News You Can Use

New York City Mayor Bloomberg Calls Restrictive U.S. Immigration Policies National "Self Sabotage" and "Attempted Suicide."

New York City Mayor and one-time Presidential hopeful Michael R. Bloomberg called for a radical change of U.S. immigration policies during a commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania on May 19, 2008: "For America, the key to innovation boils down to one word. The key to innovation is immigration. Our nation's greatest historic strength is that we've always welcomed the best and brightest from every corner of the globe. And yet every year, Congress shuts the door to hundreds of thousands of doctors, scientists, engineers and artists from around the world who want to work here. It's the greatest case of national self-sabotage and attempted suicide I can imagine. If our country's future is going to be as great as our past, we have to start realizing that immigrants have always been - and always will be - one of our greatest economic and cultural assets."  You can hear the entire speech by going to http://www.upenn.edu/video/podcast/pvn/08bloomberg.mp3.

H-1B Visas Create Jobs For Americans

A study by National Foundation for American Policy has found that foreign-born professionals on H-1B visas are being hired to complement American workers, not displace them. "...for each H-1B visa requested by a corporation, its overall hires climbed by, on average, fivefold. In smaller companies, the group estimated seven new employees were hired for every H-1B application submitted. ...Sixty-five percent of the companies that participated in its survey said insufficient H-1Bs caused them to hire more people in subsidiaries outside the United States--or simply to outsource work to firms abroad." http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9888850-7.html?tag=nefd.top.

Naturalization Backlog Will Take Years to Eliminate Says USCIS Chief

It will take the federal government three years to clear a huge surge of citizenship applications filed last summer and return processing times to a six-month standard, according to Dr. Emilio T. Gonzalez, the director of the U.S. Citzienship and Immigration Services (USCIS) who testified yesterday, January 17, 2008, before a House Judiciary subcommittee. "Our two year response plan will help us accomplish reducing processing times to six months by the third quarter of Fiscal 2010" which ends June 30, 2011, Gonzalez said in his written testimony.  USCIS received 3 million applications for naturalization, green cards and other immigration benefits during the summer of 2007, compared with 1.8 million in 2006. Officials attributed the influx to immigrants seeking to apply before a well-publicized fee increase took effect July 30, 2007, concern over anti-immigrant sentiment in the country, and interest in voting in the 2008 elections.  As a result, USCIS announced it will take 18 months to process applications filed after June 1, 2007, up from about seven months.  Gonzalez also said that the agency has detailed 84 workers to regional service centers, and beefed up its contract staff. It has hired 274 of a projected 723 new adjudicators using new revenue from fee increases and identified 469 retired adjudicators that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has given USCIS permission to rehire.

DHS Issues New Driver's License Rules

The Department of Homeland Security released regulations on January 11, 2008 giving the states until 2014 to issue tamper-proof licenses to drivers born after 1964, and a nine-year extension until 2017 for drivers born before 1964.  The licenses will include a digital photograph and a filament or some other security device that counterfeiters can't reproduce, but not a radio-controlled computer chip.  States will be required to verify each applicant's personal information, including his or her legal status in the country, by comparing it against Federal Social Security and passport databases.

WSJ: Increase in Illegal Immigration Does Not Affect Crime Rates

In a New Year's Eve editorial, the Wall Street Journal noted that between 1994 and 2005, the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. is estimated to have doubled to around 12 million.  Yet, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, over that same period the violent crime rate dropped by 34.2% and the property crime rate declined 26.4%.  Crime has fallen in a number of major cities and border towns as well.  The Immmigration Policy Center in a recent study also noted that "Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repreatedly and consistently have found that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native born."  Immigrants from countries that comprise the bulk of our illegal alien population -- including Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans -- have lower incarceration rates than the native-born, according to the Immigration Policy Center.  Immigrants also do not consistently go on the U.S. and State welfare rolls.  According to the December 2007 issue of Commentary magazine, "Since the high-water mark in 1994, the national welfare caseload has declined by60%.  Virtually every state in the union has reduced its caseload by at least a third, and some have reductions of over 90%."   Immigrants also do not "consume" U.S. jobs, since the unemployment rate stands at a steady 4.7% and job growth continues apace.  "Immigrants aren't stealing jobs, but filling them", according to the WSJ (12/31/07, A12).