Widows of Americans Face Deportation

This week on CBS, 60 Minutes aired a special report titled “Loss of Love and Country”. The focus of the report was the pending deportation of foreign born spouses of U.S. Citizens that passed away before they were able to complete their applications for citizenship.

It was once an honored rule that a foreign born immigrant who marries a U.S. citizen was entitled to become a U.S. resident. That concept is is not as straight forward as it once was. The Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS), under the direction of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says that if an immigrant spouse doesn’t complete their application while the citizen spouse is alive, they cannot remain in the country.

Listening to the stories of the widows, it becomes apparent that it is often not possible for a spouse to complete an application while their wife or husband are still alive. And, though they may have been in the process already, many widows who have lost their spouse are still facing deportation.

Taking their case against before the courts, a group of widows being denied citizenship won. In fact, four courts ruled in favor of the widows, however, the Department of Homeland Security continues to appeal the cases at taxpayer expense.

Why CIS making this such an issue? They argue that although a foreign born spouse is eligible for citizenship, they don't consider a widow a spouse. They cite Black’s Law Dictionary, which defines spouse as "a married person”. However, as the 60 Minutes report points out, the court sided on behalf of the widows because same law dictionary defines a surviving spouse as "one who outlives the other".

The Department of Homeland Security refused a request for an interview from CBS News, leaving the public to speculate why these widowed spouses and their families are left in limbo.




For more details on the report, visit CBSNews.com

Read more »

E-Verify Deeply Flawed, Will Hurt Lawful U.S. Workers

That is what Senior Policy Analyst Michele Waslin of the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Law Foundation is saying in an article today. Waslin is responding to a new report about E-Verify from Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). She says the new report is “misleading” in stating that E-Verify is “99.5 percent accurate”.

Last Month, the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a report last showing CIS founder John Tanton and groups associated with it to be linked to openly racist organizations.

According to the Waslin, CIS has been trying to convince the public and Congress to “reauthorize and expand” the program so that it would be mandatory for all employers.

“This would mean that every single U.S. worker would have to get permission from the government to work - and the impact of a single error could be devastating.”

This, Waslin says, would “harm lawful U.S. workers”.

Waslin goes on to cite testimony from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that says it is misleading to make claims that E-Verify’s error rate is less than 1 percent.

“Richard Stana of the Government Accountability Office testified at a May 2008 Congressional hearing that it was "misleading" to claim that the E-Verify error rate is less than 1 percent. In fact, many of the tens of thousands of workers who receive final non-confirmations are actually work-authorized.”

The bottom line, the article says, “the accuracy rate of E-Verify is unacceptable - each error means that a U.S. citizen or legal U.S. worker could be denied employment and a paycheck because the government database contains an error” And that, “E-Verify is a problematic program that has harmful consequences for U.S. workers and employers.”

Resources:
Expanding Flawed E-Verify System Will Hurt Lawful Workers
The Tanton Files: FAIR Founder’s Racism Revealed

Read more »