President Obama stated his opposition to a bill in Georgia, similar to the anti-immgration bill struck down in Arizona, that would allow law enforcement to investigate the immigration status of criminal suspects.

“It is a mistake for states to try to do this piecemeal. We can’t have 50 different immigration laws around the country. Arizona tried this and a federal court already struck them down,” Obama told WSB-TV in an interview taped Tuesday.

To help the Georgia bill overcome the legal challenges that halted Arizona’s bill, Georgia legislatures removed the “reasonable suspicion” aspect of the bill. In its place, Georgia police can perform an immigration check if the criminal suspect cannot produce any form of identification or give basic details that could help an officer verify their identity.

A immigration bill passed late Thursday night by the Republican-dominated Georgia House and Senate.  This bill, similar to the Arizona’s, authorizes law enforcement to question suspects in certain criminal investigations about their immigration status. It also authorizes long prison terms for those who use fake documents to get a job and punishes people who transport illegal immigrants during the commission of a crime. 

The new law would also require private employers to check the immigration status of newly hired workers E-Verify federal database.  The new bill exempts small businesses from the E-Verify requirements and gives the businesses required to use it a 30-day grace period to correct good-faith violations.

House Democrats on Thursday re-introduced the Uniting American Families Act, legislation that would grant same-sex couples the same rights enjoyed by heterosexual couples under U.S. immigration law.  Under current law, one member of a married couple may sponsor their partner for U.S. citizenship, but same-sex couples cannot.  

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution has been working on the issue for over a decade.  However, Democrats worry the bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-led House.

July 12, 2010:   The immigration debate has spread to America’s favorite pasttime – baseball.   The 2011 MLB All-Star Game is set to take place in the state of Arizona, the home of a new immigration law which has fueled contraversy across the nation.  Opponents of the new law, including civil rights organizations, politicians, and even some MLB players, are urging the MLB to move next year’s All-Star Game to another state. 

Set to take  effect on July 29th, the new Arizona law makes it a crime under state law be in the country illegally.  It empowers polic officers to question a person about his or her immigration sattus if they are investigating a crime, responding to a complaint or making a lawful stop.  The law has been challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice, which filed suit in federal court on July 6, 2010.

With this year’s All-Star Game hours away, a number of MLB players are voicing their opinions.  San Diego Padre’s catcher, Yorvit Torrealba, a native of Venezuela, supports moving the game.  According to an article by ESPN, Torrealba stated, “I don’t think anyone has the right to approach me or my family just because we’re Latino.”   If the game is not moved from Arizona, Torrealba says right now he’s “50-50″ about whether he’d attend.  ”I think they should move [the game], because it’s going to be a lot of Latin players in the All-Star Game,” Torrealba said.  “I guarantee you they want to take their families.  In my mind, I would be like, ‘I wonder if my family is all right here?’ That’s why they should move it; that way nobody has to worry about that stuff.”

The Presente.org, a political activist group, has initiated an internet campaign to move the game.  Sources have said that the group has already collected over 100,000 signatures through its webpage www.movethegame.org.

To view the full text of the ESPN article, visit:  http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5372305

04/26/2010:  Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky have joined the GOP effort to halt immigration reform.  Both senators made direct statements to the press, indicating that other issues should take priority and securing the border must precede any immigration reform.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, declared he will make passing a comprehensive immigration bill a priority once the Senate completes its work on a Wall Street reform bill.  Reid’s remarks were made after Obama called on both parties to pass immigration reform.  The president has rejected the new law in Arizona law, which makes it a crime of  illegal immigrants to not have an alien registration document and requires police to question individuals about their immigration status if there is cause to suspect they are not authorized to stay in the U.S. 

For a full version of the CNN article, go to:  http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/25/immigration.reform/index.html?eref=time_politics

Senators Charles E. Schumer and Lindsey O. Graham announced their immigration reform legislation includes provisions that would benefit certain skilled workers.  In an op-ed published in The Washington Post on March 19, 2010, they wrote:

Ensuring economic prosperity requires attracting the world’s best and brightest. Our legislation would award green cards to immigrants who receive a PhD or master’s degree in science, technology, engineering or math from a U.S. university.  It makes no sense to educate the world’s future inventors and entrepreneurs and then force them to leave when they are able to contribute to our economy.

See:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/17/AR2010031703115.html

03.12.2010:  Yesterday, President Obama met with Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Lindsey Graham to discuss their bipartisan plan for immigration reform.  The specifics of the proposal  have not been released.  However, Sen. Graham said that the plan includes enhanced border enforcement, a temporary worker program and a biometric Social Security Card.  He also indicated the proposal includes “a rational plan to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States.”

President Obama made the following statement:  ”Today I met with Sens. Schumer and Graham and was pleased to learn of their progress in forging a proposal to fix our broken immigration system. I look forward to reviewing their promising framework, and every American should applaud their efforts to reach across party lines and find common sense answers to one of our most vexing problems.”

o3.05.2010:  President Obama has placed the issue of immigration reform at the top of his agenda for next week.  On Monday, he will meet with two senators who have been working on a bill since last year, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina .  According to White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro, the President is ”looking forward to hearing more about their efforts toward producing a bipartisan bill.”

Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, an Associate Professor at UCLA, has published a compelling study entitled, “Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” The study applies economic models and equations to calculates the economic impact of legalizing unauthorized workers. According to the study, comprehensive immigration reform will contribute $1.5 trillion to the GDP over a 10 year period, generate billions of dollars in tax revenue and consumer spending and support hundreds of thousands of jobs. The study also considers the economic impact of a temporary worker program and mass deportation. It shows that a temporary worker program would generate $792 billion over ten years, which is half the economic impact of comprehensive immigration reform. On the flip side, mass deportation would cost the economy $2.6 trillion in lost, cumulative GDP over ten years.

To view the full version of the report, visit our “Useful Links.”