is on the brink of extreme financial crisis if Congress cannot come to an agreement and fully reopen U.S. federal services by October 17. Just a day before the Treasury Department will run out of emergency funds, it looks like the Senate has come up with a plan that will be voted on this evening. House Speaker John Boehner says that he will not block this proposal from coming to a vote in the House of Representatives, which is a hopeful sign that the proposal will succeed and government services (including certain types of immigration services) will be restored to their normal functions before the week ends.

During an interview with Univision this week, President Obama took time to rekindle the topic of immigration reform, stating "Once [the fiscal crisis] is done, you know, the day after I'm going to be pushing to say, call a vote on immigration reform. I'm going to do so because I think it's really important for the country."

Obama has taken an increasing amount of heat from immigration reform activists for his hard line stance on deportations, which have doubled over the last ten years. During his administration, an average of 400,000 immigrants have been deported each year. In addition to deportations, another hot topic has been the widespread increase of holding immigrants in for-profit detention centers. Many of these issues could be addressed with a commonsense, comprehensive immigration reform bill.

The President has been promising to deliver on immigration reform since he used it as a major selling point during his 2012 reelection campaign. Putting immigration reform back at the top of his priority list would help strengthen his credibility and satisfy the voters who are still waiting for him to deliver.

Congress might not be ready to agree on Obamacare and many other types of government spending, but immigration reform is a topic that has real potential to succeed with bipartisan support. Just last week, 8 House members were arrested at an immigration reform march on the National Mall. Due to the shutdown, approval of Republican congressmen has fallen substantially in comparison to their Democrat colleagues, and immigration reform would be a sure bet in securing more Hispanic and Asian voters for the next Presidential election. Hopefully the silver lining of the shutdown will be Congress' new found motivation to pass real, bipartisan reform laws, with immigration reform as their first and easiest choice.