Category: Other Immigration

Here they come! Immigration lawyers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday’s Washington Post had a lengthy article about how the Immigration law field is booming and law schools are cranking out hordes of young idealistic lawyers, often former immigrants themselves, ready to help not only refugees and asylees but illegal immigrants as well.

A subject that three decades ago was a secondary, technical field delegated to adjunct professors is booming at law schools nationwide. Elective immigration law courses taught by tenured specialists are filling lecture halls, immigration clinics are expanding and student groups devoted to the subject are mushrooming.

The momentum is partly driven by a high-profile, rancorous immigration debate. But it is also the result of an era of mass immigration that has fueled demand from foreigners and businesses seeking help navigating U.S. immigration statutes and has created a generation of law students intimately familiar with the issue, often because they are children of immigrants or immigrants themselves.

Suit filed in Walkersville Ahmadiyya Muslim Mosque case

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This news is not totally unexpected, the property owners and their lawyer had hinted that a lawsuit might be brought against the rural town of Walkersville, MD when it had earlier ruled against a special exemption request that would have allowed a large Muslim complex to be built in the town.   For background see my post of June 10th and then follow links back for the full story.

From the AP today: 

WALKERSVILLE, Md. – Officials of a rural Maryland town illegally discriminated against a Muslim group by barring them from building a mosque and holding annual conventions on land zoned for farming, the property’s owner claimed in a federal lawsuit filed Monday.

The complaint was filed not by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA but by developer David Moxley and his father Robert, who had planned to sell the group 224 acres in Walkersville for about $6 million.

The Silver Spring-based religious group canceled the land purchase earlier this year after the town’s three-member Board of Zoning Appeals voted unanimously to reject their request for a special exception to land-use restrictions.

Officials of the town of 5,600 based their denial largely on open space preservation concerns and fears that the thousands of people attending the group’s annual, three-day Jalsa Salana national convention would overwhelm the community’s roads and emergency services. 

Think about this next section of the article and the implications of the law that is being used in this suit.  This means, I guess, that no town or jurisdiction could say no to a large or otherwise incompatible religious facility when considering its zoning decisions.  

The complaint alleges violations of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees free exercise of religion, and the 14th Amendment, which provides equal protection to all.

It alleges violations of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, enacted in 2000 to bar land-use regulations that would discriminate against a religious organization.

I spent years working in the property rights movement in this country and it was no secret that the federal government was seeking (spurred on by environmentalists) to control land use at a federal level and take it away from local governments.    But, here you have the tables turned on the environmentalists because local citizens who are concerned about the quality of their environment could have a large and potentially environmentally destructive facility shoved down their throats in the name of religious freedom.

Can you imagine what fun this case could be on a Supreme Court level.  Would liberal environmental groups side with local government (opposing the feds)  against immigrant groups wishing to build large religious facilities on open space?

By the way, I am not a lawyer, nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, so the above speculation is just that!

For more go to Citizens for Walkersville here.

Earth shattering news from the WaPo: African immigrants support Obama

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Somalis, Ethiopians and Kenyans,  many having entered the US as refugees which puts them on the fast track to citizenship, are organizing for Democratic candidate for President, Barack Obama.  Wow!  Can you believe it!  Here is what the Washington Post had to say:

From coast to coast, Somali, Ethiopian, Nigerian and Kenyan Americans are knocking on the doors of their fellow African immigrants, registering new citizens to vote, raising money and preaching Obama’s mantra of hope and change. They hope that his prominence will change their status as one of the nation’s least-recognized immigrant groups, and that he will one day provide aid to help ease the turmoil and poverty in countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

One Somali said Obama is like a son, one of them.

“Obama is one generation away from Africa,” said Eyow, who immigrated to the United States nearly 30 years ago. “I have nothing against my brothers and sisters, black people who were born here, but his father is like me. His father was an immigrant….”

Although Eyow says he has nothing against his black brothers who were born here, we have been chronicaling the tensions that are building in the black community partially resulting from the growing realization on the part of native-born black Americans that immigrants are taking their jobs (among other brewing conflicts).

The Post goes on to report that the Migration Policy Institute (in the right hand column you can check for the number of foreign born voters in your state) says the numbers of African immigrants aren’t high enough to swing the election, but organizers have figured out how to have influence in key states like Virginia.

Endale said that in the District, Ethiopians for Obama will not try to influence the national race between Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Instead, the group will target Ethiopian households in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

“There’s a possibility of getting 10,000 Ethiopians in Virginia,” Endale said. “That could be a game-changer.”

Is anyone checking to make sure they are all citizens and eligible to vote?

Excellent interview with Mark Krikorian at National Review Online

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Hat tip to John Ray at Immigration Watch International for bringing this interview with Mark Krikorian, head of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), to my attention.    As we have previously told you, Mr. Krikorian has a new book out entitled, “The New Case Against Immigration” in which he calls for a halt to legal and illegal mass immigration.   

I heard Mr. Krikorian speak in Annapolis in early June here and here.    I agree with just about every word this man has written in “The New Case…”,  but one thing.  He says immigrants have not changed, we have, our country has.   Maybe it’s just because I focus mostly on refugee issues, but I think immigrants have changed in that we are bringing to the US large numbers of refugees who are illiterate even in their own language and have absolutely no skills.

When we consider the waves of immigrants who came to America in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s from countries like Ireland, Italy, Sweden and Russia, we know that most of those came with at least a rudimentary education and very often a skill.  With no established government welfare system, they also had to work and assimilate otherwise they wouldn’t eat. 

The following are some portions of the interview that interested me, but be sure to read the whole interview.

Krikorian is asked why he thinks LEGAL immigration is a problem:

Lopez[NRO editor]: How can you possibly be against LEGAL immigration?

Krikorian: It’s a mistake to think of legal and illegal immigration as distinct phenomena. They come from the same places through the same means, often in the same families and even the same people (shifting back and forth between being legal and illegal), and have the same impact on society. Obviously, any effort to reform immigration policy has to start with enforcing the rules, because without that, it doesn’t really matter what the rules are. But in addition, you have to consider whether the rules themselves should be changed. And apart from the, admittedly grave, question of legal status, all the other problems caused by illegal immigration are also caused by legal immigration.

Krikorian addressed welfare:

Lopez: “Given that current immigration policy ensures that immigrants will be a fiscal burden, is there a way out?”

Krikorian: Once you let 19th century-style workers into a 21st century advanced society, taxpayers are guaranteed to bear the cost. And this is not because the immigrants are coming to rip us off, but because of the mismatch between them and us. If you have a sixth-grade education in an advanced society like ours, it doesn’t matter how hard you work or how many jobs you have — you will not be able to earn enough to support your family without welfare. This is why poverty and lack of health insurance and thus welfare use are so high among immigrants, especially among those from Latin America. That we could admit huge numbers of peasants without creating social costs was one of the animating ideas behind the 1996 welfare-reform bill, and it’s been proved wrong — about a third of immigrant-headed households overall still use at least one major welfare program, half-again higher than among the native-born. And among households headed by immigrants from Mexico, the largest group, fully half are on welfare. This isn’t their fault. It isn’t our fault. Bit it is an inescapable reality of modern life, and we need to adjust our immigration policy to reflect it.

His comments on the potential for terrorists to enter the country:

Lopez: Are green cards a terrorist’s dream come true?

Krikorian: Green cards, political asylum, refugee resettlement, the Visa Lottery, Border-Crossing Cards, student visas, work visas, the Visa-Waiver Program . . .

And, finally on compassion:

Lopez: Tell me why your arguments are much more compassionate than, say, Roger Cardinal Mahoney gives them (or you) credit for.

Krikorian: Compassionate toward whom? The goal of a nation’s public policy is to promote the interests of the nation’s citizens, and only secondarily consider the interests and concerns of outsiders. The objects of my compassion are, first, my family, then my wider community or associations, then my countrymen, and only then foreigners. The undifferentiated compassion of too many of the open-borders crowd — in which I regretfully include Cardinal Mahoney — effectively rejects patriotic solidarity among Americans, which is a prerequisite for democracy itself.

Brenda Walker at VDARE sends a few zingers on Refugee Resettlement

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to Paul for sending me to VDARE to read Brenda Walker’s article on the Bush Administration’s celebration of World Refugee Day last month.   Here is a sample of Walker’s no-holds-barred writing: 

The UN’s brief movie about the day suggests that we are surrounded by refugees and should do more to make them feel at home. Some of us would be more inclined to be generous if the displaced were to remain in their home countries, where their upkeep is also less costly. But then professional do-gooders of the Refugee Industry would have to relocate away from their comfy homes to scruffier Third World accommodation.

One of the very helpful things VDARE does is put into its articles loads of links so you can continue to edcucate yourself on the subject.   Note there are many links to the works of Thomas Allen who has an extensive archive on Refugee Resettlement at VDARE and is one of only a handful of people across the country  considered  an expert on the subject (other than those who make a living at it!).

VDARE itself has been a leader in publishing information on refugee resettlement for many years.   

I met Brenda (from CA) at an immigration meeting last year and she is an expert on environmental issues and how the environment is impacted by out-of-control immigration.   She is also passionate and knowledgeable about women’s issues, specifically female genital mutilation, as those issues relate to immigrants.

See Walker’s extensive archive at VDARE here.   If you are one of the readers of RRW who has expressed concern about the impact of immigration on the environment and asked why the big environmental groups are shunning the issue, you can find the answers in Brenda’s archived articles.